#shame

... for when a man's spirit has been thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offenses, but never resentful of great ones. ↗

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

#crushed-spirit #gloom #house-of-the-seven-gables #low #men

It's not about me. It's about not having to be ashamed. ↗

— Gene Robinson

#ashamed #having #me

By vulgarity I mean that vice of civilization which makes man ashamed of himself and his next of kin, and pretend to be somebody else. ↗

— Solomon Schechter

#civilization #else #himself #his #i

I don't think it's shameful to admit that some days your time can be better spent reading than writing. ↗

— Curtis Sittenfeld

#better #days #i #our time #reading

Ivanov: No, my clever young thing, it's not a question of romance. I say as before God that I will endure everything - depression and mental illness and ruin and the loss of my wife and premature old age and loneliness - but I cannot tolerate, cannot endure being ridiculous in my own eyes. I'm dying of shame at the thought that I, a healthy, strong man, have turned into some sort of Hamlet or Manfred, some sort of 'superfluous man'... devil knows precisely what! There are pitiful people who are flattered by being called Hamlet or superfluous men, but for me it's a disgrace! It stirs up my pride, I'm overcome by shame and I suffer... ↗

— Anton Chekhov

#loneliness #shame #age

O [Roman] people be ashamed; be ashamed of your lives. Almost no cities are free of evil dens, are altogether free of impurities, except the cities in which the barbarians have begun to live... Let nobody think otherwise, the vices of our bad lives have alone conquered us... The Goths lie, but are chaste, the Franks lie, but are but are generous, the Saxons are savage in cruelty...but are admirable in chastity...what hope can there be [for the Romans] when the barbarians are more pure [than they]?" -Salvian ↗

— William J Federer

#barbarians #dual-meaning #evil #evil-men #evil-people

When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose. ↗

— Brené Brown

#narcissism #self-worth #shame #courage

They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper that would roar and dip its nose and carry you off to the world. A mere matter of falling, yet no one ever fell. It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were too frightened to be cowards. ↗

— Tim O'Brien

#embarrassment #shame #war #courage

If we are going to find our way out of shame and back to each other, vulnerability is the path and courage is the light. To set down those lists of *what we're supposed to be* is brave. To love ourselves and support each other in the process of becoming real is perhaps the greatest single act of daring greatly. ↗

— Brené Brown

#light #shame #vulnerability #courage

When you die, do you want to feel ashamed of what you've done with your life? Feel ashamed of what your life meant? ↗

— Jim Butcher

#shame #death