"Under very trying conditions I have had to forgive others—also myself." – Bill W., As Bill Sees It
"We go to him in a helpful and forgiving spirit, confessing our former ill feeling and expressing our regret." – Big Book 
"Our moral inventory had persuaded us that all-round forgiveness was desirable, but it was only when we resolutely tackled Step Five that we inwardly knew we’d be able to receive forgiveness and give it, too." – 12&12
". . . and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us . . ." – Matthew 6:12
"How unhappy is he who cannot forgive himself." – Publilius Syrus 
"Lord, make me a channel of thy peace . . . that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness . . ." – St. Francis Prayer, 12&12, S11, p. 99 
"He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself." – Edward Herbert 
"To err is human, to forgive, divine." – Alexander Pope
"It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend." – William Blake 
"A man that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green." – Francis Bacon 
"I can forgive, but I cannot forget,' is only another way of saying, 'I cannot forgive.'" – Henry Ward Beecher 
"To understand all is to forgive all." – Evelyn Waugh 
"There is a hard law: When an injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive." – Alan Paton 
"Real forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin, at the sin that is left over without any excuse, after all allowances have been made, and seeing it in all horror, dirt, meanness and malice, and nevertheless being reconciled to the man who has done it. That, and only that, is forgiveness; and that we can always have from God if we ask for it." – C. S. Lewis 
"Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom." – Hannah Arendt 
"Forgiveness is an eminent form of giving which affirms the dignity of the other by acknowledging him for who he is, beyond what he does." – Pope John Paul II 
"When you forgive, you in no way change the past—but you sure do change the future." – Bernard Meltzer 
"Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die." – Anne Lamott 
"Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners." – Miroslav Volf 
"Since nothing we intend is ever faultless, and nothing we attempt ever without error, and nothing we achieve without some measure of finitude and fallibility we call humanness, we are saved by forgiveness." – David Augsburger 
"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." – Lewis B. Smedes 
"Every time I try to tighten the noose of resentment around someone’s neck, I am really only choking myself. Today I will practice forgiveness instead.” – Al-Anon’s Courage to Change 
"Gratitude for being forgiven will in turn make us more forgiving and help us to let go of anger and resentment, and, as we give thanks for what has been given us so freely, we will become more generous and desire to give in equal measure." – PTP123 
"Where resentment is the problem, forgiveness is always the solution. It is the corrective virtue." – PTP4 
For more PTP123 on forgiveness, see pp. 29, 34. For PTP4, see pp. 24, 28, 29, 40, 50, 272, 387, 405, 435, 436; and guilt, 197–198; and letting go, 326, 404, 406; as corrective virtue, 405, 424; as golden mean, 285, 386; of self, 198, 222, 223; vs. unforgiveness, 143, 193, 198, 264, 272, 385, 386. For more Big Book and 12&12 passages, click on 164andmore.com and search forgive and its cognates. See also entries in As Bill Sees It. For a secular, empirically-based and research-supported account of how the virtue promotes mental and physical health, see “An Unlikely Cure for a 9/11 hero: How Forgiveness Improves Mental and Physical Health,” Part 3 of a series on “Virtue Medicine.”
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