Inspirational and Insightful Quotations #65 --- Grudges

To hold a grudge against someone else has always seemed to be a most foolish and senseless thing to do. Nothing is ever accomplished by it and often years of unhappy feelings upon the part of those involved. Every day that we harbor ill feelings toward someone else we harbor poison in our heart. We can neither be wholly healthy, nor happy while it is there. Get rid of it. Resentment grows in people’s minds like a wild weed in a fertile field. The day is just a little brighter, the air just a little cleaner and fresher, and all the beauty of this earth is enriched, the moment that you drop all resentment, all bitterness, and all unkind thoughts toward anyone. It has been grudges, resentments and inward hatred that have brought war upon the world and shrouded it in darkness. Why should any human being add to it? Be bitter toward no one!

---George Matthew Adams, Waycross Journal-Herald, Waycross, Ga., Dec. 17, 1941.

To maintain a grudge is to place a strain on the heart.

---Edmund J. Kiefer, Buffalo Courier-Express, Buffalo, N.Y., May 4, 1965.

To give and grudge is no better than not to give at all.

---Elijah Powell Brown, Columbus Journal, Columbus, Neb., Dec. 23, 1896.

The heart is not a fit place to put grudges in; they belong to the rubbish pile.

---William Jennings Bryan, Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., Dec. 21, 1910.

The man or woman who nurses a grudge little realize that they carry instruments to wound and lacerate themselves—that they receive the injury which they intended for another.

---James H. Wallis, Vernal Express, Vernal, Utah, Oct. 26, 1917.

It seems that the man who owes a grudge wants to pay more than he owes, and wants to pay more than once.

---William J. Burtscher, Gilboa Monitor, Gilboa, N.Y., March 11, 1915.

Don’t hold a grudge. If the man is mean, it’s too real a compliment to him to waste time and vitality hating him.

---Frank Crane, Milwaukee Journal, Milwaukee, Wis., Jan. 16, 1917.

Grudges grow colossal through cultivation, but always wither when neglected.

---John Wesley Holland, Avon Herald-News, Avon, N.Y., Feb. 2, 1940.

Don’t lay up grudges. Life is not long enough to whip every man that needs it.

---E.W. “Ed” Howe, Atchison Globe, Atchison, Kan., Dec. 8, 1877.

There are too many grudges, and not enough gratitude.

---Eugene Alexander “Gene” Howe, Atchison Daily Globe, Atchison, Kan., Feb. 6, 1919.

Why develop any more grudges while the world is already overstocked?

---Roy L. Smith, Buffalo Courier-Express, Buffalo, N.Y., April 13, 1925.

He who lays up grudges in his soul is saving heartaches for his old age.

---Roy L. Smith, Buffalo Courier-Express, Buffalo, N.Y., Jan. 10, 1928.

Unhappiness is too big a price to pay for the privilege of keeping grudges.

---Roy L. Smith, Buffalo Courier-Express, Buffalo, N.Y., July 17, 1928.

When a man begins to harbor grudges he begins to lose interest in life’s beauties.

---Roy L. Smith, Buffalo Courier-Express, Buffalo, N.Y., July 28, 1930.

There is nothing that grows faster because of nursing than a grudge.

---Roy L. Smith, Buffalo Courier-Express, Buffalo, N.Y., July 10, 1934.

We are all quick to think evil of those against whom we hold a grudge.

---Roy L. Smith, Buffalo Courier-Express, Buffalo, N.Y., March 16, 1933.

One who is in the habit of nursing grievances will always have a full hospital.

---Roy L. Smith, Buffalo Courier-Express, Buffalo, N.Y., Dec. 17, 1935.

Quarrels would not last if we were willing to let grudges die a natural death.

---Roy L. Smith, Buffalo Courier-Express, Buffalo, N.Y., May 23, 1934.

It costs far more trouble to keep a grudge alive than to bury it.

---Roy L. Smith, Buffalo Courier-Express, Buffalo, N.Y., April 9, 1931.

Gratitude is a two-way experience: thanks expressed and thanks received. Giving and receiving thanks creates goodwill and friendship, grudges do not.

---Erle David Clark, The News-Chronicle, Pawling, N.Y., Nov. 21, 1979.

Lots of people have garage sales, but one guy I know is so mad at the world that he is having a grudge sale.

---Eugene C. Pearse, Tully Independent, Tully, N.Y., Aug. 4, 1977.

Having a grudge against yourself is almost as foolish as having one against the other fellow.

---Duncan M. Smith, Evening Independent, St. Petersburg, Fla., Nov. 1, 1911.

The heaviest debts which shadow any man’s credit are the grudges he has resolved to pay.

---Raymond Duncan, Waycross Journal-Herald, Waycross, Ga., April 20, 1940.

You can never make a grievance well by nursing one.

---Carey Williams, Waycross Journal-Herald, Waycross, Ga., May 15, 1933.

You cannot afford to hold a grudge—not for the other fellow’s sake, but for your own sake. You might as well nurse a snake in your bosom as to nurse a grudge in your heart. A snake will bite you; so will a grudge. A grudge will not only bit you but it will eat you up in time. It will corrode your spiritual machinery so that it cannot operate well or at all.

There is much more to your place in this world than using your mind and your body; you are a trinity, made up of the physical, the mental, the spiritual. The greatest of these, the most important of these is the spiritual side of you. You can do strange things, you can accomplish astonishing results if you will keep your spiritual side alive, active and strong. It is through your spiritual side or your soul side that you contact the invincible, imperishable powers of the universe, of eternity.

You might as well pour sand into the working parts of your automobile as to get the wrong kind of elements into your spiritual mechanism.

A man who allows his mind to be filled with thoughts of hate, of bitterness or resentment toward anybody is doing himself more harm than he is doing anyone else. He is making himself uncomfortable, even miserable; he feels as if ants were crawling all over him next to his skin and as if he had swallowed a live crab. It is hard for a man to enjoy life, if indeed it is not impossible for him to enjoy life, if he is nursing grudges, no matter how much reason he may have to nurse them.

When a man does you a dirty trick, that is his fault, not yours. You should not allow a sentiment to build up within you that would do you more harm than it would him, simply because he has done something reprehensible to you. That would be playing directly into his hands; that would be allowing the dart he had cast at you to stick into you and remain there, irritating and bedeviling you.

Do not misunderstand me. I do not think that you or anyone else is required to put up with anybody’s rascality or evil ways. It may be necessary to discipline a man for something he has done; it may be necessary even to eliminate him. But the disciplining, the eliminating should be done calmly, unemotionally, just like spraying nicotine sulphate on plant lice, or setting traps to get rid of rats.

Holding a grudge has a strong tendency to sour the disposition, to upset the digestion, to produce insomnia, and generally to reduce the efficiency.

If you have enemies from which you must protect yourself, or if you are fighting the enemies of public welfare, you are going to need to keep your disposition in as good shape as possible; you are going to need your digestion and your ability to sleep; you are going to need more than ever your efficiency and, above all, you are going to need to keep in the best possible working order that spiritual side of yourself which enables you to make clear contact with the invincible, eternal powers that would use you, if you will but cooperate as a force for general betterment. So don’t snarl yourself up by harboring grudges.

---Wickes Wamboldt, Waycross Journal-Herald, Waycross, Ga., Aug. 5, 1933.

“Never carry a grudge. At sunrise every soul is born again.”

That is a statement by Patrick Hurley.

It is worth pondering.

Even if today you feel justified in entertaining a grudge against John Doe, tomorrow John Doe will be a different person and tomorrow you will be a different person.

A grudge that has some justification today may have no justification when the sun rises again.

You may ask what is the use of forming a grudge if you cannot keep it but twenty-four hours.

There you have the point.

There is not the slightest use to form a grudge because no two people can remain what they were at the time the grudge was formed.

Overlooking that has got many a person into an embarrassing position.

He keeps on estimating John Doe to be the same person while everyone else looks upon him as a different person.

He is way behind the times and does not know it.

That is not all.

Maintaining a grudge changes the person who holds the grudge.

He thinks other people have poor judgment if they do not see that the grudge is still justified.

He picks up a grudge against those who differ with him about the original grudge.

He gets more and more “grudgy.”

Putting it euphemistically, a grudgy person is a peculiar person.

When you are a peculiar person you get peculiar treatment.

That’s tough, even for a grudgy person.

And it gets tougher and tougher.

---Jack Williams, Sr., Waycross Journal-Herald, Waycross, Ga., Jan. 9, 1946.

Nothing brings on premature age like a secret grudge. A troubled mind makes the body old. Getting rid of petty grievances is like stripping for the race. The surest way of "looking our best" at the party is looking with eagerness and equanimity to greeting everybody who will be there. The real nourisher of the body is a calm and radiant spirit. Forgiving a foe stimulates the flow of life's juices. It unblocks the channels of peace which are essential to the poised person.

Buried imagined injustices will someday be blown up by some dynamite of circumstance; we would be wiser to bring them out into the light and let the sunshine destroy them.

Did you ever turn over an old board of a log and see the bugs and the worms scurry for cover? They cannot endure the sunlight. Buried spite and hate, and prejudice and envy, and ill will, and a sense of mistreatment and injustice in your heart and mind need to be brought out into the sunlight. They will not stand it but will want to hide. Let us force them to stay out of our heart until the sunlight of truth has destroyed them.

Our modern mental diseases are largely due to nourished self-pride which has been hurt.

Clean out the attic. See what is being kept in the dust among the cobwebs. Each of us has accumulated things of yesterday. Have you any old injuries, any old hates, any old prejudices, any old senses of injury stored away? Let's get them out in the open. If they concern someone we can visit let's go see him. We will likely find him eager for what we want--peace and good will.

—Floyd Poe, Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, Nov. 23, 1949.

Nursing a grudge will never restore your peace of mind.

—Benjamin Arstein, San Antonio Express, San Antonio, Texas, June 21, 1911.

Vindictiveness is the jaundice of memory.

—Henry F. Cope, Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Ill., May 17, 1908.

Carrying a grudge is carrying things too far.

—Bill Copeland, Sarasota Journal, Sarasota, Fla., April 20, 1966.

Ironically, you lose your grip when you hold a grudge.

—Bill Copeland, Sarasota Journal, Sarasota, Fla., May 14, 1969.

The heaviest thing you can hold is a grudge.

—Bill Copeland, Sarasota Journal, Sarasota, Fla., May 3, 1973.

Never hold a grudge–you'll get your hands messy.

—B.C. Forbes, Forbes Magazine, New York, N.Y., April 26, 1924.

Appearances may be deceiving, but the way some people hold on to a grudge you'd think it had handles.

—Jack Haney, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, La., April 10, 1926.

You can't keep your friends if you keep grudges.

—Bert Moses, Lake Charles American-Press, Lake Charles, La., Sept. 10, 1924.

The most unprofitable holding is grudge holding.

—George H. Brimhall, Long and Short Range Arrows, Provo, Utah, 1934.

Nursing a grudge is always a tiresome business.

—Roy L. Smith, Christian Advocate, Chicago, Ill., Sept. 12, 1946.

Some grudges seem to have nine lives because they are catty.

—Roy L. Smith, Christian Advocate, Chicago, Ill., May 15, 1947.

Throw overboard your grudge if you find life's sea a bit rough.

—Roy L. Smith, Tampa Morning Tribune, Tampa, Fla., Jan. 2, 1931.

The best cure for any grudge is to let it die of neglect.

—Roy L. Smith, Tampa Morning Tribune, Tampa, Fla., Dec. 5, 1932. I

t costs more to nurse a grudge than to bury it.

—Roy L. Smith, Tampa Morning Tribune, Tampa, Fla., July 13, 1934.

There is nothing that grows faster because of nursing than a grudge.

—Roy L. Smith, Tampa Morning Tribune, Tampa, Fla., July 24, 1934.

Man's memory is very short unless he is nursing an old grudge.

—Carey Williams, Beaumont Enterprise, Beaumont, Texas, Oct. 16, 1960.

While you are holding a grudge, the grudge is holding you.

—Carson City News, Carson City, Nev., July 12, 1922.

There is one big difference between owing money and owing a grudge. We usually try to pay our grudges.

—The Commercial Dispatch, Columbus, Miss., May 14, 1936.

Do not preach a long funeral sermon every time you bury one of your grudges.

—Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, June 1, 1904.

Human nature is willing to bury its grudges, provided it is assisted in erecting monuments over them.

—Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, July 22, 1913.

There are those who would rather nurse their grudges than to put them to sleep.

—Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, Dec. 20, 1909.

A grudging compliance is worst than a plain refusal.

—Milwaukee Journal, Milwaukee, Wis., July 27, 1895.

The man who carries a grudge through life is so overloaded that he hasn't room for anything else.

—Eastern Utah Advocate, Price, Utah, April 11, 1907.

Bear a grudge long enough and it becomes unbearable.

—Chinook Opinion, Chinook, Mont., Aug. 21, 1947.