# Quote — Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

> What characterizes the human race more,’ Karla once asked me, ‘cruelty or the capacity to feel shame for it?’ I thought the question was acutely clever then, when I first heard it, but I’m lonelier and wiser now, and I know that it isn’t cruelty or shame that characterizes the human races. It’s forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would’ve annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive.

- Author: [Gregory David Roberts](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts.md)
- Book: [Shantaram](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts/shantaram.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Shantaram#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts/shantaram/what-characterizes-the

## More from this book

> The only victory that really counts in prison is survival.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts/shantaram/the-only-victory.md)

> Mistakes are like bad loves, the more you learn from them, the more you wish they’d never happened. - Karla

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts/shantaram/mistakes-are-like.md)

> Men wage war for profit or principle, but they fight them for land and women.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts/shantaram/men-wage-war.md)