- “She wasn’t the perfect mom. However, she was the perfect Mother for me.” ― Raymond D. Longoria Jr.
- “The relief Kieran felt was staggering. The sick-satisfaction of justice burned through him like an oil spill, waiting for him to drop a match, to let it all go up in flames as he laughed through the rain of hellfire. But he didn’t. He pocketed the metaphysical match. He vacuumed the torrential oil spill. He had just turned his wasteland into a rain forest; he would not let his resentment burn down the trees he had grown out of the garden of his own mind. Kieran himself had come too far to let the angry hand of vengeance burn away his fertile terrains, ruin his harvests of the pure flora kingdom and slaughter his animals to ribbons in sacrifice to greater demons whose jaws never shut. Homeostasis was a hard-earned tendency. Bonfires were clumsy and unwarranted; if he let it consume him and everything he’d built, all he had cultivated would be for nothing. He did not want his flowers to die.” ― Grace Curley, The Light that Binds Us
- “There is only one way for a man to truly fail, and that is by blaming his setback on another man.” ― Raymond D. Longoria Jr.
- Forgiveness doesn’t mean you continue to associate with someone. It doesn’t mean you expect them to change. It means that the wrongs they’ve committed against you no longer take up space in your heart. Ed Latimore
- “The creation of man is evidence for the love of God, the preservation of man is evidence for the patience of God, and Christ is evidence for the forgiveness of God. It is when we are wrapped up in our own little peeves that we begin to displace His benevolence with malevolence.” ― Criss Jami, Killosophy
- “This world will be peaceful only when you find inner peace, love and forgiveness through meditation.” ― Debasish Mridha
- “When someone you love dies, you are given the gift of “second chances”. Their eulogy is a reminder that the living can turn their lives around at any point. You’re not bound by the past; that is who you used to be. You’re reminded that your feelings are not who you are, but how you felt at that moment. Your bad choices defined you yesterday, but they are not who you are today. Your future doesn’t have to travel the same path with the same people. You can start over. You don’t have to apologize to people that won’t listen. You don’t have to justify your feelings or actions, during a difficult time in your life. You don’t have to put up with people that are insecure and want you to fail. All you have to do is walk forward with a positive outlook, and trust that God has a plan that is greater than the sorrow you left behind. The people of quality that were meant to be in your life won’t need you to explain the beauty of your heart. They already understand what being human is—-a roller coaster ride of emotions during rainstorms and sunshine, sprinkled with moments when you can almost reach the stars.” ― Shannon L. Alder
- “The tree, like ALL of Creation, said… ‘I Am what I Am’. It was others that placed labels of sorrow or joy upon it.” ― Raymond D. Longoria Jr.
- “We are the embodiment of the intention that is love which is why love is ultimate reality.” ― Wald Wassermann
- “God can take the ordinary and create the extraordinary. Our incredible God has the power to transform your simple life and give you the life of your dreams. Remarkable things happen in your life when you believe.” ― Amaka Imani Nkosazana, Heart Crush
- “According to Zen Buddhists, all things have their existence in The Void. The Void is that which is no-thing, but contains all things within it, or as some Christian mystics state, “God is Nothing; He is Utterly Other; He is the VOID.” ― Joseph P. Kauffman
- Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names. John F. Kennedy
- “No, I don’t believe it,” Joseph said. “From listening to my father and grandfather talk about El Shaddai, I think he’s different from the gods of Egypt. I think that none of us could ever be good enough for God. I think of Him as being so good that a human can’t even enter His presence. A man would die if he did. I think God’s merciful, Rashidi. I think he forgives us because he loves us, just as we forgive our children because we love them. “Rashidi’s eyes brightened. “A God that loves people! Now there’s a new thought!” ― Gilbert Morris, Till Shiloh Comes
- “The closer we try to get to God, the more we will hate to sin in our own lives, the more we are saddened by the thoughts that runs through our minds. I also think that the more we draw closer to God, the more God will honour us and will open doors for the right things to happen in our life.” ― Patience Johnson
- “At times anger will trigger harsh words. After a cooling period wisdom sets in; finally, the ability to speak from the heart with love and compassion.” ― Ana Monnar, Relax: New And Selected Poems: New And Selected Poems
- “Isn’t it funny how we make rational excuses for being out of alignment? We say, “Well, this ____ and that ____ happened, so it makes perfect sense for me to be feeling like this ____ and wanting to do this ____.” Yet, to this day, I have never met a happy person who adheres to those excuses. In fact, each time I – or anyone else – decide to give in to “rational excuses” that justify feeling bad – it’s interesting that only further suffering is the result. There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Sure, we can go there and make choices that dim our lights… and that is fine; there certainly is purpose for it and the contrast gives us lessons to learn… yet if we’re aware of what we are doing and we’re ready to let go of the suffering – then why go there at all? It’s like beating a dead horse. Been there, done that… so why do we keep repeating it? Pain is going to happen; it’s inevitable in this human experience, yet it is often so brief. When we make those excuses, what happens is: we pick up that pain and begin to carry it with us into the next day… and the next day… into next week… maybe next month… and some of us even carry it for years or to our graves! Forgive, let it go! It is NOT worth it! It is NEVER worth it. There is never a good enough reason for us to pick up that pain and carry it with us. There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Unforgiveness hurts you; it hurts others, so why even go there? Why even promote pain? Why say painful things to yourself or others? Why think pain? Just let it go! Whenever I look back on painful things or feel pain today, I know it is my EGO that drives me to “go there.” The EGO likes to have the last word, it likes to feel superior, it likes to make others feel less than in hopes that it will make itself (me) feel better about my insecurities. Maybe if I hurt them enough, they will feel the pain I felt over what they did to me. It’s only fair! It’s never my fault; it’s always someone else’s. There is a twisted sense of pleasure I get from feeling this way, and my EGO eats it right up. YET! With awareness that continues to grow and expand each day, I choose to not feed my pain (EGO) or even go there. I still feel it at times, of course, so I simply acknowledge it and then release it. I HAVE power and choice over my speech and actions. I do not need to ever “go there” again. It’s my choice; it’s your choice. So it’s about damn time we start realizing this. We are not victims of our impulses or emotions; we have the power to control them, and so it’s time to stop acting like we don’t. It’s time to relinquish the excuses.” ― Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace: Essential Teachings for Enriching Life
- “Respect is reverence out of love, Fear is reverence out of hate.Choose Wisely” ― Abhishek Shukla, The Reflection “Success or Stress”Choose Wisely
- “sometimes forgiving someone it’s not because he’s really sorry and deserved it, but because we were worthy of tranquility.” ― Glad Munaiseche
- “I find something repulsive about the idea of vicarious redemption. I would not throw my numberless sins onto a scapegoat and expect them to pass from me; we rightly sneer at the barbaric societies that practice this unpleasantness in its literal form. There’s no moral value in the vicarious gesture anyway. As Thomas Paine pointed out, you may if you wish take on a another man’s debt, or even to take his place in prison. That would be self-sacrificing. But you may not assume his actual crimes as if they were your own; for one thing you did not commit them and might have died rather than do so; for another this impossible action would rob him of individual responsibility. So the whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out the ethical principles for ourselves.” ― Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian
- “It is up to each one of us to immunize ourselves from any disabling bolts of anger and defend ourselves from the thunderstorms of hatred. No matter how maliciously anyone might act towards us, humankinds’ ability to express empathy, compassion, and mercy is the only life-sustaining panacea. Whenever we foster empathy and compassion and display mercy towards other people, we overcome the vilest actions and greatest atrocities committed by other persons. If we love everyone, we can never feel victimized or hate anyone. If we love ourselves, we will never act in a degrading manner.” ― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
- Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace. Mel Robbins
- “It is conducive to serenity to see the vast majority of people as the children they are spiritually and intellectually.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
- “Loss of social standing is an ever-present threat for individuals whose social acceptance is based on behavioral traits rather than unconditional human value.” ― Melissa V. Harris-Perry, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America
- “Hope, strive and try to be more like Christ until the day we will see Him. Let Him find you faithfully and in obedient serving Him. He is coming quicker than people think.” ― Patience Johnson, Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder
- “If truth doesn’t set you free, generosity of spirit will.” ― Katerina Stoykova Klemer
- “Accept the universeAs the gods gave it to you.If the gods wanted to give you something elseThey’d have done it.If there are other matters and other worldsThere are.” ― Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
- “The world had always loved the saint as being the nearest possible approach to the perfection of God. Christ, through some divine instinct in him, seems to have always loved the sinner as being the nearest possible approach to the perfection of man. His primary desire was not to reform people, any more than his primary desire was to a relieve suffering. To turn an interesting thief into a tedious honest man was not his aim. He would have thought little of the Prisoners’ Aid Society and other modern movements of the kind. The conversion of a publican into a Pharisee would not have seemed to him a great achievement. But in a manner not yet understood of the world he regarded sin and suffering as being in themselves beautiful holy things and modes of perfection.It seems a very dangerous idea. It is — all great ideas are dangerous. That it was Christ’s creed admits of no doubt. That it is the true creed I don’t doubt myself.Of course the sinner must repent. But why? Simply because otherwise he would be unable to realise what he had done. The moment of repentance is the moment of initiation. More than that: it is the means by which one alters one’s past. The Greeks thought that impossible. They often say in their Gnomic aphorisms, ‘Even the Gods cannot alter the past.’ Christ showed that the commonest sinner could do it, that it was the one thing he could do. Christ, had he been asked, would have said — I feel quite certain about it — that the moment the prodigal son fell on his knees and wept, he made his having wasted his substance with harlots, his swine-herding and hungering for the husks they ate, beautiful and holy moments in his life. It is difficult for most people to grasp the idea. I dare say one has to go to prison to understand it. If so, it may be worth while going to prison.” ― Oscar Wilde
- “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” ― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism
- “Happiness is a state of awareness, which comes from tranquility, service, love, grace, and forgiveness.” ― Debasish Mridha
- “According to Zen Buddhists, all things have their existence in The Void. The Void is that which is no-thing, but contains all things within it, or as some Christian mystics state, “God is Nothing; He is Utterly Other; He is the VOID.” ― Joseph P. Kauffman