If a gift has come to you wrapped in obligations and tied tightly with a ribbon of guilt, then it's not really a gift at all. It's a manipulation. A gift should be something freely given that enhances your life and reminds you lovingly of the giver. ...
Too often the word 'prayer' induces guilt because we don't do enough of it. After all, I've never met anyone who said they pray too much! All of us fall short. And we often feel like our prayers fall flat.
The Miguel Syjuco character is not me. I wanted him to represent my own fears and frustrations and guilt, my own worst tendencies and my optimistic expectations. He's a cautionary tale for me. But he's also an examination of the darkest things that h...
The first day I walked into prison, and he slammed that door, I knew the magnitude of the decision that I made, and the poor judgment, and what I allowed to happen to the animals. And, you know, it's no way of explaining the hurt and the guilt that I...
My identity has always been confused. Born in Edinburgh of a Scottish/Russian/Jewish mother and an English/Irish/Catholic father, there is no form of guilt to which I was not subjected in my childhood. Members of my immediate family live all over the...
Every time I act on a fear, I feel disappointed in myself. I have a lot of fear. If I can quit all fear in my life and all guilt, then I tend to be much, much more living up to my standards. I've never seen a person fail if they didn't fear failure.
Most of us in the baby-boom generation were raised by full-time mothers. Even as recently as 14 years ago, 6 out of 10 mothers with babies were staying at home. Today that is totally reversed. Does that mean we love our children less than our mothers...
Being poor with three small children is terrifying. You can't make any plans. You know you're not going on holiday, ever. There's no way you could ever afford driving lessons or a car. And the guilt I used to feel: they had holes in their shoes, and ...
I'm not denying that depression can be spiritually induced. Guilt from having wronged and hurt others can bring it on. A sense of having failed to live out the will of God can give rise to depression. Certainly the fear of death and what might follow...
Psychopaths are actually, really, really, really rare in our culture, are people who don't... Or in society, in the world. They're people who don't feel guilt. They're people who don't feel fear. I think that most of us feel those things. There's a k...
Consciously or not, we are all on a quest for answers, trying to learn the lessons of life. We grapple with fear and guilt. We search for meaning, love, and power. We try to understand fear, loss, and time. We seek to discover who we are and how we c...
It is the truth of grace and not of the law that brings you true freedom. The truth of the law only binds you. In fact, religious bondage is one of the most crippling bondages with which a person can be encumbered. Religious bondage keeps one in cons...
I certainly don't feel any more super than any of the other people I knew in my working life... Quite the reverse. In fact, guilt is my middle name, and I think anybody who does do that thing with work and children and everything knows exactly what I...
But I think I can sincerely declare that I cheerfully submit myself to every odious name for conscience' sake; and from my soul I despise all those whose guilt, malice, or folly has made them my foes.
Affirmative action is a little like the professional football draft. The NFL awards its No. 1 draft choices to the lowest-ranked team in the league. It doesn't do this out of compassion or guilt. It's done for mutual survival. They understand that a ...
I always have the feeling we are merely fearfully trying to save room for God; I would rather speak of God at the center than at the limits, in strength rather than weakness, and thus in human life and goodness rather than in death and guilt.
You know what I hate? I hate people who give me plants. The whole giving someone plants - it's like giving someone a pet. I'm giving you responsibility, I'm giving you a thing that you now have to take care of for, like, a year until it dies, and the...
John Ballantine: That Freud stuff's a bunch of hooey. Dr. Alex Brulov: Oh, you are a fine one to talk! You have a guilt complex and amnesia and you don't know if you are coming or going from somewhere, but Freud is hooey! *This* you know! Hmph! Wiseg...
One of the profound effects of economics in our day is that the people with the money and the power have embraced the guilt-free, external-less, everything-will-turn-out-okay-in-the-end philosophy of economics in order to justify their own evil works...
I grew up as a Mormon, and that had more of an impact on my values than my beliefs. I'm afraid I will always feel the weight of a lie. I'm very hard on myself anyway. Religious guilt carries over too. You can't really misbehave without feeling badly ...
Herondales." Zachariah's voice was a breath, half laughter, half pain. "I had almost forgotten. No other family does so much for love, or feels so much guilt for it. Don't carry the weight of the world on you, Jace. It's too heavy for even a Herondal...
