Selected shame quotes

1. Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.

2. The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.

3. This Earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed and ashamed that he went to Travell, 7 yeares. On his returne the Queen welcomed him home, and sayd, My Lord, I had forgott the Fart.

4. I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

5. Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.

6. If I think of all those homosexuals in Germany today, I think I'd hand my German passport back, if I had one.

7. Love is too precious to be ashamed of.

8. Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.

9. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.

10. Stand us against a wall and shoot us, well and good, you are victors. But why should I be brought before a Tribunal like a c-c-c-... I can't even get the word [criminal] out!

11. I do feel ashamed of having participated to the slightest even as a tool in those dark days. But I was obliged to serve the state to which I had taken an oath. It was a tragic fate.

12. Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

13. 'You know, that might be the answer - to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That's a trick that never seems to fail.'

14. My soul knows my meat is doing bad things, and is embarrassed. But my meat just keeps right on doing bad, dumb things.'

15. One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame we have killed off so much real shame as well.

16. What is the main thing in love? To know and to hide. To know about the one you love and to hide that you love. At times the hiding (shame) overpowers the knowing (passion). The passion for the hidden - the passion for the revealed.

17. I pity bashful men, who feel the pain Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain, And bear the marks upon a blushing face, Of needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.

18. Here dead we lie because we did not choose To live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; But young men think it is, and we were young.

19. In the third grade a nun stuffed me in a garbage can under her desk because she said that's where I belonged.

20. I have since often observed, how incongruous and irrational the common temper of mankind is, especially of youth, to that reason which ought to guide them in such cases - viz. they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent. Not ashamed of the action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the returning, which can only make them be esteemed wise men.

21. A girl, if she has any pride, is so ashamed of having anything she wishes to say out of the hearing of her own family, she thinks it must be something so very wrong, that it is ten to one, if she have the opportunity of saying it, that she will not. And yet she is spending her life, perhaps, in dreaming of accidental means of unrestrained communion.

22. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A.

23. We must find our way to a time when faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it.[2]

24. Soldiers now pose, thumbs up, before the atrocities they commit, and send off the pictures to their buddies and family. What is revealed by these photographs is as much the culture of shamelessness as the reigning admiration for unapologetic brutality. Ours is a society in which secrets of private life that, formerly, you would have given nearly anything to conceal, you now clamor to get on a television show to reveal.

25. Where popular authority is absolute and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely greater, because a far better founded, confidence in their own power. They are themselves, in a great measure, their own instruments. They are nearer to their objects. Besides, they are less under responsibility to one of the greatest controlling powers on the earth, the sense of fame and estimation. The share of infamy that is likely to fall to the lot of each individual in public acts is small indeed; the operation of opinion being in the inverse ratio to the number of those who abuse power. Their own approbation of their own acts has to them the appearance of a public judgment in their favor. A perfect democracy is, therefore, the most shameless thing in the world. As it is the most shameless, it is also the most fearless. No man apprehends in his person that he can be made subject to punishment.

26. Truth...never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her forth.

27. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers - stern and wild ones, - and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.

28. One of the strongest feelings I remember from my childhood is, precisely, of being humiliated; of being knocked about by words, acts, or situations. Isn't it a fact that children are always feeling deeply humiliated in their relations with grown-ups and each other? I have a feeling children spend a good deal of their time humiliating one another. Our whole education is just one long humiliation, and it was even more so when I was a child. One of the wounds I've found hardest to bear in my adult life has been the fear of humiliation, and the sense of being humiliated. . . Every time I read a review, for instance - whether laudatory or not - this feeling awakes. . . To humiliate and be humiliated, I think, is a crucial element in our whole social structure. It's not only the artist I'm sorry for. It's just that I know exactly where he feels most humiliated. Our bureaucracy, for instance. I regard it as in high degree built up on humiliation, one of the nastiest and most dangerous of all poisons.

29. My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted. ~ 28

30. This is practically the language used to fallen women, and chiefly by their own sex: 'God may forgive you, but we never can!' - a declaration which, however common, in spirit if not in substance, is, when one comes to analyse it, unparalleled in its arrogance of blasphemy. That for a single offence, however grave, a whole life should be blasted, is a doctrine repugnant even to Nature's own dealings in the visible world. ~ Ch. 11

31. When alone he secretly shook his head. But suddenly he recalled the analysis made by the Party secretary regarding 'two kinds of social system, two attitudes, and therefore two different results.' He felt as if he had seen a ray of light in the darkness. He said to himself, 'Lao Chiu can endure pain of such magnitude, and in spite of his burns he is always thinking of going back to the furnace. He wants to live. Why should he not be able to live?' That moment, suddenly the doctor and the patient were drawn closely together. From then on, the doctor thought of the patient often and also tried to compare himself with Lao Chiu. The more he compared the more he felt ashamed of himself and the more eager he was to do his best for this worker. So, from the very first day the assistant surgeon learned something from his patient.

32. Look at you just looking at the Rock, gawking at the Rock; you ought to be ashamed of yourself, a woman your age looking at the Rock like this!'

33. It's a fantastic religion, it makes absolutely no demands upon you at all. That's why it's not a great religion, all great religions are built on shame. You don't have any of that if you're Protestant. You go to church, sing a few hymns, have a cup of tea, everybody goes home and has a wank.

34. Not with a Club, the Heart is broken Nor with a Stone - A Whip so small you could not see it I've known To lash the Magic Creature Till it fell, Yet that Whip's Name Too noble then to tell. Magnanimous as Bird By Boy descried - Singing unto the Stone Of which it died - Shame need not crouch In such an Earth as Ours - Shame - stand erect - The Universe is yours.

35. For which he wex a litel red for shame, Whan he the peple upon him herde cryen, That to beholde it was a noble game, How sobreliche he caste doun his yen. Criseyda gan al his chere aspyen, And let so softe it in her herte sinke That to herself she seyde, 'Who yaf me drinke?'

36. These horrifying digital snapshots of the American dream in action on foreign soil are worse than anything even I could have expected. I have been in this business a long time and I have seen many staggering things, but this one is over the line. Now I am really ashamed to carry an American passport.

37. Niggle thought that he had never heard anything so generous as that Voice. It made Gentle Treatment sound like a load of rich gifts, and the summons to a King's feast. Then suddenly Niggle felt ashamed. To hear that he was considered a case for Gentle Treatment overwhelmed him, and made him blush in the dark. It was like being publicly praised, when you and all the audience knew that the praise was not deserved. Niggle hid his blushes in the rough blanket. There was a silence. Then the First Voice spoke to Niggle, quite close. 'You have been listening,' it said.

38. Rance: How shocking! His abnormal condition has driven him to seek refuge in religion. Always the last ditch stand of a man on the brink of disaster.

39. Mrs Prentice: Are you ashamed of the fact that you write to strange men? Prentice: There's nothing furtive in my relationship with the editor of The Guardian.

40. It is the one event in my life of which I am most ashamed and I have long feared would be made public.

41. And lovelier things have mercy shown To every failing but their own, And every woe a tear can claim Except an erring sister's shame.

42. I was a mistake. My mother didn't want to have me. I guess she never wanted me. I probably got in her way. I know I must have disgraced her. A divorced woman has enough problems getting a man, I guess, but one with an illegitimate baby.... I wish, I still wish, she had wanted me.

43. The mob still had anger in it, some of them at least. Yet there were so many who were sick of it all, many who were already ashamed, already discovering in their hearts the terrible acts they had performed tonight, when their souls were given over to the will of the mob.

44. I was forgetting how it really was, I was remembering it through common, ordinary eyes, I was remembering it as the boy I was before, but now I remember that it wasn't me being weak or me being naked, or anything else that I should be ashamed of.

45. She said, 'I'll show you a picture, A picture of tomorrow, There's nothing changing, it's all sorrow.' 'Oh, no, please don't show me I'm a swine, you don't wanna know me!'

46. La honte que cause l'amour est comme sa douleur: on ne l'eprouve qu'une fois. On peut encore la feindre apres; mais on ne la sent plus. Cependant le plaisir reste, et c'est bien quelque chose.

47. Caligula is sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash. If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful: People with talent allowed themselves to participate in this travesty. Disgusted and unspeakably depressed, I walked out of the film after two hours of its 170-minute length. That was on Saturday night, as a line of hundreds of people stretched down Lincoln Ave., waiting to pay $7.50 apiece to become eyewitnesses to shame...'This movie,' said the lady in front of me at the drinking fountain, 'is the worst piece of shit I have ever seen.'

48. The only thing about masturbation to be ashamed of is doing it badly.

49. I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof; 'tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us that our nearest friends, Wife, and Children stand afraid and start at us.

50. And wilt thou leave me thus? Say nay! say nay! for shame! To save thee from the blame Of all my grief and grame. And wilt thou leave me thus? Say nay! say nay!

51. I deserve to be chained by night in a church basement without company o' cassette player if I'm not man enough to ask you for the teeniest, slightest brush of oral-muscular affaction.

52. 'Kiss it Shawn! Kiss It, you like it! Come on! Yeaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!' (When Shawn Michaels became a member of the kiss my ass club thanks to Shane)

53. Remember the Italian steward who put on women's clothes and so filched a seat in a lifeboat? 'A cur in human shape, certainly he was born and saved to set a new standard by which to judge infamy and shame.'

54. I had long known that there was something about me that was either violent or frightening for some reason. In certain three-sided clothing store images I had for some years come upon myself, with shock and disbelief, regret, and shame, disappointment and despair, for I am indeed clearly violent, mad, and ugly, all because of intensity of some kind, a tension, an obsession with getting everything that there was to be got, a passion, an insanity.

55. One wants to be an honest man; one is so, one works hard; but still one cannot make both ends meet; on must give up the work, there is no chance of carrying it out without spending more on it than one gets back for it; one gets a feeling of shortcoming, of not keeping one's promises. One is afraid of making friends; like an old leper, one would like to call from afar: Don't come too near me, for intercourse with me brings you sorrow and loss. One cannot present oneself as somebody who comes to propose a good business or who has a plan which will bring great profit. On the contrary, it is clear that it will end with a deficit, and still one feels a power surging within; one has work to do and it must be done. One must set to work with a calm, everyday face, live one's ordinary life, get along with the models, with the man who comes for the rent, with everybody, in fact. You must not think of me as afraid.

56. Caro m' e 'l sonno, e piu l'esser di sasso, Mentre che 'l danno e la vergogna dura: Non veder, non sentir, m' e gran ventura; Pero non mi destar, deh! parla basso

57. ... the beast made the noise of a cat being shampooed, a lonely wail of horror and outrage, of shame and defeat.

58. Peggy couldn't tell the truth. She knew these folks too well. She knew what they all were scared of, what they all wanted, what they all had done that they'd kill her or theirself if they once got a notion that she knew. Even the ones who never done a bad thing, they'd be so ashamed to think she knew their secret dreams or private craziness. So she never could speak frankly to these folks, or something would slip out, not even a word maybe, it might be just the way she turned her head, the way she sidestepped some line of talk, and they'd know that she knew, or just fear that she knew, or just fear. Just fear alone, without even naming what it was, and it could undo them, some of them, the weakest of them

59. It makes people willing to act according to what they believe. To say what's in their hearts, regardless of shame. It doesn't change what they feel, what they want. It just helps...loosen them up

60. You may think you ashamed, but you not. Deep down in your heart. You know you done it all You don't know what I feel

61. What's so wrong with feeling sorry for myself? Better that than trying to get other people to feel sorry for me. And somebody sure ought to, because my life is definitely in the pitiful range, if it hasn't already dropped on down into disastrous

62. Humans are dumb. Ashamed to be human

63. Oh! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade, Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid.

64. Look out upon the stars, my love, And shame them with thine eyes.

65. 'I was adopted by pro-life Christians when I was a kid. [Mimes gunshots] Does my penis make me a bad boy? That's what they told me!' Please, give me the Satan-worshiping family down the block : the ones that have the good albums.

66. Il n'y a guere de gens qui ne soient honteux de s'etre aimes, quand ils ne s'aiment plus.

67. Il est plus honteux de se defier de ses amis que d'en etre trompe.

68. Il n'est jamais plus difficile de bien parler que quand on a honte de se taire.

69. What is the seal of liberation? - No longer being ashamed in front of oneself.

70. Many men swallow the being cheated, but no man can ever endure to chew it.

71. It was my shame, and now it is my boast, That I have loved you rather more than most.

72. I thought of my own wife's tears and her limp submission the night before - the bleak satisfaction I took from her smallness as I used her shamelessly. She's cried out, and remembering the taste of salted tears, I thought, for that instant, that I knew how the devil felt. Sex and tears, like sun and rain, were never meant to share a moment: but for a fallen soul, an act of wrong could, at times, feel very right, and that scared the hell out of me.

73. We feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country. ... And we cannot consider ourselves America's best men when we are ashamed of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia.

74. What goes on when people overfetishize safety is that they're relapsing into that old frame of mind that what we're doing is BAD.

75. Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh. It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple.

76. I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently inhibited about the things that other women are inhibited about for me. They feel that you've given away trade secrets.

77. Blushing is the colour of virtue.

78. Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.

79. The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.

80. The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, To give repentance to her lover, And wring his bosom, is - to die.

81. Honesta turpitudo est pro causa bona.

82. I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time being ashamed.

83. Love is not a crime ... men and women should be proudly natural; they need not grovel on the earth and cover their faces for shame.

84. Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed much: - surely that may be his epitaph of which he need not be ashamed.

85. Brother, thy tail hangs down behind! This is the way of the Monkey-kind!

86. Your pimples are the Lord's way of chastising you.

87. The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear.

88. If you still have to ask, shame on you