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The moment I realised that I was dealing with a mechanism whose participants were its prisoners, at that moment I was able to take distance from what had happened, and forgiveness started to become possible.

— James Alison Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001)

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Forgiveness

More quotes by James Alison

The 'I', the 'self' of the child of God, is born in the midst of the ruins of repented idolatry.

Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001)

All human paternity comes internally structured by fratricide and, as paternity, is incapable of truth, because it will always be protecting itself against the 'other'.

Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001)

Sin is resistance, in the name of God, to the creative work of God which seeks to include us all.

Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001)

Sin ceases to be a defect which excludes, and comes to be participation in the mechanism of exclusion.

Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001)

God has not the slightest difficulty in bringing to a fullness of creation the person who is in some way incomplete and recognises this. The problem is with those who think that they are complete, and that creation is, at least in their case, finished.

Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001)

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It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing.

Muhammad

Wilt Thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt Thou indeed sweep away and not forgive the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?

Abraham

It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing.

Al-Tirmidhi

I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.

Simone Weil Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: James Alison (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.