Bryce Courtenay Quotes

Those who have hurt you in the past cannot continue to hurt you now unless you hold on to the pain through resentment.

I can't hate for long. It isn't worth it.

Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves that allows us to get on with our lives instead of being trapped in the past by resentment.

We are the ones who suffer when we hold on to past grievances.

Suffering over things that have happened to us is nothing more than an argument with the past.

I try to not go over things from the past. Learn your lessons and then let it go.

What he did was wrong. He doesn't deserve your love. But he does deserve your forgiveness, because otherwise he will grow like a weed in your heart until it's choked and overrun. The only person who suffers, when you squirrel away all that hate, is you.

Don't ruin the present with the ruined past.

Forgive the past. It is over. Learn from it and let go. People are constantly changing and growing. Do not cling to a limited, disconnected, negative image of a person in the past. See that person now. Your relationship is always alive and changing.

What do you get out of hating people, out of having this bitterness in your heart always?

I wonder why we hate the past so.

There are no chains like hate...dwelling on your brother's faults multiplies your own. You are far from the end of your journey.

Me holding a grudge is not going to help me. It's not going to make me any better.

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.

Don't be afraid and don't let the past affect your present.

Learning from our mistakes is critical for improving, but even I don't have patience for ranking my regrets. Regret is a negative emotion that inhibits the optimism required to take on new challenges. You risk living in an alternative universe, where if only you had done this or that differently, things would be better. That's a poor substitute for making your actual life better, or improving the lives of others. Regret briefly, analyze and understand, and then move on, improving the only life you have.

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

My idea of forgiveness is letting go of resentment that does not serve your better interest, ridding yourself of negative thoughts. All they do is make you miserable. Believe me, you can fret and fume all you want, but whoever it was that wronged you is not suffering from your anguish whatsoever.

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.

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

Shake it off and move on.

The bruises go away, and so does how you hate, and so does the feeling that everything you receive from life is something you have earned.

Do not let the past disturb you, just leave everything in the Sacred Heart and begin again with joy.

We do not heal the past by dwelling there. We heal the past by living in the present.

You can't dwell on what happened. You can't live even a moment stewing in bitterness.