89 Quotes Tagged: shame

"I also see courage in myself when I'm willing to risk being vulnerable and disappointed. For many years, if I really wanted something to happen-an invitation to speak at a special conference, a promotion, a radio interview-I pretended that it didn't matter that much. If a friend or colleague would ask, "Are you excited about that television interview?" I'd shrug it off and say, "I'm not sure. It's not that big of a deal." Of course, in reality, I was praying that it would happen.

It's only in the last few years that I've learned that playing down the exciting stuff doesn't' take the pain away when it doesn't happen. It also creates a lot of isolation. Once you've diminished the importance of something, your friends are not likely to call and say, "I'm sorry that didn't work out. I know you were excited about it."

Now when someone asks me about the potential opportunity that I'm excited about, I'm more likely to practice courage and say, "I'm so excited about the possibility. I'm trying to stay realistic, but I really hope it happens." When things haven't panned out, it's been comforting to be able to call a supportive friend and say, "Remember that event I told you about? It's not going to happen, and I'm so bummed.

Western culture is undergoing a process of transition from guilt-oriented, with a conscience, to shame-oriented, with a morbid fear of being found out.

Unsere Feigheit rettete uns, nicht unser Mut – der hätte uns vielleicht vernichtet. Selbst die Landesverräter, die wir erschossen, erschossen wir, um unseren Mut zu beweisen. Was sie verreiten, waren Lappalien, Offiziere waren sie ohnehin nicht, ein Exempel mußte statuiert werden, und die meisten exekutierte man zu einem Zeitpunkt, da der Beweis unseres Mutes nicht mehr nötig war; aber so hatten wir ihn doch irgendwie bewiesen. Unsere Landesverräter starben den einzigen Heldentod, den wir zu verzeichnen haben: Sie wagten den illegalen, nicht den geistigen Verrat – der war legal. Darum feiern wir nachträglich unser Heldentum und vergessen unsere Opfer, die Juden, die wir von unseren Grenzen wiesen, unter dem Vorwand, sie seien keine politischen Flüchtlinge. Sie kamen außerhalb unserer Grenzen um. Unsere sauberen Hände sind unsere Schande.

Soul, if you want to learn secrets,
your heart must forget about
shame and dignity.
You are God's lover,
yet you worry
what people
are saying.

I am not superior than anybody, don't say i am, else i won't defend you when you get caught.

have not some religions, including the most influential forms of Christianity, taught that the heart of man is totally corrupt? How could the course of religion in its entire sweep not be marked by practices that are shameful in their cruelty and lustfulness, and by beliefs that are degraded and intellectually incredible? What else than what we can find could be expected, in the case of people having little knowledge and no secure method of knowing; with primitive institutions, and with so little control of natural forces that they lived in a constant state of fear?

Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.

Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there’s been any fault at all to-day, it’s mine. You and me is not two figures to be together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and beknown, and understood among friends. It ain’t that I am proud, but that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these clothes. I’m wrong in these clothes. I’m wrong out of the forge, the kitchen, or off th’ meshes. You won’t find half so much fault in me if you think me in forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even my pipe. You won’t find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you should ever wish to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge window and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old burnt apron, sticking to the old work. I’m awful dull, but I hope I’ve beat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so God bless you, dear old Pip, old chap, God bless you!

Now since shame is a mental picture of disgrace, in which we shrink from the disgrace itself and not from its consequences, and we only care what opinion is held of us because of the people who form that opinion, it follows that the people before whom we feel shame are those whose opinion of us matters to us.

Sugar cane reach up to God
And every baby crying
Shame the blanket of my night
And all my days are dying

Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us.

Why is it a shame for me to cause
them to die and try to exterminate
them, tell me? You did not talk that
way when you used to come to my house
in Jeanne-d'Arc street. Ah! it is a
shame! You have not done as much,
with your cross of honor! I deserve
more merit than you, do you understand,
more than you, for I have killed more Prussians than you!

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.

From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few.