Audre Lorde Quotes

Permanent remorse about failing to do your human duty, in my opinion, can be worse than losing your life.

I've learned a lot from the investigations and the trial. It's all my fault.

In retrospect, I had a lot of shortcomings and didn't take care of the things that needed to be taken care of, and that's all my fault.

At the same time I know that it’s not really their fault, at least not completely. I did my part too. I did it on a hundred different days and in a thousand different ways, and I know it. But this makes the anger worse, not better.

A man should not play the coward to his deeds. He should not repudiate them once he has performed them. Pangs of conscience are indecent.

I should have been much more responsible in how I handled myself and for that am sorry.

My head has got regrets, but I haven't.

I felt ashamed for what I had done. I don't have any excuses. I did what I did. I take full responsibility for myself and my actions. I wouldn't pawn this off on anybody. I'm sorry it happened. And I hurt people.

If I sold something, and it didn't perform, I'd never forgive myself.

The extent of one man's guilt may be defined by how much of it is experienced by the party he injured.

Guilt is a weird thing to me. I don't have a lot of it.

The only thing worse than an active conscience is one that's retroactive.

I don't want to forgive myself. That's why I hate psychoanalysis I think if you're guilty of something you should live with it. Get rid of it - how can you get rid of a real guilt? I think people should live with it, face up to it.

I'd not want to answer for the lives of other men; not at seventeen, by God's Grace.

The only way I can be angry at you is when I have thought, said, or done something that is unkind in my own opinion.

Some people think there's a woman to blame, but I know - it's my own damn fault

I believe in guilt. There's not enough guilt around these days for my taste.

You have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were to blame for what is far beyond the scope of your responsibility.

I want to say to each of you, simply, and directly, I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior I engaged in.

A guilty conscience means at least you have one.

I've always been a magnet for guilt.

You do what you do and you pay for your sins and there's no such thing as what might have been.

I also feel like I've done plenty of wrong things. I'm not innocent here, and I'm certainly not going to be righteous about that.

What is guilt? It is moral self-reproach-I did wrong when it was possible to have done otherwise.

I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that this was all my fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe, Joe would have been easier with me. I felt impatient of him and out of temper with him; in which condition he heaped coals of fire on my head.