“In the struggle against injustice, it’s easy to let bitterness and hatred harden your heart. As Marcus Aurelius wrote: ‘What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.’ When we close ourselves off to love and hope, we naturally experience less love and hope. The Bible reminds us that ‘whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble.’ And James Baldwin, that ‘hatred…has never failed to destroy the men who hated.’ Hatred corrodes. It takes you south, backward, down, down to depths. Love, on the other hand, protects, trusts, hopes, preserves. Love does not fail. It takes you north, it leads you forward. It always wins. Which way are you going? Is your heart growing or shrinking? Is your love and compassion and connection for other people, your hope for a better future, growing or shrinking?”
Ryan Holiday
Grudge Quotes
“If there is animosity between two people, both are to blame. Any number you multiply by zero, however big, will equal zero. If there is animosity, then, it is the animosity of two people toward each other, and it exists in both of them.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 130)
“The best revenge is to exact no revenge at all. If someone treats you rudely and you respond with rudeness, you have not done anything but prove to them that they were justified in their actions. If you meet other people’s dishonesty with dishonesty of your own, guess what? You’re proving them right—now everyone is a liar.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 306)
“When we hold on to our resentments toward ourselves or anyone else, we bind ourselves to the very thing that has caused us pain by a cord stronger than steel. As my dear friend Brent BecVar shares, refusing to forgive those who have hurt us ‘is like being a drowning person whose head is being held under water by someone else. At some point you realize that you have to be the one who fights your way back to the surface.’“
Debbie Ford, The Shadow Effect (Page 141)
“[When asked if she held any anger towards Hitler] I wouldn’t hold on to any anger toward Hitler. If I did, he would win the war, because I would still be carrying him around with me wherever I went.”
Edith Eva Eger, Auschwitz survivor, via The Shadow Effect (Page 140)
“If we could read the secret history of those we would like to punish, we would find in each life enough grief and suffering to make us stop wishing anything more on them.”
Unknown, via Sunbeams (Page 96)
“Forgiveness is a powerful spiritual tool, without it we are damned as individuals and as a people. Forgiveness means letting go. It means being willing to accept that we are all mortals flawed and suffering, imperfectly made and trying our best. That sometimes there is a collision of instinct. Am I determined that the world must be as I decree. Do I see a future in that way of thinking, especially when it’s done nothing but bring me pain so far? What am I holding on to? What is gained by withholding forgiveness, for ruminating on a concluded event, by holding on to bygone pain and wishing ill upon a man just like me? Nothing.”
Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 134)
“I shed my guilt when I accepted my decision on its own terms, without endlessly prosecuting old grievances, without weighing his sins against mine. Without thinking of my father at all. I learned to accept my decision for my own sake, because of me, not because of him. Because I needed it, not because he deserved it.”
Tara Westover, Educated
“Hatred is a curse that does not affect the hated. It only poisons the hater. Release a grudge as if it was a poison.”
Kevin Kelly, Blog
Zen Parable on Grudges and Letting Things Go
Excerpt: The following is a short story about a monk who carried a wealthy woman across muddy water. What he says to his upset disciple may shock you.
Read More »Zen Parable on Grudges and Letting Things Go
“Some people do not even want to look at a person when the person is alive, but when the person dies they write eloquent obituaries and make offerings of flowers. At that point the person has died and cannot really enjoy the fragrance of the flowers anymore. If we really understood and remembered that life was impermanent, we would do everything we could to make the other person happy right here and right now. If we spend twenty-four hours being angry at our beloved, it is because we are ignorant of impermanence.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
