WILL MUNNY: It’s a helluva thing killing a man. You take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have.
SCHOFIELD KID: Well, I guess they had it coming.
WILL MUNNY: We all have it coming, kid.
David Peoples (b. 1940) American screenwriter
Unforgiven (film) (1992)
Will Munny was played by Clint Eastwood.
Quotations about:
guilt
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
A great many people feel “guilty” about things they shouldn’t feel guilty about, in order to shut out feelings of guilt about the things they should feel guilty about.
Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986) Anglo-American columnist, journalist, author
Column, Chicago Daily News (1971)
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.
Herman Hesse (1877-1962) German-born Swiss poet, novelist, painter
Demian, ch. 6 (1919)
Admit thy guilt and and seek forgiveness, for the denial of guilt is two iniquities.
Solomon ibn Gabirol (fl. 11th Century) Andalusian poet and Jewish philosopher [a.k.a. Solomon ben Judah, Avicebron]
Choice of Pearls, 109 [tr. Cohen (1925)]
That hatred springs more from self-contempt than from a legitimate grievance is seen in the intimate connection between hatred and a guilty conscience.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The True Believer, ch. 69 (1951)
HAMLET: Use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 2, sc. 2, l. 555ff (2.2.555) (c. 1600)
(Source)
BRUTUS: The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins
Remorse from power.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Julius Caesar, Act 2, sc. 1, l. 19ff (2.1.19-20) (1599)
(Source)
My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.
Anna Sewell (1820-1878) English novelist
Black Beauty, Part 3, ch. 33 “Dolly and a Real Gentleman” (1877)
(Source)
The guilty think all talk is of themselves.
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) English poet, philosopher, astronomer, diplomat
The Canterbury Tales, “The Canon’s Yeoman’s Prologue” (1390?) [tr. Coghill (1951)]
When thinking about life, remember this: no amount of guilt can change the past, and no amount of anxiety can change the future.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Anonymous
If you ask any police officer what the worst part of the job is, they will always say breaking bad news to relatives, but this is not the truth. The worst part is staying in the room after you’ve broken the news, so that you’re forced to be there when someone’s life disintegrates around them. Some people say it doesn’t bother them — such people are not to be trusted.
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Rivers of London [Midnight Riot] (2011)
Things said or done long years ago,
Or things I did not do or say
But thought that I might say or do,
Weigh me down, and not a day
But something is recalled,
My conscience or my vanity appalled.William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) Irish poet and dramatist
“Vacillation,” st. 4 (1932), The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)
(Source)
Every time I’ve done something that doesn’t feel right, it’s ended up not being right.
Mario Cuomo (1932-2015) American politician
(Attributed)
You always said people don’t do what they believe in,
they just do what’s most convenient, then they repent.Bob Dylan (b. 1941) American singer, songwriter
“Brownsville Girl,” Knocked Out Loaded (1986)
The secret demerits of which we alone, perhaps, are conscious, are often more difficult to bear than those which have been publicly censured in us, and thus in some degree atoned for.
To live is to war with trolls in heart and soul.
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) Norwegian poet and playwright
Letter to Ludwig Passarge (16 Jun 1890)
Discussing Peter Gynt, which Passarge was translating. Often paraphrased "To live is to war against the trolls."
That what cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, ch. 4 (1759)
(Source)
It is almost impossible to remain silent in the face of tyranny without, by this very act of silence, becoming an agent of that tyranny.
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (b. 1941) American author
Against Therapy, Conclusion (1988)
There are things you can’t walk away from. Not if you want to live with yourself afterward.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Death Masks (2003)
There are conditions of blindness so voluntary that they become complicity.
Bad rulers … are in constant fear lest others are conspiring to inflict upon them the punishment which they are conscious of deserving.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian politician, philosopher, political scientist
The Discourses on Livy, Book 3, ch. 6 (1517) [tr. Detmold (1882)]
Remorse drives the weak to despair and the strong to sainthood.
[Die Reue treibt den Schwachen zur Verzweiflung und macht den Starken zum Heiligen.]
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) Austrian writer
Aphorisms [Aphorismen], No. 412 (1880) [tr. Scrase/Mieder (1994)]
Propaganda thus serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 14, § 84 (1951)
(Source)
One element in all happiness is to feel that we have deserved it.
[Il entre dans la composition de tout bonheur l’idée de l’avoir mérité.]
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 5 “Des Passions et des Affections de l’Âme [On the Soul],” ¶ 31 (1850 ed.) [tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 4, ¶ 21]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
Into the composition of every happiness enters the thought of having deserved it.
[tr. Calvert (1866), ch. 5]
It is an element of all happiness to fancy that we deserve it.
[tr. Collins (1928), ch. 5]
It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, “whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,” and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
(Attributed)
Cited in some cases as the closing argument while defending the British Soldiers accused of killing 5 colonists in the "Boston Massacre" (usually given as "Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials" (Dec 1770)), but I did not find it in accounts of that defense.
In old age the root of virtue is fatigue; in youth, fear.
Paul Eldridge (1888-1982) American educator, novelist, poet
Maxims for a Modern Man, #258 (1965)
(Source)
In my heart there may be doubt that I deserve the Nobel award over other men of letters whom I hold in respect and reverence — but there is no question of my pleasure and pride in having it for myself.
Whenever I meet Ukridge’s Aunt Julia I have the same curious illusion of having just committed some particularly unsavoury crime and — what is more — of having done it with swollen hands, enlarged feet, and trousers bagging at the knee on a morning when I had omitted to shave.
P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) Anglo-American humorist, playwright and lyricist [Pelham Grenville Wodehouse]
Ukridge (1924)
For it is in the person’s choice that wickedness and the commission of injustice are found.
[ἐν γὰρ τῇ προαιρέσει ἡ μοχθηρία καὶ τὸ ἀδικεῖν]
Aristotle (384-322 BC) Greek philosopher
Rhetoric [Ῥητορική; Ars Rhetorica], Book 1, ch. 13, sec. 10 (1.13.10) / 1374a.11 (350 BC) [tr. Bartlett (2019)]
(Source)
Often given as "The intention makes the crime." (Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:
For the criminality and injustice of the act stands essentially in the deliberate principle on which it is done.
[tr. Buckley (1850)]
For vice and wrong-doing depend on the moral purpose.
[tr. Jebb (1873)]
It is deliberate purpose that constitutes wickedness and criminal guilt.
[tr. Roberts (1924)]
For vice and wrongdoing consist in the moral purpose.
[tr. Freese (1926)]
For the immorality and wrongness of an act depend on intentional choice.
[tr. Waterfield (2018)]
CONSCIENCE: the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
Ben, the ethics of sex is a thorny problem. Each of us is forced to grope for a solution he can live with — in the face of a preposterous, unworkable, and evil code of so-called ‘morals.’ Most of us know the code is wrong; almost everybody breaks it. But we pay Danegeld by feeling guilty and giving lip service. Willy-nilly, the code rides us, dead and stinking, an albatross around the neck.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Stranger in a Strange Land [Jubal] (1961)
(Source)
In the 1960 "uncut" edition, the passage reads as: "Ben, the ethics of sex is a thorny problem because each of us has to find a solution pragmatically compatible with a preposterous, utterly unworkable, and evil public code of so-called "morals." Most of us know, or suspect, that the public code is wrong, and we break it. Nevertheless we pay Danegeld by giving it lip service in public and feeling guilty about breaking it in private. Willy-nilly, that code rides us, dead and stinking, an albatross around the neck."
He who helps the guilty, shares the crime.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 139
Finish every day and be done with it. For manners and for wise living it is a vice to remember. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Letter to one of his daughters
(Source)
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
[Żaden płatek śniegu nie czuje się odpowiedzialny za lawinę.]
Stanislaw Lec (1909-1966) Polish aphorist, poet, satirist
More Unkempt Thoughts [Myśli nieuczesane nowe] (1964) [tr. Gałązka (1969)]
(Source)
Alternate translation: "Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty."
More discussion of this quotation here: No Snowflake in an Avalanche Ever Feels Responsible – Quote Investigator.
Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you can be booked.
Robert D. Specht (1913-1996) American research analyst
(Attributed)
Summarized in various Murphy's Laws lists as "Specht's Meta-Law," as in Paul Dickson, The Official Rules. See also Cardinal Richelieu.