She hugged the offender, and forgave the offense,
Sex to the last.
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:
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Being all fashioned of the self-same dust,
Let us be merciful as well as just.
Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so;
Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.
Open thy gate of mercy, gracious God!
My soul flies through these wounds to seek out thee.
If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.
Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.