875 Quotes About Shame

We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are. A person feels guilt because he did something wrong. A person feels shame because he is something wrong.

You could buy a snow blower or a nice wool dress for your wife, but beneath it all people were rats scurrying off to find garbage to eat, another rat to hump, making a nest in broken bricks, and soiling it so sourly that one's contribution to the world was only more excrement.

But shame is like a wound that is never exposed and therefore never heals.

She stepped back quickly. Her mouth was gritty and she felt unbalanced, like she'd crossed a line she hadn't known existed. She thought she wasn't the only one; she could see her surprise and shame echoed on the faces around her.

Soon she'd spot the bruise behind the inflection. I blamed her for not seeing the bruise so I wouldn't be blamed for hiding it from her.

But there are some born to do penance by nature. Maybe they lift the load for some of us who take it quite comfortably that we're humankind, and not angels.

Without guilt or remorse, shame was an empty emotion. Indeed, shame would not be shame.

This was not guilt: guilt is what you feel when you have done something wrong. What I felt was shame: I was what was wrong.

...because we don't know any stories of the many others who are falling, we assume that we are the only ones who do... Falling wasn't the end of the world as long as I got back up and kept walking.