TV’s Frink said:
the people whose lives you destroyed don’t matter, all that matters is that you’re sorry. Lovely.
Something I really wish that people would criticize more is that you don’t even really have to be sorry for the people you wronged or society at large. It takes a lot more courage to ask the destroyed lives for forgiveness than it does to ask such an intangible entity for forgiveness since you’re not really facing anybody.