121 Thought-Provoking Guilt Quotes

In the intricate tapestry of human emotions, guilt holds a unique and often challenging place. It can be a catalyst for positive change, a lingering shadow that haunts us, or a complex mixture of both. These emotions, while potentially burdensome, can offer profound insights into our values, relationships, and personal growth. In this curated collection, we've gathered 121 thought-provoking quotes that explore the depths of guilt, each offering a unique perspective on its causes, impacts, and potential pathways to redemption. Whether you're seeking solace, understanding, or inspiration, these quotes promise to resonate with anyone navigating this universal yet deeply personal emotion.

1. “Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.” - Aldous Huxley

2. “My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.” - Franz Kafka

3. “The greater evil who is in-When both in wayward paths are straying? The poor sinner for the painOr he who pays for the sin?” - Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

4. “Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.” - Voltaire

5. “Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience. 'I feel really guilty about getting drunk last night,' we say, when in actual fact we feel no guilt whatsoever or, at least, we could choose to feel no guilt. When people say to me, 'I drank too much last night,' I always reply, 'I drank exactly the right amount.” - Tom Hodgkinson

6. “Unschuld ist kein Schutz.” - Thomas Fuller

7. “To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it.” - Tacitus

8. “And yet, sometimes facts are no more than pitiful consequences, because guilt does not reside in our acts but in the intentions that give rise to our act. Everything turns on our intentions.” - Sándor Márai

9. “Diana knew it wouldn't be right, but then she told herself that things only looked wrong when there was someone to see you.” - Anna Godbersen

10. “Tereza's mother never stopped reminding her that being a mother meant sacrificing everything. Her words had the ring of truth, backed as they were by the experience of a woman who had lost everything because of her child. Tereza would listen and believe that being a mother was the highest value in life and that being a mother was a great sacrifice. If a mother was Sacrifice personified, then a daughter was Guilt, with no possibility of redress.” - Milan Kundera

11. “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.” - David Mitchell

12. “The weekend break had begun with the usual resentment and had continued with half-repressed ill humour. It was, of course, his fault. He had been more ready to hurt his wife's feelings and deprive his daughter than inconvenience a pub bar full of strangers. He wished there could be one memory of his dead child which wasn't tainted with guilt and regret.” - P.D. James

13. “Okay.I will go.But only ifyou will give meyour guiltto takewith me.” - Lisa Schroeder

14. “Guilt—if there was any guilt—spread out and diffused itself over everybody and everything…. Perhaps at some point in time, at some spot in the world, a moment of responsibility existed.” - Philip K. Dick

15. “Or maybe, he thought, returning to the boxes, it was part of being Catholic--you were made to feel guilty about everything” - Elizabeth Strout

16. “Everyone in a decadent society, Lorrain urges, is guilty. Everyone loves masking murder and everyone takes masochistic pleasure in the risk of discovery and punishment.” - Jennifer Birkett

17. “The cases described in this section (The Fear of Being) may seem extreme, but I have become convinced that they are not as uncommon as one would think. Beneath the seemingly rational exterior of our lives is a fear of insanity. We dare not question the values by which we live or rebel against the roles we play for fear of putting our sanity into doubt. We are like the inmates of a mental institution who must accept its inhumanity and insensitivity as caring and knowledgeableness if they hope to be regarded as sane enough to leave. The question who is sane and who is crazy was the theme of the novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. The question, what is sanity? was clearly asked in the play Equus.The idea that much of what we do is insane and that if we want to be sane, we must let ourselves go crazy has been strongly advanced by R.D. Laing. In the preface to the Pelican edition of his book The Divided Self, Laing writes: "In the context of our present pervasive madness that we call normality, sanity, freedom, all of our frames of reference are ambiguous and equivocal." And in the same preface: "Thus I would wish to emphasize that our 'normal' 'adjusted' state is too often the abdication of ecstasy, the betrayal of our true potentialities; that many of us are only too successful in acquiring a false self to adapt to false realities."Wilhelm Reich had a somewhat similar view of present-day human behavior. Thus Reich says, "Homo normalis blocks off entirely the perception of basic orgonotic functioning by means of rigid armoring; in the schizophrenic, on the other hand, the armoring practically breaks down and thus the biosystem is flooded with deep experiences from the biophysical core with which it cannot cope." The "deep experiences" to which Reich refers are the pleasurable streaming sensations associated with intense excitation that is mainly sexual in nature. The schizophrenic cannot cope with these sensations because his body is too contracted to tolerate the charge. Unable to "block" the excitation or reduce it as a neurotic can, and unable to "stand" the charge, the schizophrenic is literally "driven crazy."But the neurotic does not escape so easily either. He avoids insanity by blocking the excitation, that is, by reducing it to a point where there is no danger of explosion, or bursting. In effect the neurotic undergoes a psychological castration. However, the potential for explosive release is still present in his body, although it is rigidly guarded as if it were a bomb. The neurotic is on guard against himself, terrified to let go of his defenses and allow his feelings free expression. Having become, as Reich calls him, "homo normalis," having bartered his freedom and ecstasy for the security of being "well adjusted," he sees the alternative as "crazy." And in a sense he is right. Without going "crazy," without becoming "mad," so mad that he could kill, it is impossible to give up the defenses that protect him in the same way that a mental institution protects its inmates from self-destruction and the destruction of others.” - Alexander Lowen

18. “The most effective weapon a parent has to control a child is the withdrawal of love or its threat. A young child between the ages of three and six is too dependent on parental love and approval to resist this pressure. Robert's mother, as we saw earlier, controlled him by "cutting him out." Margaret's mother beat her into submission, but it was the loss of her father's love that devastated her. Whatever the means parents use, the result is that the child is forced to give up his instinctual longing, to suppress his sexual desires for one parent and his hostility toward the other. In their place he will develop feelings of guilt about his sexuality and fear of authority figures. This surrender constitutes an acceptance of parental power and authority and a submission to the parents' values and demands. The child becomes "good", which means that he gives up his sexual orientation in favor of one directed toward achievement. Parental authority is introjected in the form of a superego, ensuring that the child will follow his parents' wishes in the acculturation process. In effect, the child now identifies with the threatening parent. Freud says, "The whole process, on the one hand, preserves the genital organ wards off the danger of losing it; on the other hand, it paralyzes it, takes its function away from it.” - Alexander Lowen

19. “There are many roles that people play and many images that they project. There is, for example, the "nice" man who is always smiling and agreeable. "Such a nice man," people say. "He never gets angry." The facade always covers its opposite expression. Inside, such a person is full of rage that he dares not acknowledge or show. Some men put up a tough exterior to hide a very sensitive, childlike quality. Even failure can be a role. Many masochistic characters engage in the game of failure to cover an inner feeling of superiority. An outward show of superiority could bring down on them the jealous wrath of the father and the threat of castration. As long as they act like failures they can retain some sexuality, since they are not a threat to her father.” - Alexander Lowen

20. “We are on strike, we, the men of the mind.We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one's happiness is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt.” - Ayn Rand

21. “When psychologists Catherine Caldwell-Harris and Ayse Ayçiçegi compared U.S. and Turkish samples, they found that having "an orientation inconsistent with societal values" is a risk factor for poor mental health. The findings support what the researchers call the personality-culture clash hypothesis: "Psychological adjustment depends on the degree of match between personality and the values of surrounding society." To the extent that introverts feel the need to explain, apologize, or feel guilty about what works best for them, they feel alienated not only from society but from themselves.” - Laurie Helgoe

22. “Tragische Schuld verkörpert sich im permanenten Konflikt zwischen der uralten religiösen Vorstellung von der Missetat als einer Beschmutzung, die einer ganzen Rasse anhaftet und unausweichlich von einer Generation auf die nächste vererbt wird [...], und dem neuen vom Gesetz übernommenen Konzept, nach dem der Schuldige definiert wird als Privatperson, die sich aus eigenem Antrieb und unter keinem Zwang stehend entschlossen hat, ein Verbrechen zu begehen.” - Jean-Pierre Vernant

23. “Guilty feelings about clothes are totally unnecessary. A lot of people earn their living by making clothes, so you should never feel bad.” - Karl Lagerfeld

24. “Guilt isn't always a rational thing, Clio realized. Guilt is a weight that will crush you whether you deserve it or not.” - Maureen Johnson

25. “There is no client as scary as an innocent man."J. Michael Haller, Criminal Defense Attorney, Los Angeles, 1962.” - Michael Connelly

26. “She looks at the swings, and I can see she’s imagining what they’d look like if the kids weren’t there. The guilt of this holds her down momentarily. It appears to be there constantly. Never far away, despite her love for them.I realize that nothing belongs to her anymore and she belongs to everything.” - Markus Zusak

27. “I have moments that aren't too bad, but there's always something I'm struggling with, or feeling guilty about. I just figured I needed to try harder, but I find it difficult to sustain that motivation.” - William P. Young

28. “At this point, I can no longer avoid setting out, in an initial, provisional statement, my own hypothesis about the origin of “bad conscience.” It is not easy to get people to attend to it, and it requires them to consider it at length, to guard it, and to sleep on it. I consider bad conscience the profound illness which human beings had to come down with, under the pressure of the most fundamental of all the changes which they experienced—that change when they finally found themselves locked within the confines of society and peace. Just like the things water animals must have gone though when they were forced either to become land animals or to die off, so events must have played themselves out with this half-beast so happily adapted to the wilderness, war, wandering around, adventure—suddenly all its instincts were devalued and “disengaged.”From this point on, these animals were to go on foot and “carry themselves”; whereas previously they had been supported by the water. A terrible heaviness weighed them down. In performing the simplest things they felt ungainly. In dealing with this new unknown world, they no longer had their old leader, the ruling unconscious drives which guided them safely. These unfortunate creatures were reduced to thinking, inferring, calculating, bringing together cause and effect, reduced to their “consciousness,” their most impoverished and error-prone organ! I believe that on earth there has never been such a feeling of misery, such a leaden discomfort—while at the same time those old instincts had not all at once stopped imposing their demands! Only it was difficult and seldom possible to do their bidding. For the most part, they had to find new and, as it were, underground satisfactions for them.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

29. “When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself.” - Anthony de Mello

30. “[T]his readiness to assume the guilt for the threats to our environment is deceptively reassuring: We like to be guilty since, if we are guilty, it all depends on us. We pull the strings of the catastrophe, so we can also save ourselves simply by changing our lives. What is really hard for us (at least in the West) to accept is that we are reduced to the role of a passive observer who sits and watches what our fate will be. To avoid this impotence, we engage in frantic, obsessive activities. We recycle old paper, we buy organic food, we install long-lasting light bulbs—whatever—just so we can be sure that we are doing something. We make our individual contribution like the soccer fan who supports his team in front of a TV screen at home, shouting and jumping from his seat, in the belief that this will somehow influence the game's outcome.” - Slavoj Žižek

31. “I would forget it fain,But oh, it presses to my memory,Like damnèd guilty deeds to sinners' minds.” - William Shakespeare

32. “The existence of guilty sense is soimportant in education and religion.” - Toba Beta

33. “Was it you or I who stumbled first? It does not matter. The one of us who finds the strength to get up first, must help the other.” - Vera Nazarian

34. “She raced for him, propelled by the strength of a thousand regrets.” - Lisi Harrison

35. “The law does not expect a man to be prepared to defend every act of his life which may be suddenly and without notice alleged against him.” - John Marshall

36. “Feel no guilt. Getting married and giving birth does not mean that you have sold your life away to perfectly healthy people who can get their own damn socks.” - Jennifer Crusie

37. “Ako nisam kriv, onda su pogriješili, zatvorili su nedužna čovjeka. Ako me puste, priznaće svoju grešku, a to nije ni lako ni korisno. Niko pametan ne može od njih tražiti da rade protiv sebe. Zahtjev bi bio nestvaran, i smiješan. Onda ja moram biti kriv. A kako da me puste ako sam kriv? Razumiješ li? Ne treba da budemo suviše nepravedni. Svako polazi sa svoga stanovišta i smatramo da je u redu kad tako mi činimo, ali kad to oni čine, onda nam smeta. Priznaćeš da je to nedosljedno.” - Meša Selimović

38. “But I have my life, I’m living it. It’s twisted, exhausting, uncertain, and full of guilt, but nonetheless, there’s something there.” - Banana Yoshimoto

39. “I can learn to live with guilt. I don't care about being good.” - Holly Black

40. “Maybe there's more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time.” - Veronica Roth

41. “His sins seemed to be so few that he was alarmed and groped anxiously for more, knowing he could not be without guilt.” - Morley Callaghan

42. “It seems that the Parisian Oulipo group has recently constructed a matrix of all possible murder-story situations and has found that there is still to be written a book in which the murderer is the reader.Moral: there exist obsessive ideas, they are never personal; books talk among themselves, and any true detection should prove that we are the guilty party.” - Umberto Eco

43. “I remember as a child of eight being told by a young friend that I had killed Christ. That was news to me. It's a common experience for the Jewish young. Should later generations of Germans be burdened with the guilt arising from the profound inhumanity of their ancestors? Revenge may be sweet, but guilt is non-transferable. Still, hatreds survive with the persistence of cockroaches.” - Sid Fleischman

44. “I refer to what is called mysterium iniquitatis, meaning, as I see it, that a crime in the final analysis remains inexplicable inasmuch as it cannot be fully traced back to biological, psychological and/or sociological factors. Totally explaining one’s crime would be tantamount to explaining away his or her guilt and to seeing in him or her not a free and responsible human being but a machine to be repaired. Even criminals themselves abhor this treatment and prefer to be held responsible for their deeds. From a convict serving his sentence in an Illinois penitentiary I received a letter in which he deplored that 'the criminal never has a chance to explain himself. He is offered a variety of excuses to choose from. Society is blamed and in many instances the blame is put on the victim.” - Viktor E. Frankl

45. “In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent.” - Criss Jami

46. “Feel what it's like to truly starve, and I guarantee that you'll forever think twice before wasting food.” - Criss Jami

47. “[T]hose who willed the means and wished the ends are not absolved from guilt by the refusal of reality to match their schemes.” - Christopher Hitchens

48. “What man ever openly apologizes for slander? It is not so much a feeling of slander as it is that of a massive lie, a misdeed not only to the slandered but also to those manipulated in the process. He has made them all, every one, his enemies, thereupon he is so overwhelmed with guilt that he will deny it until his grave.” - Criss Jami

49. “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” - Max Lucado

50. “It's funny how guilty people start to question your spirituality and education only because they have nothing to say that will justify their faults.” - J.B. Albano

51. “I wish I could say I felt guilty for what I did. I don't.” - Veronica Roth

52. “We gather our arms full of guilt as though it were precious stuff. It must be that we want it that way.” - John Steinbeck

53. “Takamasa Saegusa: 'Seigen, a mere member of the Toudouza, had the effrontery to sully the sacred dueling ground. For that reason, our lord had already decided to subject him to tu-uchi before long. Cut off his head immediately, and stick it on a pike!'Gennosuke could hardly believe his ears. Such an insult to Irako Seigen was unwarranted. It was pride. For Gennosuke, Irako Seigen was pride itself.Takamasa Saegusa: 'Fujiki Gennosuke! It is the way of the samurai to take the head of the defeated enemy on the battleground. Do not hesitate! If you are a samurai, you must carry out the duty of a samurai!'Samurai...Saegusa, Lord of Izu, continued shouting, but Gennosuke did not attend. That word 'samurai' alone reverberated through his body.If one aims at the juncture between the base of the skull and the spine, decapitation is not that difficult, but Gennosuke could muster no more strength than a baby. He grew pale and trembled with the strain. He could only hack with his sword as if he were sawing wood. He felt nauseated, as if his own cells one after another were being annihilated. But this...Lord Tokugawa Tadanaga: 'I approve.'Takamasa Saegusa: 'Fujiki Gennosuke, for this splendid action you have received words of thanks from our lord. As a sign of his exceptional approval, you shall be given employment at Sunpu Castle. This great debt will by no means be forgotten. From this day forward you must offer your life to our lord!'Prostrating himself, Gennosuke vomited.” - Takayuki Yamaguchi

54. “Guilt is a destructive and ultimately pointless emotion” - Lynn Crilly

55. “Religion, with its metaphysical error of absolute guilt, dominated the broadest, the cosmic realm. From there, it infiltrated the subordinate realms of biological, social and moral existence with its errors of the absolute and inherited guilt. Humanity, split up into millions of factions, groups, nations and states, lacerated itself with mutual accusations. "The Greeks are to blame," the Romans said, and "The Romans are to blame," the Greeks said. So they warred against one another. "The ancient Jewish priests are to blame," the early Christians shouted. "The Christians have preached the wrong Messiah," the Jews shouted and crucified the harmless Jesus. "The Muslims and Turks and Huns are guilty," the crusaders screamed. "The witches and heretics are to blame," the later Christians howled for centuries, murdering, hanging, torturing and burning heretics. It remains to investigate the sources from which the Jesus legend derives its grandeur, emotional power and perseverance.Let us continue to stay outside this St. Vitus dance. The longer we look around, the crazier it seems. Hundreds of minor patriarchs, self-proclaimed kings and princes, accused one another of this or that sin and made war, scorched the land, brought famine and epidemics to the populations. Later, this became known as "history." And the historians did not doubt the rationality of this history.Gradually the common people appeared on the scene. "The Queen is to blame," the people's representatives shouted, and beheaded the Queen. Howling, the populace danced around the guillotine. From the ranks of the people arose Napoleon. "The Austrians, the Prussians, the Russians are to blame," it was now said. "Napoleon is to blame," came the reply. "The machines are to blame!" the weavers screamed, and "The lumpenproletariat is to blame," sounded back. "The Monarchy is to blame, long live the Constitution!" the burgers shouted. "The middle classes and the Constitution are to blame; wipe them out; long live the Dictatorship of the Proletariat," the proletarian dictators shout, and "The Russians are to blame," is hurled back. "Germany is to blame," the Japanese and the Italians shouted in 1915. "England is to blame," the fathers of the proletarians shouted in 1939. And "Germany is to blame," the self-same fathers shouted in 1942. "Italy, Germany and Japan are to blame," it was said in 1940.It is only by keeping strictly outside this inferno that one can be amazed that the human animal continues to shriek "Guilty!" without doubting its own sanity, without even once asking about the origin of this guilt. Such mass psychoses have an origin and a function. Only human beings who are forced to hide something catastrophic are capable of erring so consistently and punishing so relentlessly any attempt at clarifying such errors.” - Wilhelm Reich

56. “A part of me was hoping someone would wake up and hear, so I wouldn't have to live with this lie anymore. But no one woke up and in the silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it.” - Khaled Hosseini

57. “Odakle dolazi dojam da je Crkva lakše izlazila na kraj s krivcima-počiniteljima negoli s nedužnim žrtvama? Nije li naša kristologija toliko pretjerano determinirana soteriološki da više niti ne dopušta teodicejsko pitanje (na koje se niti može dati odgovor niti ga se može zaboraviti)?” - Johann Baptist Metz

58. “When silence greeted her question, she looked at Caine—for that was how he saw himself in that moment and in all the moments after: his brother’s murderer.” - V.S. Carnes

59. “Sometimes I just want to paint the words "It's my fault" across my forehead to save people the time of being pissed off at me.” - Christina Westover

60. “There is a noticeable element of the pathological in some current leftist critiques, which I tend to attribute to feelings of guilt allied to feelings of impotence. Not an attractive combination, because it results in self-hatred.” - Christopher Hitchens

61. “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?” - Neal Shusterman

62. “Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.” - Oliver Goldsmith

63. “I'm not interested in anybody's guilt. Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I know you didn't do it, and I didn't do it either, but I am responsible for it because I am a man and a citizen of this country and you are responsible for it, too, for the very same reason... Anyone who is trying to be conscious must begin to dismiss the vocabulary which we've used so long to cover it up, to lie about the way things are.” - James Baldwin

64. “Grief is not as heavy as guilt, but it takes more away from you.” - Veronica Roth

65. “Nothing cuts the nerve of the desire to pursue holiness as much as a sense of guilt. On the contrary, nothing so motivates us to deal with sin in our lives as does the understanding and application of the two truth that our sins are forgiven and the dominion of sin is broken because of our union with Christ.” - Jerry Bridges

66. “That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either.” - Marilynne Robinson

67. “It is strange the way that someone who wants to find you guilty can start to make you believe in your own guilt, even when you know you are innocent. I was afraid I would condemn myself my mistake.” - S.J. Parris

68. “I won't cry. When the guilt is this heavy, you can't. It just settles and stays with you, and it's cold.” - Bethany Griffin

69. “No one blames her.""That never matters," said Alec. "Not when you blame yourself.” - Cassandra Clare

70. “When I take a break, even just a brief one, the creative energy flows in. Only then do I have anything of value to share with others. Once I recognized this, I stopped feeling guilty about taking time for myself.” - Holly Mosier

71. “He could deal with his guilt all by himself. Guilt didn't add up to love, an emotion she was done with forever.” - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

72. “This guilt is a joke, and it’s exhausting to watch you martyr yourself.” - Ann Aguirre

73. “There is no need for me to curse you -the murderer survives the victim only to learn that it was himself that he longed to be rid of. Hatred is self-hatred.” - Thornton Wilder

74. “The wicked fear the good, because the good are a constant reproach to their consciences. The ungodly like religion in the same way that they like lions, either dead or behind bars; they fear religion when it breaks loose and begins to challenge their consciences.” - Fulton J. Sheen

75. “I remember that life in that room seemed to be occurring beneath the sea, time flowed past indifferently above us, hours and days had no meaning. In the beginning our life held a joy and amazement which was newborn every day. Beneath the joy, of course, was anguish and beneath the amazement was fear; but they did not work themselves to the beginning until our high beginning was aloes on our tongues. By then anguish and fear had become the surface on which we slipped and slid, losing balance, dignity, and pride.” - James Baldwin

76. “The thought burrowed into her heart as darkness fell. It coiled in her guts as she wedged herself amongst the boughs of a tree to sleep. And in the morning, it woke with her and clung to her back, riding on her shoulders as she climbed down, hungry and exhausted from nightmares.” - Paolo Bacigalupi

77. “One of the more gratifying things about guilt is that it makes us feel important.” - Susan Beth Pfeffer

78. “I'm on a diet I plan to lose Guilt, Fear, Sin, and Doubt then I'll be confident enough to walk about.” - Stanley Victor Paskavich

79. “The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed in two ways: by a change of life or by a change of conscience.” - Leo Tolstoy

80. “A love that left people alone in their guilt would not have real people as its object. So, in vicarious responsibility for people, and in His love for real human beings, Jesus becomes the one burdened by guilt.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

81. “Death was silence, loss, guilt. And anger. But life led that way, anyway. From birth, it was a slow, long march to the grave. Who said that? She couldn’t remember now. But it was true. They were born dying. If they were very lucky, the dying was called aging. They reached toward if as if they were satellites in unstable orbits. And then when they got there, they were just dead. One moment in time separated the living from the ghosts.” - Michelle Sagara West

82. “Tolstoy said, 'The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed either by a change of life or by a change of conscience.' Many of us have elected to adjust our consciences rather than our lives. Our powers of rationalization are unlimited. They allow us to live in luxury and indifference while others, whom we could help if we chose to, starve and go to hell.” - Randy Alcorn

83. “Sie wird gebraucht, unsere Schuld, sie rechtfertigt viel im Leben anderer.” - Max Frisch

84. “He wished he could relieve himself of his doubts and guilts half as easily.” - George R.R. Martin

85. “Experience had taught me that innocence seldom utters outraged shrikes. Guilt does. Innocence is a mighty shield, and the man or woman covered by it, is much more likely to answer calmly: 'My life is blameless. Look into it, if you like, for you will find nothing.' That is the tone of innocence.” - Whittaker Chambers

86. “Guilt was a fascinating thing: it seemed not to weaken over time. If anything it grew stronger as the circumstances faded from memory, as the fear and the necessity became abstract. And only her own actions stood out with crystal clarity.” - Michael Grant

87. “I would only blame myself if something happened to you.” - Shannon A Thompson

88. “God never estimates what we give from impulse. We are given credit for what we determine in our hearts to give; for the giving that is governed by a fixed determination. The Spirit of God revolutionises our philanthropic instincts. Much of our philanthropy is simply the impulse to save ourselves an uncomfortable feeling. The Spirit of God alters all that. As saints our attitude towards giving is that we give for Jesus Christ’s sake, and from no other motive. ” - Oswald Chambers

89. “That's all my grandfather was guilty of, fear, faith in his words, but that was a high crime in her eyes. That's all Jack was guilty of that day, but I've lived with him a good while and I believe I understand him. Sometimes it might take an afternoon or evening of being here in this kitchen alone, thinking, but I can usually come to see his reasons through his ways. And half the job of finding peace is finding understanding. Don't you believe it to be so?” - Kaye Gibbons

90. “Outside it was dark, but not as dark as it was inside of me.” - Anna N.

91. “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.” - Cora Carmack

92. “No one tape her deepest gifts through shame, guilt or anger. In fact, if you come from obligation, others smell the sadness in your blood and they will run the other way,” - Tama Kieves

93. “You have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were to blame for what is far beyond the scope of your responsibility.” - Philip Roth

94. “Archer tries not to think of his own state of purity, physically unsullied, yet now spiritually beyond redemption, his thoughts plagued by lithe limbs and brilliant blue eyes. Doctor Archer has never really understood women, nor has he ever had time for courtship; this is a sacrifice he has willingly made for his career. He thought - believed - for most of his adult life that his vocation was to tend the sick of mind. Romance was a frivolity, carnal urges something he successfully sublimated, resisting the drive to spoil himself. Now, in the overbearing loneliness of his 4am bed he touches himself in secret, panting and hungry and stunned by shame” - John T. Fuller

95. “You know this is wrong."It isn't a question. When he turns, White is still wrapped snug in the counterpane, motionless, just his gaze pursuing the doctor about the room. "I am wrong to do this." The doctor says it as if instructing himself. White says nothing. With a sigh, Archer sits on the edge of the bed, smoothing White's curls back from his forehead. "Do you know what we did last night?" To admit it, to speak out loud, seems in itself a terrible affront. It might be his imagination, but the doctor fancies he sees a slight lowering of black lashes, the tiniest quirk of a shy smile. He says, wearily but not without affection, "No, I don't suppose you do.” - John T. Fuller

96. “You see, sex for Jews is not such a terrible sin. It's just one more physical sport we're gonna stink at.” - Jaffe Cohen

97. “...one half leaning in, one half pulling away.” - Jodi Picoult

98. “Damn, she was getting so tangled up by guilt and desire. ~Nikki in Texas Tangle” - Leah Braemel

99. “There has been no single influence which has done more to prevent man from finding God and rebuilding his character, has done more to lower the moral tone of society than the denial of personal guilt. This repudiation of man’s personal responsibility for his action is falsely justified in two ways: by assuming that man is only an animal and by giving a sense of guilt the tag “morbid.” - Fulton J. Sheen

100. “Relationship is thus always slavery of a kind, which leaves a residue of guilt.” - Ernest Becker

101. “The Christian soul knows it needs Divine Help and therefore turns to Him Who loved us even while we were yet sinners. Examination of conscience, instead of inducing morbidity, thereby becomes an occasion of joy. There are two ways of knowing how good and loving God is. One is by never losing Him, through the preservation of innocence, and the other is by finding Him after one has lost Him. Repentance is not self-regarding, but God-regarding. It is not self-loathing, but God-loving. Christianity bids us accept ourselves as we really are, with all our faults and our failings and our sins. In all other religions, one has to be good to come to God—in Christianity one does not. Christianity might be described as a “come as you are” party. It bids us stop worrying about ourselves, stop concentrating on our faults and our failings, and thrust them upon the Saviour with a firm resolve of amendment. The examination of conscience never induces despair, always hope…Because examination of conscience is done in the light of God’s love, it begins with a prayer to the Holy Spirit to illumine our minds. A soul then acts toward the Spirit of God as toward a watchmaker who will fix our watch. We put a watch in his hands because we know he will not force it, and we put our souls in God’s hands because we know that if he inspects them regularly they will work as they should…it is true that, the closer we get to God, the more we see our defects. A painting reveals few defects under candlelight, but the sunlight may reveal it as daub. The very good never believe themselves very good, because they are judging themselves by the Ideal. In perfect innocence each soul, like the Apostles at the Last Supper, cries out, “Is it I, Lord” (Matt. 26:22).” - Fulton J. Sheen

102. “Those who deny guilt and sin are like the Pharisees of old who thought our Saviour had a “guilt complex” because He accused them of being whited sepulchers—outside clean, inside full of dead men’s bones. Those who admit that they are guilty are like the public sinners and the publicans of whom Our Lord said, “Amen, I say to you, that the publicans and the harlots shall go into the Kingdom of God before you” (Matt. 21:31). Those who think they are healthy but have a hidden moral cancer are incurable; the sick who want to be healed have a chance. All denial of guilt keeps people out of the area of love and, by inducing self-righteousness, prevents a cure. The two facts of healing in the physical order are these: A physician cannot heal us unless we put ourselves into his hands, and we will not put ourselves into his hands unless we know that we are sick. In like manner, a sinner’s awareness of sin is one requisite for his recovery; the other is his longing for God. When we long for God, we do so not as sinners, but as lovers.” - Fulton J. Sheen

103. “Colour outside the lines, live outside the box. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do, or not. Don’t be afraid, listen to your heart. Heaven is a state of being – of one-ness, and Hell is a state of being – lost. We simply need to live as we best define ourselves, find our own ways of being who we are in our world. There is no requirement - only freedom of choice. We should not be judged if we are doing what we think best according to our perceptions at any given time. Guilt should be discarded, moved beyond - what matters is who we choose to be in the next moment, given what we might have learned. We continually create ourselves anew. Forgiving someone is a great way to show love, and forgive yourself too for the hurt you held onto far too long. Take back the energy you have wasted on these things and reclaim your power to be your next best self. Honour the past but refresh, expand, renew, fulfill. Heaven is within us, always reachable.” - jay woodman

104. “Only afterward did the guilt set in--the guilt that for a few minutes he let himself stop feeling guilty.” - Tiffany Reisz

105. “When it comes to the crunch, coming out is the greatest of all confessions. Nothing is more difficult to acknowledge. When we become ourselves we reach right back to the time when we were conceived out of our parents’ passion. We murder their lives. There can never be any forgiveness.” - Witi Ihimaera

106. “She went to the window seat and sat there, sniffling, hating them all, and herself most of all. It was all her fault, everything bad that had happened.” - George R.R. Martin

107. “The hardest thing about depression is that it is addictive. It begins to feel uncomfortable not to be depressed. You feel guilty for feeling happy.” - Pete Wentz

108. “Many deeply hidden memories have come flooding back. The important message here though is that it is possible to heal and survive. Everyone has survived their own kind of emotional or mental trauma. We all have our inner fears and misreplaced feelings of guilt.” - Lynette Gould

109. “Coming to terms with incest is not easy. Learning to be a survivor, not a victim, gives new meaning to life” - Lynette Gould

110. “We emerge into the light not by denying our pain, but by walking through it.” - Joan Borysenko PH.D

111. “Sou eu o culpado, mas não tenho culpa.” - Tolstoi Liev

112. “Never be afraid when God brings back your past. Let your memory have its way with you. It is a minister of God bringing its rebuke and sorrow to you.” - Oswald Chambers

113. “God does not regret saving you. There is no sin which you commit which is beyond the cross of Christ.” - Matt Chandler

114. “You give frequent flyer miles with that guilt trip?” - Cecily White

115. “The passive righteousness of faith frees me from passing final judgment on myself.” - Tullian Tchividjian

116. “Self redemption is the first step to exoneration from guilt.” - Dennis E. Adonis

117. “WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES when we go against our instincts? What are the consequences of not speaking out? What are the consequences of guilt, shame, and doubt?” - Terry Tempest Williams

118. “Guilt is intense. Suffocating. A brick, tied quietly around your ankles while you sleep. You never fall slowly into guilt-you wake up with little time to take your last breath before being pulled under.” - Andrea Randall

119. “But, the thing about guilt is, no one can take away for you; you have to unpack it yourself.” - Andrea Randall

120. “It dances on the air for a moment before it falls, too. A fresh gust of wind almost saves it, but a worker catches sight of it and lifts a tube up to suck the paper from the air, to suck the words from the sky.I'm sorry, Grandfather.” - Ally Condie

121. “I knew nothing of death, and, for some unexplainable reason, I was beginning to feel guilty for that. -Jessica” - Shannon A Thompson