To have the power to forgive,
Is empire and prerogative,
And 'tis in crowns a nobler gem,
To grant a pardon than condemn. [ Butler ]

Good, to forgive; Best to forget! [ Robert Browning ]

Love the good and forgive the bad. [ Gaelic Proverb ]

The brave only know how to forgive. [ Sterne ]

The sandal-tree perfumes when riven
The axe that laid it low:
Let man who hopes to be forgiven
Forgive and bless his foe. [ Sadi ]

To err is human; to forgive, divine. [ Alexander Pope ]

Father! forgive the heart that clings
Thus trembling to the things of time,
And bid my soul, on angel's wings
Ascend into a purer clime. [ Jane Roscoe ]

Forgive thyself nothing, others much. [ German Proverb ]

Forgive others often, yourself never. [ Syrus ]

To forgive is easy, but to forget hard. [ Friedrich Schiller ]

We forgive too little, forget too much. [ Mme. Swetchine ]

'Tis easier for the generous to forgive.
Than for offence to ask it. [ Thomson ]

Forget, forgive; conclude, and be agreed. [ William Shakespeare ]

Good-nature and good sense must ever join;
To err is human, to forgive divine. [ Pope ]

When women love us they forgive everything. [ Balzac ]

The more we know, the better we forgive;
Whoe'er feels deeply, feels for all who live. [ Mme. de Stael ]

They who forgive most shall be most forgiven. [ Bailey ]

It is not enough to forgive: one must forget. [ Mme. de Stael ]

It is easier to forgive an enemy than a friend. [ Mme. Deluzy ]

The worst of men are those who will not forgive. [ Proverb ]

Women forgive injuries, but never forget slights. [ Thomas C. Haliburton ]

To punish is merely human, but to forgive is divine. [ P. von Winter ]

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. [ Bible ]

The truly great man
Is as apt to forgive as his power is able to revenge. [ Sir P. Sidney ]

Forgive and forget! - why, the world would be lonely,
The garden a wilderness left to deform.
If the flowers but remember'd the chilling winds only.
And the fields gave no verdure for fear of the storm. [ Charles Swain ]

One may forgive infidelity, but one does not forget it. [ Mlle. de Lafayette ]

He that does you a very ill turn will never forgive you. [ Proverb ]

It is natural to love, and it is natural also to forgive. [ Plaut ]

It is fair that he who begs to be forgiven should in turn forgive. [ Horace ]

If we are bound to forgive an enemy, we are not bound to trust him. [ Proverb ]

Yes, we ought to forgive our enemies, but not until they are hanged. [ Heinrich Heine ]

Life, that ever needs forgiveness, has for its first duty to forgive. [ Edward Bulwer Lytton ]

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. [ The Lord's Prayer ]

We may forgive those who bore us, we cannot forgive those whom we bore. [ La Rochefoucauld ]

After a good dinner one could forgive anybody, even one's own relations. [ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance ]

The only sin which we never forgive in each other is difference of opinion. [ Emerson ]

As nice as we are in love, we forgive more faults in that than in friendship. [ Henry Home ]

It is not enjoined upon us to forget, but we are told to forgive our enemies. [ Chapin ]

One had better forgive a debt, where he cannot recover so much as his charges. [ Proverb ]

To forgive a fault in another is more sublime than to be faultless one's self. [ George Sand ]

We can easily forgive want of means; but littleness, with means, is disgusting. [ Mme. de Lambert ]

If ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. [ Bible ]

If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if be repent, forgive him. [ Bible ]

It is easy enough to forgive your enemies if you have not the means to harm them. [ Heinrich Heine ]

We should always forgive, - the penitent for their sake, the impenitent for our own. [ Marie Ebner-Eschenbach ]

Two persons will not be friends long if they cannot forgive each other little failings. [ La Bruyere ]

Women do not often have it in their power to give like men, but they forgive like Heaven. [ Mme. Necker ]

Offend her, and she knows not to forgive; Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live. [ Pope ]

Friendship cannot go far if we are not disposed mutually to forgive each other's venial faults. [ La Bruyère ]

We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends. [ Cosmus ]

Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge, and dares to forgive an injury. [ E. H. Chapin ]

Do you count your birthdays thankfully? forgive your friends? grow gentler and better with advancing age? [ Horace ]

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them, rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. [ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance ]

May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us to remember wrong that has been done us? That we may forgive it. [ Dickens ]

He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven. [ Edward Herbert ]

Women love men for their defects; if men have enough of them, women will forgive them everything, even their gigantic intellects. [ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance ]

Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own. [ John Dryden ]

Receive no satisfaction for premeditated impertinence; forget it, forgive it, but keep him inexorably at a distance who offered it. [ Lavater ]

If thou wouldst find much favor and peace with God and man, be very low in thine own eyes; forgive thyself little, and others much. [ Robert Leighton ]

God's way of forgiving is thorough and hearty - both to forgive and to forget; and if thine be not so, thou hast no portion of His. [ Leighton ]

It is dangerous to discover the faults or weaknesses of certain persons: they never forgive us the knowledge of these secret ulcers. [ De Finod ]

We should forgive freely, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself. [ Colton ]

When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even for our virtues. [ Balzac ]

Shouldst thou fail, let it not trouble thee, for failure (defect) leads to love. If thou canst not free thyself from failure, thou wilt never forgive others. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

Hath any wronged thee? be bravely revenged; slight it, and the work is begun; forgive it, and it is finished; he is below himself that is not above an injury. [ Quarles ]

In my enthusiasm I may have exaggerated the details a little, but you will easily forgive me that fault, since I believe it is the first time I have ever deflected from perpendicular fact on an occasion like this. [ Mark Twain, from The Story Of A Speech ]

The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should forgive freely, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself. [ Colton ]

I have remarked that those who love women most, and are most tender in their intercourse with them, are most inclined to speak ill of them, us if they could not forgive them for not being as irreproachable as they wish them to be. [ T. Gautier ]

What is in reality cowardice and faithlessness, we call charity, and consider it the part of benevolence sometimes to forgive men's evil practice for the sake of their accurate faith, and sometimes to forgive their confessed heresy for the sake of their admirable practice. [ Ruskin ]

Of him that hopes to be forgiven it is indispensably required that he forgive. It is, therefore, superfluous to urge any other motive. On this great duty eternity is suspended, and to him that refuses to practise it, the throne of mercy is inaccessible, and the Saviour of the world has been born in vain. [ Johnson ]

Out of the ashes of misanthropy benevolence rises again; we find many virtues where we had imagined all was vice, many acts of disinterested friendship where we had fancied all was calculation and fraud - and so gradually from the two extremes we pass to the proper medium; and, feeling that no human being is wholly good or wholly base, we learn that true knowledge of mankind which induces us to expect little and forgive much. The world cures alike the optimist and the misanthrope. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]