All Quotes By Tag: Guilt

“Because honor still matters. Honor is what echoes.” His father’s words. But they are as empty on his lips as they feel in my ears. This was has taken everything from him. I see in his eyes how broken he is. how terribly hard he is trying to be his father’s son. If he could, he would choose to be back by the campfire we made in the highlands of the Institute. He would return to the days of glory when life was simple, when friends seemed true. But wishing for the past doesn’t clean the blood from either of our hands.”

“If seeing her an hour before her lastWeak cough into all blackness I could yetBe held by chalk-white walls- The Consumptive. Belsen 1945”

“He didn’t deserve compassion. Sympathy. Not even understanding. He deserved worse, far worse than he had ever been given.”

“A sin confessed, a guilt cleared by grace.”

“On PleasurePleasure is a freedom-song,But it is not freedom.It is the blossoming of your desires,But it is not their fruit.It is a depth calling unto a height,But it is not the deep nor the high.It is the caged taking wing,But it is not space encompassed.Aye, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song.And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judgedand rebuked.I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek.For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone;Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful thanpleasure.Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for rootsand found a treasure?And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongscommitted in drunkenness.But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement.They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they wouldthe harvest of a summer.Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted.And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor oldto remember;And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures,lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it.But even in their foregoing is their pleasure.And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quiveringhands.But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit?Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly thestars?And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind?Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff?Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire inthe recesses of your being.Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow?Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will notbe deceived.And your body is the harp of your soul,And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.And now you ask in your heart, “How shall we distinguish that whichis good in pleasure from that which is not good?”Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is thepleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasureis a need and an ecstasy.”

“A guilty suffering spirit is more open to grace than an apathetic or smug soul.’ – Bread & Wine (day 5)”

“When I touched that boy, I felt something. Something awful. Something I can’t describe.”“We all felt it,” Nick said.“You may have felt it, but I caused it.” Then both his eyes seemed to go far away. “Something changed out there. I don’t know what it was, but something in the world changed because that kid didn’t deserve what I did to him—and the powers that be know that I did it.” Nick watched as a tear fell from his Everlost eye and disappeared through the living world table.“What if,” said Nick, not even sure what he was going to say yet, “what if you were that kid and you were told you could change the world, but you would have to sacrifice yourself to do it?”Clarence chuckled at the thought. “I believe that question was already asked a long time ago, and that creepy kid did not look anything like Jesus to me.”“But you do think that something changed. . . .”“I don’t know whether it’s good or bad.”“What if it’s neither?” suggested Nick. “What if we get to make it one or the other?”

“For those constantly full of joy, they sometimes feel a little guilty for always feeling so good. That guilt is compassion: it flies in with an attempt to share one’s joy with others who do not have it.”

“When all this is over, people will try to blame the Germans alone, and the Germans will try to blame the Nazis alone, and the Nazis will try to blame Hitler alone. They will make him bear the sins of the world. But it’s not true. You suspected what was happening, and so did I. It was already too late over a year ago. I caused a reporter to lose his job because you told me to. He was deported. The day I did that I made my little contribution to civilization, the only one that matters.”

“Killers aren’t always assassins. Sometimes, they don’t even have blood on their hands.”

“When he says we’re forgiven, let’s unload the guilt. When he says we’re valuable, let’s believe him. . . . When he says we’re provided for, let’s stop worrying. God’s efforts are strongest when our efforts are useless”

“No one needed to say it, but the room overflowed with that sort of blessing. The combination of loss and abundance. The abundance that has no guilt. The loss that has no fix. The simple tiredness that is not weary. The hope not built on blindness.”

“Phaedra keeps saying she’s being selfish. That she hates herself for it, but she does it anyway. She can’t deny herself what she wants, even if it brings about her downfall and his.” “And have you learned anything from our literary parallel?” “Not really, I keep thinking that she would do it all over again if there were a chance…a chance that it could go right. Even if 99 times out of a 100 the story ends badly, it’s worth it if only once she gets a happy ending.”

“True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute.”

“People pontificate, “Suicide is selfishness.” Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call in a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reason: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one’s audience with one’s mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it – suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what’s selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.”