#denial

Those who deny guilt and sin are like the Pharisees of old who thought our Saviour had a “guilt complex” because He accused them of being whited sepulchers—outside clean, inside full of dead men’s bones. Those who admit that they are guilty are like the public sinners and the publicans of whom Our Lord said, “Amen, I say to you, that the publicans and the harlots shall go into the Kingdom of God before you” (Matt. 21:31). Those who think they are healthy but have a hidden moral cancer are incurable; the sick who want to be healed have a chance. All denial of guilt keeps people out of the area of love and, by inducing self-righteousness, prevents a cure. The two facts of healing in the physical order are these: A physician cannot heal us unless we put ourselves into his hands, and we will not put ourselves into his hands unless we know that we are sick. In like manner, a sinner’s awareness of sin is one requisite for his recovery; the other is his longing for God. When we long for God, we do so not as sinners, but as lovers. ↗

— Fulton J. Sheen

#guilt #healing #love

The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. ↗

— Judith Lewis Herman

#post-traumatic-stress #psychotherapy #taboo #trauma #truth

To curb the machine and limit art to handicraft is a denial of opportunity. ↗

— Lewis Mumford

#curb #denial #handicraft #limit #machine

I'll never forget the day that I was told I would have to have a mastectomy. My reaction to the words was total denial. ↗

— Betty Ford

#denial #forget #i #mastectomy #never

If we can but tear the blindfold of self-deception from our eyes and loosen the gag of self-denial from our voices, we can restore our country to greatness. ↗

— Theodore C. Sorensen

#eyes #gag #greatness #loosen #our

Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd. ↗

— Annie Besant

#believe #denial #experience #given #limited

Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. ↗

— Charles Bradlaugh

#better #denial #free #free speech #speech

Did I miss the denial, anger, and bargaining phases, or did you leap straight to depression? ↗

— Kat Lowe

#depression #humor #loss #anger

What state do you live in? Denial. ↗

— Bill Watterson

#humor #humor

You shall find it greatly mitigates the sorrow of bereavements, if before bereavement you shall have learned to surrender every day all the things which are dearest to you into the keeping of your gracious God. ↗

— Charles H. Spurgeon

#faith #self-denial #surrender #trust #faith