Anna Quindlen Quotes

Without guilt / What is a man? An animal, isn't he? / A wolf forgiven at his meat, / A beetle innocent in his copulation.

If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.

Conscience is a cudgel which all men pick up in order to thwack their neighbors instead of applying it to their own shoulders.

Guilt is what separates humans from animals.

Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.

His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up again into sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to doing, yet avoided.

All men of goodwill have this in common - that our works put us to shame.

Everyone performs bad actions... A bad person is someone who does not lament his bad actions.

He [man] knows that when he is not what he ought to be; when he does what he ought not to do; or omits what he ought to do, he is chargeable with sin

Prudence reproaches; conscience accuses.

Because he KNEW he was doing wrong. He felt the PAIN of his actions'-- 'But he did not amen them,' shows the Sky. 'The rest are worth as much as their pack animals,' I show, 'but worst is the one who knows better and does NOTHING.

Every fault of the mind becomes more conspicuous and more guilty in proportion to the rank of the offender

It is with pleasure I receive reproof, when reproof is due, because no person can be readier to accuse me, than I am to acknowledge an error, when I am guilty of one; nor more desirous of atoning for a crime, when I am sensible of having committed it.

Choice, I've always believed, is all that separates us from animals.

But there was no hiding from Conscience. Not in new homes and new cars. In travel. In meditation or frantic activity. In children, in good works. On tiptoes or bended knee. In a big career. Or a small cabin. It would find you. The past always did. Which was why... it was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew. And got up, and followed you. And found you... Who wouldn't be afraid of this?

I'm pretty good at taking accountability now, and I never did anything to deserve that. It was a really lousy thing for her to do.

Saying "I feel guilty" is a mere form of words. Saying "I feel ashamed" is not.

Perhaps the worst sin in life is knowing right and not doing it.

Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart.

Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some of the most refined and elegant qualities of human potential.

There are some things we should feel guilty about, but the guilt feelings should attach to the deed, not to the doer.

All men thirst to confess their crimes more than tired beasts thirst for water; but they naturally object to confessing them while other people, who have also committed the same crimes, sit by and laugh at them.

The most reckless sinner against his own conscience has always in the background the consolation that he will go on in this course only this time, or only so long, but that at such a time he will amend. We may be assured that we do not stand clear with our own consciences so long as we determine or project, or even hold it possible, at some future time to alter our course of action.

Debts that must be paid ... that sums up the concept of karma. But I would add that karma is not a burden that you have to carry. It is also an opportunity to learn, a chance to practice love and forgiveness, a chance to learn lessons that are valuable to us. Karma offers us the chance to wipe our dirty slate clean, to erase the wrong doings of the past.

I have learned that in a long life we all eventually play the part of the betrayed, and we all eventually play the part of the betrayer, and neither is pleasant because both roles involve pain, inflicting or absorbing it.