Top Self Blame Quotes

Browse top 82 famous quotes and sayings about Self Blame by most favorite authors.

Favorite Self Blame Quotes

1. "Egypt.mother of civilization, dreaming herself through the centuries. Dreaming us all, her children: those who stay and work for her and complain of her, and those who leave and yearn for her and blame her with bitterness for driving them away."
Author: Ahdaf Soueif
2. "All our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise: therefore, if you choose to use the bad, or those which tend to evil till they become your masters, and neglect the good till they dwindle away, you have only yourself to blame."
Author: Anne Bronte
3. "I pray not to be such a whiny, self-obsessed baby, and give thanks that I am not quite as bad as I used to be (talk about miracles). Then something comes up, and I overreact and blame and sulk, and it feels like I haven't made any progress at all. But it turns out I'm less of a brat than before, and I hit the reset button much sooner, shake it off, and get my sense if humor back."
Author: Anne Lamott
4. "We've all made selfish, bad decisionsWe've all tried dishing out the blameConvinced our selves of our own actionsMy problem is I'll never changeIn doubt, some good comes outI'll fold before it's timeCan't promise you that it's my last time, yeah."
Author: Avenged Sevenfold
5. "Look out!! Ha! Now you've done it! Now you've broken a lamp, and you've got no one to blame it on but yourself!""Maybe I could blame it on society!"
Author: Charles M. Schulz
6. "THEO: You should walk a fucking mile before you judge a situation. You should put yourself in someone else's shoes before you blame, or judge, or pity. It takes a long time to wear down someone's confidence, and it takes much more strength of will to walk away than it does to take another punch."
Author: Con Riley
7. "Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self-exaltation. To be humble is not to make comparisons. Secure in its reality, the self is neither better nor worse, bigger nor smaller, than anything else in the universe. It *is*--is nothing, yet at the same time one with everything. It is in this sense that humility is absolute self-effacement.To be nothing in the self-effacement of humility, yet, for the sake of the task, to embody its whole weight and importance in your earing, as the one who has been called to undertake it. To give to people, works, poetry, art, what the self can contribute, and to take, simply and freely, what belongs to it by reason of its identity. Praise and blame, the winds of success and adversity, blow over such a life without leaving a trace or upsetting its balance."
Author: Dag Hammarskjöld
8. "We make allowance for a certain degree of selfishness in men; because we know it to be inseparable from human nature, and inherent in our frame and constitution. By this reflexion we correct those sentiments of blame, which so naturally arise upon any opposition."
Author: David Hume
9. "People pontificate, "Suicide is selfishness." Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call in a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reason: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one's audience with one's mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what's selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching."
Author: David Mitchell
10. "I matched my heated tone with one of pure ice. "I believe I did attempt to relate to you the facts of my calls and you interrupted me with a rather magnificent display of temper much as you are doing now. If you do not have all the facts of the case perhaps you have no one but yourself to blame." Brisbane opened his mouth and shut it with a snap. His mouth remained closed but I could hear him muttering under his breath. "What are you saying?" "I am counting. To one hundred. In Cantonese."
Author: Deanna Raybourn
11. "The superior man blames himself. The inferior man blames others."
Author: Don Shula
12. "The Great Man... is colder, harder, less hesitating, and without fear of 'opinion'; he lacks the virtues that accompany respect and 'respectability,' and altogether everything that is the 'virtue of the herd.' If he cannot lead, he goes alone... He knows he is incommunicable: he finds it tasteless to be familiar... When not speaking to himself, he wears a mask. There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or blame."
Author: Friedrich Nietzsche
13. "You're not terrified of me. You're terrified of letting yourself care for me, and I can't say I blame you. People who love me usually end up dead. But you see, I'm not going to give you any choice. You belong to me now whether you like it or not.""I don't like it, not one bit!""Try to escape," he suggested coolly. "Go ahead. See what happens. Give me one excuse to take what I want from you, even if it is against your will. I want you that much. Too damned much." He turned without warning and kissed her, flattening her back against the pine mast."
Author: Gaelen Foley
14. "He had no one but himself to blame, for he'd opened himself up to it. Just a fraction at first, like a crack in a window. But the funny thing was, onceyou welcomed in a breeze, there was no stopping what came next. A wind, a storm, thunder and lightning, until you could no longer reach thewindow to close it—and didn't really want to anyway. That's what this new darkness was. Evil in its purest form...-Paris"
Author: Gena Showalter
15. "It would be a poor result of all our anguish and our wrestling if we won nothing but our old selves at the end of it--if we could return to the same blind loves, the same self-confident blame, the same light thoughts of human suffering, the same frivolous gossip over blighted human lives, the same feeble sense of the Unknown towards which we have sent forth irrepressible cries in our loneliness. Let us rather be thankful that our sorrow lives in us as an indestructable force, only changing its form, as forces do, and passing from pain into sympathy--the one poor word which includes all our best insight and our best love."
Author: George Eliot
16. "If I put my head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire or to the maker of fire, and I have only myself to blame."
Author: Henry David Thoreau
17. "As long as he deceived himself about the truth, he could blame fortune and have confidence in the future. Now the clouds of madness were closing round his mind."
Author: Hermann Bahr
18. "Above all, he liked it that everything was one's own fault. There was only oneself to praise or blame. Luck was a servant and not a master. Luck had to be accepted with a shrug or taken advantage of up to the hilt. But it had to be understood and recognized for what it was and not confused with a faulty appreciation of the odds, for, at gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck. And luck in all its moods had to be loved and not feared"
Author: Ian Fleming
19. "Being late was a special kind of modern suffering, with blended elements of rising tension, self-blame, self-pity, misanthropy, and a yearning for what could not be had outside theoretical physics: time reversal."
Author: Ian McEwan
20. "At least, that had been what he had thought until the night he had lost himself to Legna's wicked eyes. He had blamed it on the moon, reaffirming the weakness to himself later on when he found himself stalking the halls of Noah's home far oftener than could be explained away, always watching as Legna floated from one room to another, seemingly oblivious to him, never remaining in his sight for more than a minute at a time."
Author: Jacquelyn Frank
21. "This is stupid.""Look. You think how stupid people are most of the time. Old men drink. Women at a village fair. Boys throwing stones at birds. Life. The foolishness and the vanity, the selfishness and the waste. The pettiness, the silliness. You think in war it must be different. Must be better. With death around the corner, men united against hardship, the cunning of the enemy, people must think harder, faster, be...better. Be heroic.Only it's just the same. In fact do you know, because of all that pressure, and worry, and fear, it's worse. There aren't many men who think clearest when the stakes are highest. So people are even stupider in war than the rest of the time. Thinking about how they'll dodge the blame, or grab the glory, or save their skins, rather than about what will actually work. There's no job that forgives stupidity more than soldiering. No job that encourages it more."
Author: Joe Abercrombie
22. "When you blame yourself, you learn from it. If you blame someone else, you don't learn nothing, cause hey, it's not your fault, it's his fault, over there."
Author: Joe Strummer
23. "Always thought of myself as a loving person. But she was right. I had been a fair-weather friend. As long as she was happy and nice, I loved back. But if she was unhappy or upset, I would feel blamed and then argue or distance myself"
Author: John Gray
24. "There is no deception on the part of the woman, where a man bewilders himself: if he deludes his own wits, I can certainly acquit the women. Whatever man allows his mind to dwell upon the imprint his imagination has foolishly taken of women, is fanning the flames within himself -- and, since the woman knows nothing about it, she is not to blame. For if a man incites himself to drown, and will not restrain himself, it is not the water's fault."
Author: John Gower
25. "If we only look around us, there are a thousand reasons for us not to be happy, and it is simplicity itself to blame our unhappiness on the things we lack in life. It doesn't take any talent at all to find them. The problem is, the more we focus on the things we don't have, the more unhappy and more resentful we become."
Author: Joseph B. Wirthlin
26. "Ibn al-Arabi gave this advice:Do not attach yourself to any particular creed exclusively, so that you may disbelieve all the rest; otherwise you will lose much good, nay, you will fail to recognize the real truth of the matter. God, the omnipresent and omnipotent, is not limited by any one creed, for he says, 'Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah' (Koran 2:109). Everyone praises what he believes; his god is his own creature, and in praising it he praises himself. Consequently, he blames the disbelief of others, which he would not do if he were just, but his dislike is based on ignorance."
Author: Karen Armstrong
27. "Mrs. Treadwell moved away again, from the threat of human nearness, of feeling. If she stayed to listen, she knew she would weaken little by little, she would warm up in spite of herself, perhaps in the end identify herself with the other, take on his griefs and wrongs, and if it came to that, feel finally guilty as if she herself had caused them; yes, and he would believe it too, and blame her freely. It had happened too often, could she not learn at last? All of it was no good, neither for confidant nor listener. There was no cure, no comfort, tears change nothing and words can never get at the truth. No, don't tell me any more about yourself, I am not listening, you cannot force my attention. I don't want to know you, and I will not know you. Don't try to come nearer."
Author: Katherine Anne Porter
28. "[Capitalism assumed] that from the beginning all men are equal. If that were so everyone would be equipped with the same working power, the same education and, above all, the same economic assets … each person would [then] have only himself to blame if he did not succeed."
Author: Knut Wicksell
29. "Trust me, Anita, if you get dead, especially if he blames himself in any way, he will be a force of destruction looking for a place to be aimed. And he's blamed himself for introducing you to Olaf here from the get-go. If Olaf did to you what he's done to some of his other victims, Edward would drown the world in blood to erase those images."
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
30. "To gain your heart's desire you have to lose some part of your old life, your old self. To do that you have to have courage; without it, you can't make the leap. And if you don't make the leap you have only three choices: You can hate yourself for not taking the chance, you can hate the person from whom you've sacrificed your happiness, or you can hate the one who offered you happiness, and blame them for your lack of courage, convince yourself it wasn't real."
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
31. "Our culture believes strong individuals can transcend their circumstances. I myself don't much enjoy books by Hardy or Dreiser or Wharton, where the outside world is so strong, so overwhelming, that the individual hasn't a chance. I get impatient, I keep feeling that somehow the deck is stacked unfairly. That is the point, of course, but my feeling is that if that's true, I don't want to play. I prefer to move to another table where I can retain my illusion, if illusion it be, that I'm working only against only probabilities, and have a chance to win. Then if you lose, you can blame it on your own poor playing. That is called a tragic flaw, and like guilt, it's very comforting. You can go on believing that there really is a right way, and you just didn't find it."
Author: Marilyn French
32. "You talk about vengeance. Is vengeance going to bring your son back to you or my boy to me? I forgo the vengeance of my son. But I have selfish reasons, my youngest son was forced to leave this country because of this Sollozzo business. All right, now I have to make arrangements to bring him back here safely cleared of all these false charges. But I'm a superstitious man and if some unlucky accident should befall him, if he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if should hang himself in his jail cell, or if he's struck by a bolt of lightening, then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room, and that I do not forgive. But, that aside, let me say that I swear, on the souls of my grandchildren, that I will not be the one to break the peace we have made here today."
Author: Mario Puzo
33. "How does one go on after doing such unspeakable things? It'sall rather simple, really," he continued, speaking in someone else's voice. "Say to yourself, 'What things?' And it becomes clear...you are blameless. They brought it on themselves. What have they ever done for you except control your life? They tore you away from your sister; they ripped you from your home. Did you ask to be saved? No! Forget them and start over...with us, your true family, my Corcitura, my own."
Author: Melika Dannese Lux
34. "Often when you go into a relationship with someone you like, you have to justify why you like that person. You only see what you want to see and you deny there are things you don't like about that person. You lie to yourself just to make yourself right. Then you make assumptions, and one of the assumptions is "My love will change this person." But this is not true. Your love will not change anybody. If others change, it's because they want to change, not because you can change them. Then something happens between the two of you, and you get hurt. Suddenly you see what you didn't want to see before, only now it is amplified by your emotional poison. Now you have to justify your emotional pain and blame them for your choices."
Author: Miguel Ruiz
35. "Here's a secret: Everyone, if they live long enough, will lose their way at some point. You will lose your way, you will wake up one morning and find yourself lost. This is a hard, simple truth. If it hasn't happened to you yet, consider yourself lucky. When it does, when one day you look around and nothing is recognizable, when you find yourself alone in a dark wood having lost the way, you may find it easier to blame it on someone else -- an errant lover, a missing father, a bad childhood -- or it may be easier to blame the map you were given -- folded too many times, out-of-date, tiny print -- but mostly, if you are honest, you will only be able to blame yourself.One day I'll tell my daughter a story about a dark time, the dark days before she was born, and how her coming was a ray of light. We got lost for a while, the story will begin, but then we found our way."
Author: Nick Flynn
36. "If they cannot forgive me my foibles, then they are not such good people, no?"..."But they do forgive your foibles. They would welcome your company, too. But if you joined them, you would not understand what they were talking about. You would not have had the experiences that bind them together. You would be an outsider, not because of any act of theirs, but because you have not passed along the road that teaches you to be one of them. You will feel like an exile from the beautiful garden, but it will be you who exiled yourself. And yet you will blame them, and call them judgmental and unforgiving, even as it is your own pain and bitter memory that condemns you, your own ignorance of virtue that makes you a stranger in the land that should have been your home."
Author: Orson Scott Card
37. "If you are ignorant of Lora Delane Porter's books that is your affair. Perhaps you are more to be pitied than censured. Nature probably gave you the wrong shape of forehead. Mrs. Porter herself would have put it down to some atavistic tendency or pre-natal influence. She put most things down to that. She blamed nearly all the defects of the modern world, from weak intellects to in-growing toe-nails, on long-dead ladies and gentlemen who, safe in the family vault, imagined that they had established their alibi. She subpoenaed grandfathers and even great-grandfathers to give evidence to show that the reason Twentieth-Century Willie squinted or had to spend his winters in Arizona was their own shocking health ‘way back in the days beyond recall."
Author: P.G. Wodehouse
38. "I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands.That is why it is so late and why I have been guilty of such omissions.They come with their laws and their codes to bind me fast; but Ievade them ever, for I am only waiting for love to give myself up atlast into his hands.People blame me and call me heedless; I doubt not they are rightin their blame.The market day is over and work is all done for the busy. Thosewho came to call me in vain have gone back in anger. I am onlywaiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands."
Author: Rabindranath Tagore
39. "... Mother Nature is punishing us, ..., for our greed and selfishness. We torture her at all hours by iron and wood, fire and stone. We dig her up and dump her in the sea. We sink mine shafts into her and drag out her entrails - and all for a jewel to wear on a pretty finer. Who can blame her if she occasionally quivers with anger?" - Pliny, Pg. 176"
Author: Robert Harris
40. "If you realize that you're the problem, then you can change yourself, learn something and grow wiser. Don't blame other people for your problems."
Author: Robert T. Kiyosaki
41. "After I left here on Saturday, I decided never to see you again."He was sliding the frittata under the broiler, so she could only see his profile, but damn if he didn't appear to be smirking."I know that, darling. It wounds my pride you won't go out with me, but I can console myself with the knowledge that when you do see me, you can't keep your knickers on for ten minutes running."She threw her cookie at him, feigning indignation. "You bastard! Are you calling me easy?""I like you easy. Besides, you're not to blame. Who'd want to wear wet knickers?"
Author: Ruthie Knox
42. "Sometimes, I cannot control myself. Please do not blame me, its not me. Maybe it is someone who knows better about me."
Author: Santosh Kalwar
43. "He knows she's his daughter, twit. (Artemis)Twit? Moi? The Simi? Why, I do believe the bitch-goddess has done gone and gotten herself confused. She thinks she's me, not that I blame her. All women want to be me because of my beautoneousness and the fact that I have such stylish clothing and sparklies. But believe me, I ain't no heifer-goddess. (Simi)"
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon
44. "All of the things that have happened in my life have been self-propelled. I can't blame anybody else or point a finger at anybody."
Author: Shia LaBeouf
45. "There was just such a man when I was young—an Austrian who invented a new way of life and convinced himself that he was the chap to make it work. He tried to impose his reformation by the sword, and plunged the civilized world into misery and chaos. But the thing which this fellow had overlooked, my friend, was that he had a predecessor in the reformation business, called Jesus Christ. Perhaps we may assume that Jesus knew as much as the Austrian did about saving people. But the odd thing is that Jesus did not turn the disciples into strom troopers, burn down the Temple at Jerusalem, and fix the blame on Pontius Pilate. On the contrary, he made it clear that the business of the philosopher was to make ideas available, and not to impose them on people."
Author: T.H. White
46. "She discovered, when it was too late, that she had mistaken the means for the end—that riches, rightly used, are instruments of happiness, but are not in themselves happiness. In this wilful blight of her affections, she found them valueless as means: they had been the end to which she had immolated all her affections, and were now the only end that remained to her. She did not confess this to herself as a principle of action, but it operated through the medium of unconscious self-deception, and terminated in inveterate avarice. She laid on external things the blame of her mind's internal disorder, and thus became by degrees an accomplished scold."
Author: Thomas Love Peacock
47. "Snow falls in the Moosewood Sandhills, on ghost burrows, deer woods, in the bone-home, last snow. What does it mean to become nothing? You've dug a cave in the earth, room of knowing, room of tears. It means to place yourself beneath irrational things and know they are without blame. The potato smell of the dark. You've given up."
Author: Tim Lilburn
48. "Those who blamed aggression formed Amity.'…‘Those who blamed ignorance became the Erudite.'…‘Those who blamed duplicity created Candor.'…‘Those who blamed selfishness made Abnegation.'…‘And those who blamed cowardice were the Dauntless."
Author: Veronica Roth
49. "For twenty-five years I've been speaking and writing in defense of your right to happiness in this world, condemning your inability to take what is your due, to secure what you won in bloody battles on the barricades of Paris and Vienna, in the American Civil War, in the Russian Revolution. Your Paris ended with Petain and Laval, your Vienna with Hitler, your Russia with Stalin, and your America may well end in the rule of the Ku Klux Klan! You've been more successful in winning your freedom than in securing it for yourself and others. This I knew long ago. What I did not understand was why time and again, after fighting your way out of a swamp, you sank into a worse one. Then groping and cautiously looking about me, I gradually found out what has enslaved you: YOUR SLAVE DRIVER IS YOU YOURSELF. No one is to blame for your slavery but you yourself. No one else, I say!"
Author: Wilhelm Reich
50. "I never blame myself when I'm not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn't my fault that I'm not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?"
Author: Yogi Berra

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I call on the international community to be fair to the Iraqi people. My position is that we respect international resolutions but in return demand justice and accountability for those who stole Iraq's money."
Author: Ahmed Chalabi

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