Forgiveness Quotes
Muhammad leads, followed by Shakespeare, Jesus, Julian of Norwich and the comics writer J. M. DeMatteis. The sourced poems are the ones to read. Alexander Pope’s The Universal Prayer (1738) asks that the mercy we show others be shown to us. Philip James Bailey’s Festus (1839) says they who forgive most shall be most forgiven. Wordsworth’s lines on Sweet Mercy are from his 1803 Scottish tour.
The one flagged entry is “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission,” credited to the computer scientist Grace Hopper and marked misattributed. The notes list several print sources from the 1980s, among them a 1986 Navy magazine.
Most quoted on forgiveness:
Turn the other cheek too often and you get a razor through it.
Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin.
Mercy listens — really listens, with interest and concern — then smiles, and reaches out her hand.
Reason to rule, mercy to forgive:
The first is law, the last prerogative.
Who will not mercy unto others show,
How can he mercy ever hope to have?
Forgiveness is an absolute necessity for continued human existence.