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One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.

— Heinrich Heine

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Notes from Wikiquote

One must forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged. | As quoted in A Mania for Sentences (1985) by Dennis Joseph Enright, p. 10

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Forgiveness

More quotes by Heinrich Heine

Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but less by assimilation than by friction.

Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899)

Mark this well, you proud men of action: You are nothing but the unwitting agents of the men of thought who often, in quiet self-effacement, mark out most exactly all your doings in advance.

Experience is a good school. But the fees are high.

The Modern Handbook of Humor (1967)

Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.

The deepest truth blooms only from the deepest love.

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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: Heinrich Heine (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.