Quotes about Shame

You and I are what we are, and will be what we will be. As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that... The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame. That is all.

James and John wanted the glory, but not the cup of shame; the crown, but not the cross; the role of master, but not servant.

On the contrary, I am living it out from day to day, trying to accept disgrace as my state of being. Is it enough for God, do you think, that I live in disgrace without term?

I was going to rise, do some typing and coffee drinking in the kitchen all day since at that time work, work was my dominant thought, not love- not the pain which impels me to write this even while I don't want to, the pain which won't be eased by writing of this but heightened, but which will be redeemed, and if only it were a dignified pain and could be placed somewhere other than this black gutter of shame and loss and noisemaking folly in the night... /The Subterraneans

The real madness probably is not another thing that the wisdom itself that, tired of discovering the shames of the world, has taken the intelligent resolution to become mad.

Because we have offered no provision for sons and daughters who fall, many of our Adams and our Eves are hiding in the bushes.

One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress.

Dishonor waits on perfidy. A man should blush to think a falsehood; it is the crime of cowards.

Almost all our desires, when examined, contain something too shameful to reveal.

Ignominy thirsts for respect.

It is a tragicomic fact that our proper upbringing has become an ally of the secret police. (...) The Tell the truth! imperative drummed into us so automatically that we feel ashamed of lying even to a secret policeman.

Her guilty conscience was as vague as original sin.