“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
Confucius
“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” Confucius
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Forgiveness breaks the cycle of revenge by neutralizing resentment and cancelling out retaliation. By neutralizing resentment, you remove the hostile negative energy that motivates destructive acts of retaliation, and this can prevent the ever-expanding destructive consequences of vengeful behavior and can lead to an eventual state of peaceful coexistence.
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“Revenge… is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion.” (Jeremy Taylor)
“Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge,” (Edwin Hubbel Chapin)
“Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against natural instinct to pay back evil with evil.” (Pope John Paul II)
Getting Personal
Have you ever gotten revenge on someone because of a harm they had caused you? If yes, looking back on your vengeful actions, do you think you did the right thing by acting vengefully?
Do you agree or disagree with the message of today’s quotation by Confucius? Why or why not?
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