Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion typically associated with a negative evaluation of the self; withdrawal motivations; and feelings of distress, exposure, mistrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness. Shame is a deeply troubling emotion that lead people to lie, manipulate, project, and even shame kill.

“Healthy shame is the psychological foundation of humility. It is the source of spirituality.” – John Bradshaw

Top Quotes on Shame

• Shame is the emotion which gives us permission to be human. Shame tells us of our limits. Shame keeps us in our human boundaries, letting us know we can and will make mistakes, and that we need help. – John Bradshaw, Healing the shame that bind you
• Guilt, of course, is feeling bad about one’s actions, but shame is feeling bad about oneself. – Greg Boyle

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.” – Carl Jung

• Humans have long used shaming as a weapon to preserve social order and cohesion; indeed our brains are hardwired to register shame. – Shaili Jain
• Those events that once made me feel ashamed and disgraced now allow me to share with others how to become a useful member of the human race. – Bill Wilson
• The difference between guilt and shame is very clear–in theory. We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are. – Lewis B. Smedes

Shame is a particularly acute risk for mental illness. – Nicola Gates

• Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee! – William Shakespeare
• Shame is like everything else; live with it for long enough and it becomes part of the furniture. – Salman Rushdie
• The way out of shame is to own it, and go on being your best, showing up rather than hiding because of it. Don’t let shame own you and keep you small. – Debra Campbell
• Shame regulates differences, creates secrets, builds up a charge. The counterforce and antithesis of shame is desire, which with all its being seeks to eliminate differences, to do away with secrets, release tensions. – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself. – Anais Nin
• Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. – Benjamin Franklin
• Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It’s the fear that we’re not good enough. – Brene Brown

Shame is an ornament of the young; a disgrace of the old. – Aristotle

• Shame is always easier to handle if you have someone to share it with.-Craig Thompson
• Shame should be reserved for the things we choose to do, not the circumstances that life puts on us.– Ann Patchett
• It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed.-Horace
• You cannot really shame a man who sincerely does not care what others think of him.-Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.-Brene Brown

• Shame is an attachment to negative self-perception that has been fostered by the perceptions and opinions of others. Shame is a wasted sensibility. – Devon St. Claire
• Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame. – Benjamin Franklin
• Don’t turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you.– Rumi
• Guilt is “I made a mistake, I did something wrong.” Shame is “I’m a mistake, something is wrong with me.” At the core of our wounding is the unbearable emotional pain resulting from having internalized the false message that we are not loved because we are personally defective and shameful.— Robert Burney

The problem with shame is that we have absorbed incorrect conclusions about ourselves, based on the past actions or reactions of a trusted loved one. These conclusions tend to be quite intense and persistent, with a nagging voice that they are the ultimate truth, and anything else we tell ourselves is just a lie to make ourselves feel better. – Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again

• Therapy is one of the safest of all places to bring your shame. But faced with lying by omission or confronting their shame, they may duck out altogether. Which, of course, solves nothing. – Lori Gottlieb,  Maybe You Should Talk to Someone