Alexa Young:

Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past.

Bishop Desmond Tutu:

To forgive is indeed the best form of self-interest since anger, resentment, and revenge are corrosive of that "summum bonum," the greatest good.

Confucius:

The more you know yourself, the more you forgive yourself.

Emily Dickinson:

All but Death, can be Adjusted—
Dynasties repaired—
Systems—settled in their Sockets—
Citadels—dissolved—

Wastes of Lives—resown with Colors
By Succeeding Springs—
Death—unto itself—Exception—
Is exempt from Change—

Eric Hoffer:

The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.

Henry Ward Beecher:

Repentance is another name for aspiration.

Hillary Rodham Clinton:

In the Bible it says they asked Jesus how many times you should forgive, and he said 70 times 7. Well, I want you all to know that I'm keeping a chart.

Jessamyn West:

It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.

John F. Kennedy:

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

Lord Chesterfield:

Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever.

Martin Luther King, jr.:

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Mohandas K. Gandhi:

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

Mohandas K. Gandhi:

Forgiveness is choosing to love. It is the first skill of self-giving love.

Nathaniel Hawthorne:

It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility.

from The Scarlet Letter

Reinhold Niebuhr:

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Robert Frost:

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me

Sidney and Suzanne Simon:

Forgiveness is freeing up and putting to better use the energy once consumed by holding grudges, harboring resentments, and nursing unhealed wounds. It is rediscovering the strengths we always had and relocating our limitless capacity to understand and accept other people and ourselves.

Sir Francis Bacon:

We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.

Thich Nhat Hanh:

The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.

Voltaire:

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

William Blake:

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

William Shakespeare:

Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil;
With them forgive yourself.