Vernon Howard Quotes

When you hold on to anger and unforgiveness, you can't move forward.

We can carry the burden of hurt throughout our lives. We can make the hurt that we have experienced the defining aspect of our stories of ourselves. That means that somebody else gets to say who we are, somebody else gets to decide how we feel, and somebody else gets to decide how we see the world. Forgiveness not only frees us from the burden of someone else's opinion of us, but it allows us the opportunity to really write a story of ourselves that we can love, enjoy, relish, and live into.

When we have painful memories from hurting experiences, we may feel justified in holding on to the resentment. But resentment is corrosive. It doesn't affect the person we feel anger toward, it destroys the host.

Resentments are hardened chunks of anger. They loosen up and dissolve with forgiveness and letting go.

Forgiveness allows us to live in the sunlight of the present, not the darkness of the past. Forgiveness alone, of all our human actions, opens up the world to the miracle of infinite possibility.

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.

To begin loving people today, we must close the door on the past. And that cannot happen without forgiveness! Forgive those who have hurt you - for your sake, not because they deserve it.

Forgiveness leads to a shift in perception. It transforms the hurt into healing.

When you don't flow freely with life in the present moment, it usually means that you're holding on to a past moment. It can be regret, sadness, hurt, fear, guilt, blame, anger, resentment, or sometimes even a desire for revenge. Each one of these states comes from a space of unforgiveness, a refusal to let go and come into the present moment. Only in the present moment can you create your future.

We attach our feelings to the moment when we were hurt, endowing it with immortality. And we let it assault us every time it comes to mind. It travels with us, sleeps with us, hovers over us while we make love, and broods over us while we die. Our hate does not even have the decency to die when those we hate die-for it is a parasite sucking OUR blood, not theirs. There is only one remedy for it. [forgiveness]

Though I can't change what happened, I can choose how to react. And I don't want to spend the rest of my life being bitter and locked up.

When I talk of forgiveness I mean the belief that you can come out the other side ... a better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator. If you can find it in yourself to forgive then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator. You can move on.

When we don’t forgive, we’re not hurting the other person. We’re not hurting the company that did us wrong. We’re not hurting God. We’re only hurting ourselves.

I had to learn to forgive. I couldn't sleep at night. I got ulcers. I had to let go, to let God deal with it. No one wants to be mad in their own house. I didn't want to be angry my whole life. It takes so much energy out of you to be mean.

You can live your life angry, bitter, mad at somebody or even guilty, not letting go of your own mistakes, but you won't receive the good things God has in store.

I never hold a grudge.

Something my mum taught me years and years and years ago, is life's just too short to carry around a great bucket-load of anger and resentment and bitterness and hatreds and all that sort of stuff.

But I don't hold grudges.

The themes in 'Violet' are universal: accepting yourself with all of your flaws, moving on, and the forgiveness and freedom that comes along with that.

I struggle with insecurities. I struggle with forgiveness. I struggle with letting someone go that did me dirty without vengeance, which is an evil thing.

I think the hardest thing in life is to forgive. Hate is self destructive. If you hate somebody, you're not hurting the person you hate, you're hurting yourself. It's a healing, actually, it's a real healing...forgiveness.

In fact, not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.

The only way to heal the pain which will not heal itself is to forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiveness heals the memory's vision. ... You set a prisoner free, but you discover the real prisoner was yourself.

It is impossible to go as high as you are capable of going, if you are carrying the burden of hate, revenge and bitterness.

You must forgive the people who hurt you so you can get out of prison. You'll never be free until you do. Let go of hose wrongs they've done to you. Get that bitterness out of your life. That's the only way you're going to truly be free. You will be amazed at what can happen in your life when you release all that poison.