45 Inspiring Forgiveness Quotes

In a world where misunderstandings and conflicts are inevitable, forgiving can often feel like a monumental task. Yet, it is a powerful and transformative act that holds the potential to heal and liberate. Embracing forgiveness does not mean condoning the wrongs or forgetting the hurt; rather, it is about releasing the emotional burdens that weigh us down. To inspire you on this path, we have curated a collection of the top 45 forgiveness quotes that capture the essence of this profound journey. Let these words offer you comfort, wisdom, and the courage to take a step toward inner peace and harmony.

1. “ The Paradoxical Commandments People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.Love them anyway.If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.Do good anyway.If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.Succeed anyway.The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.Do good anyway.Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.Be honest and frank anyway.The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.Think big anyway.People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.Fight for a few underdogs anyway.What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.Build anyway.People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.Help people anyway.Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.Give the world the best you have anyway.” - Kent M. Keith

2. “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” - Mahatma Gandhi

3. “With time and perspective we recognize that such problems in life do come for a purpose, if only to allow the one who faces such despair to be convinced that he really does need divine strength beyond himself, that she really does need the offer of heaven’s hand. Those who feel no need for mercy usually never seek it and almost never bestow it. Those who have never had a heartache or a weakness or felt lonely or forsaken never have had to cry unto heaven for relief of such personal pain. Surely it is better to find the goodness of God and the grace of Christ, even at the price of despair, than to risk living our lives in a moral or material complacency that has never felt any need for faith or forgiveness, any need for redemption or relief.” - Jeffery R. Holland

4. “One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.” - Rita Mae Brown

5. “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.” - Anne Lamott

6. “Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.” - Robert Jordan

7. “But we can't go back. We can only go forward.” - Libba Bray

8. “True forgiveness is when you can say, "Thank you for that experience.” - Oprah Winfrey

9. “Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last 'trick', whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school.'But how?' we ask.Then the voice says, 'They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'There they are. There *we* are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to faith. My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.” - Brennan Manning

10. “They's a heap more to God's will than death, disapoint-ment, and like thet. Hit's God's will for us to be good and do good, love one another, be forgivin'..." He laughed. "I reckon I ain't very forgivin', son. I can forgive a fool, but I ain't inner-rested in coddlin' hypocrites. Well anyhow, folks who think God's will jest has to do with sufferin' and dyin', they done missed the whole point.” - Olive Ann Burns

11. “The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” - Steve Maraboli

12. “A Short TestamentWhatever harm I may have doneIn all my life in all your wide creationIf I cannot repair itI beg you to repair it,And then there are all the wounded The poor the deaf the lonely and the oldWhom I have roughly dismissedAs if I were not one of them.Where I have wronged them by itAnd cannot make amendsI ask youTo comfort them to overflowing,And where there are lives I may have withered around me,Or lives of strangers far or nearThat I've destroyed in blind complicity,And if I cannot find themOr have no way to serve them,Remember them. I beg you to remember themWhen winter is overAnd all your unimaginable promisesBurst into song on death's bare branches.” - Anne Porter

13. “Forgiveness means letting go of the past.” - Gerald Jampolsky

14. “Sometimes what a person needs most is to be forgiven.” - Jennifer McMahon

15. “A mistake made with good in your heart is still a mistake, but it is one for which you must forgive yourself.” - Linda Sue Park

16. “Anger is like flowing water; there's nothing wrong with it as long as you let it flow. Hate is like stagnant water; anger that you denied yourself the freedom to feel, the freedom to flow; water that you gathered in one place and left to forget. Stagnant water becomes dirty, stinky, disease-ridden, poisonous, deadly; that is your hate. On flowing water travels little paper boats; paper boats of forgiveness. Allow yourself to feel anger, allow your waters to flow, along with all the paper boats of forgiveness. Be human.” - C. JoyBell C.

17. “Since I’ve been home I’ve been trying hard to mend my relationship with my mother. Asking her to do things for me instead of brushing aside any offer of help, as I did for years out of anger. Letting her handle all the money I won. Returning her hugs instead of tolerating them. My time in the arena made me realize how I needed to stop punishing her for something she couldn’t help, specifically the crushing depression she fell into after my father’s death. Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.” - Suzanne Collins

18. “I know that many, if not most, women would have a problem with my acceptance of what happened with Lara. The reality is I shall always be grateful to Lara for helping my husband when I could not do so. I couldn’t have chosen a better or kinder surrogate.” - Deirdre-Elizabeth Parker

19. “I have spent my whole life preparing to be William Wallace’s wife. The choices I make are defined by the person I am.“I am Mrs. William Victor Wallace. I am married to a federal felon whom I love unconditionally.I hold my head high, I take pride in my life and I walk this world without regret.I will be the perfect wife and my husband deserves nothing less.” - Deirdre-Elizabeth Parker

20. “The terror of being judged sharpens the memory: it sends an inevitable glare over that long-unvisited past which has been habitually recalled only in general phrases. Even without memory, the life is bound into one by a zone of dependence in growth and decay; but intense memory forces a man to own his blameworthy past. With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man’s past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present: it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavors and the tinglings of a merited shame.” - George Eliot

21. “Take a walk through the garden of forgiveness and pick a flower of forgiveness for everything you have ever done. When you get to that time that is now, make a full and total forgiveness of your entire life and smile at the bouquet in your hands because it truly is beautiful.” - Stephen Richards

22. “Because he has never forgiven himself any fault, he can forgive no one else's.” - Linda Berdoll

23. “As I helped him up, I felt him shake all over, so I asked him to forgive me, without knowing what for, but that was my lot, asking forgiveness, I even asked forgiveness of myself for being what I was, what it was my nature to be.” - Bohumil Hrabal

24. “We are preaching hope, standing on the bones of the past.” - John Rucyahana

25. “If you or I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world.” - Deepak Chopra

26. “He forgives without any strings attached.” - Jestoni Revealed

27. “When you walk on the face of a world, then forgiveness comes.” - Orson Scott Card

28. “There is no such thing as a "broken family." Family is family, and is not determined by marriage certificates, divorce papers, and adoption documents. Families are made in the heart. The only time family becomes null is when those ties in the heart are cut. If you cut those ties, those people are not your family. If you make those ties, those people are your family. And if you hate those ties, those people will still be your family because whatever you hate will always be with you.” - C. JoyBell C.

29. “Humanity must forgive 'Humanity', for only then can we be Humane.” - Ilyas Kassam

30. “I have met people who truly do not believe in God, and they feel no anger when they see suffering. They are indifferent to it. But you and I are angry. Anger is not indifference. I blamed God because He took my family. But I couldn’t get revenge from God, so I turned my rage against other people. I wanted revenge. Someone must pay.”“You’re wrong.” Helen said, wanting desperately to believe that he was. “I told you, I no longer believe in God.”“Then why are you so angry with Him?” His eyes were so sorrowful that Helen had to look away. She was unable to reply. “You blame me and my country for your losses Miss Kimball. And I blame you and your country. But you and I are people, not countries. Did you kill my wife? My child? Would you put a gun to their heads and shoot them, or take away all of their food and watch them die? No, of course not. Neither would I kill someone you loved if I met him face to face. Wars come from bitterness and hatred. They are started by nations without face. But wars end when the hatred ends in the hearts of people like you and me. That is why I ask you to please forgive me.” - Lynn Austin

31. “No matter how long you behest, to the fruit draped tree. It will do you no best, until a shingle you free.” - Shahzad Ashraf

32. “I'm Sorry,' he says. It's simple and direct, with none of the nonsense about God calling home an angel too young and who are we to question his mysterious ways.” - Libba Bray

33. “Loss of social standing is an ever-present threat for individuals whose social acceptance is based on behavioral traits rather than unconditional human value.” - Melissa V. Harris-Perry

34. “Forgiving was the hardest thing. Sometimes forgiving was the hardest thing in the whole world.” - Sergei Lukyanenko

35. “I want to undo this. To make it right. But I have no idea how. I don't seem to know how to open up to people without getting the door slammed in my face. So I do nothing.” - Gayle Forman

36. “Granny was right,' I said. 'When you forgive someone it does make you stronger. It makes your heart bigger than your hate.” - Jack Gantos

37. “The ultimate goal of writing is forgiveness.” - Katerina Stoykova Klemer

38. “He arches his back because when you forgive, the body says, "Thank God.” - Edmond Manning

39. “Maybe the best thing we can do for our spouses is give them permission to forgive themselves.” - Justin Davis

40. “...you either forgive a lover for abandoning you or you forgive God for taking them - either way you have to forgive...” - John Geddes

41. “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

42. “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

43. “There are things that can be fixed with an apology and things that can't.” - Otani Lovely Complex

44. “Inevitable is not the same as immediate, Sieh--and love does not mandate forgiveness.” - N.K. Jemisin

45. “We are forgiven, that we may be like Him who forgives us.” - Horatius Bonar