Forgiveness is indifference. Forgiveness is impossible while love

Yes — that quote is correctly attributed to Mary Boykin Chesnut, the 19th-century American diarist best known for Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, her vivid firsthand chronicle of life in the Confederate South.

“Forgiveness is indifference. Forgiveness is impossible while love lasts.”
— Mary Boykin Chesnut

Context and Meaning

This striking line appears in Chesnut’s Civil War Diary, a work that combines historical observation with sharp psychological insight. She often reflected on human emotion, loyalty, betrayal, and moral conflict, both in the context of war and personal relationships.

Here, Chesnut equates forgiveness not with virtue but with emotional detachment. In her view, one cannot truly forgive someone while still emotionally bound — through love, passion, or resentment. Only when love fades into indifference does forgiveness become possible, because the heart is no longer invested in the injury.

Interpretation

The quote reveals Chesnut’s realistic and unsentimental perspective on human nature. Rather than idealizing forgiveness as a noble act of grace, she presents it as something that arises after emotion has cooled — when one no longer cares deeply enough to remain hurt.

It’s a deeply introspective observation, characteristic of her writing style: poised between the emotional candor of a woman living through upheaval and the intellectual rigor of a keen social observer.