"Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit."

-- Peter Ustinov

This is one of the best quotes listed in Sir Peter Ustinov's obituary from the BBC in 2004.

This quote seems to imply that forgiving others in their trifling mistakes

again

and

again

will give you habitual eyes of compassion.

The classic example is the dirty sock example.

It took a great deal of forgiveness before my wife stopped asking me to put my socks in the hamper. Soon after taking off my shoes I would want to take off my socks when I get home.

It didn't matter if I was on the sofa or in bed, that's where the socks went.

For years my wife would ask me to put them in the hamper.

One day she stopped asking me.

She just smiled or said nothing at all.

This was more powerful than anything she had ever done. She simply forgave me for leaving my socks around without condemning me. This motivated me not only to put my socks in the hamper but also to do the laundry and dry the clothes. As for me, I learned a habit of cleaning up after myself and others.

As for my wife, she learned a habit of forgiveness. She stopped nagging the kids to do their homework, but simply made a space for them and smiled. Her habit of forgiveness motivated them to read books and help out by cleaning off the table and washing the dishes creating good habits in the kids. There is some power in forgiveness that comes from love.

Love cannot be described in one sentence.

One aspect of love is forgiveness.

This is an important aspect of love because it can be demonstrated. When forgiveness is repeated then one grows in a habit of looking at others with tenderness, kindness, gentleness and compassion instead of condescendingly, grudgingly, sarcastically or with condemnation.

As I thought about Peter Ustinov's quote I was moved and wanted to practice this forgiveness with my students and other teachers and at home with my wife and children.

But then I found another version of this quote as follows:

“Love is an act of endless forgiveness. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.”

— Peter Ustinov

I couldn't find any reliable source for this second quote except webpages that list famous quotes like Fancy Quotes .com. This second version of Peter Ustinov's quote gives me a different feeling from the first.

It seems to me that this second quote came later in life explaining the first quote in a sort of joking way, but truthful in itself:

“Love is an act of endless forgiveness. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.”

Here he is saying that if you love yourself then you can forgive yourself even if you don't do all those bothersome things. It might take some time and practice, but you can learn to do it.

Basically he is saying that you can learn to forgive yourself for not doing your homework. I think it is a really cute variation of his original quote.

The truth is that we do get older and irritable. We cannot do all the things we used to do. Forgiving others is powerful. We also need to forgive ourselves. It takes some effort, but over time we can make a habit of forgiving ourselves as well.

I am not an 82 year old secular humanist, but no one can say that I can't learn a thing or two from him.

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