Quotes About Regret

I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, ‘OK, I’m looking back on my life. I want to minimise the number of regrets I have.’ And I knew that when I was 80, I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed, I wouldn’t regret that. But I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day.

Regret is an odd emotion because it comes only upon reflection. Regret lacks immediacy, and so its power seldom influences events when it could do some good.

At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent.

Listen widely to remove your doubts and be careful when speaking about the rest and your mistakes will be few. See much and get rid of what is dangerous and be careful in acting on the rest and your causes for regret will be few. Speaking without fault, acting without causing regret: 'upgrading' consists in this.

No one can avoid a challenge in life without breeding regret, and regret is the arsenic of life.

Of course, I do not regret the Bond days. I regret that sadly heroes in general are depicted with guns in their hands, and to tell the truth, I have always hated guns and what they represent.

The act of sending a letter is an act of generosity, even if, in retrospect, it might seem reckless. Why regret one's generosity? Why regret one's impulsiveness, one's misjudgment of others? The inevitable discovery that someone is selling letters you'd written in trust is simply to discover an obvious human truth: there are those who don't cherish us as we'd cherished them, and had wished to be cherished by them.

I regret the fact that Saddam [Hussein] didn't have weapons of mass destruction that we thought. I don't regret removing him from power.

I’d rather trust and regret than doubt and regret.

True remorse is never just a regret over consequences; it is a regret over motive.

I can't regret until the end. And I won't regret then, either.

I regret nothing, says arrogance; I will regret nothing, says inexperience.

I regret not starting to paint earlier...It is one of the few things I do regret.

You'll regret opening your mouth. You'll rarely regret keeping it shut.

To regret religion is to regret Western civilization.

What's my greatest fear? I don't know; I have lots of fears. Regret, I don't want to have any regrets; that makes me scared.

I don't regret any past. I am not there. I am not sorry not to make pictures, because I know one day I will do it. I intend to live 150 years.

I don't regret not coming out early. A lot of people felt that I could have been a lottery pick, but we'll never know.

A certain critic -- for such men, I regret to say, do exist -- made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.

It is with great regret that my marriage to Grant is ending after more than six years. He is a special man and we have two amazing children together Ruby, 5, and son Rocco, 3. This was a mutual decision that was not taken lightly and we are committed to our children and will work together to ensure their happy and healthy upbringing.

Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience.

I have always done my duty. I am ready to die. My only regret is for the friends I leave behind me.

But we have been to the Pole and we shall die like gentlemen. I regret only for the women we leave behind.

When I was young, I spent my days and nights trying to impress future generations. I spent them. They're gone. All because I was deathly afraid of being forgotten. And then came the regret. The worst things of all worst things.

If the errors of my life have profited me one great truth it is this: believe. Believe in your destiny and the star from which it shines. Believe you have been sent from God as an arrow pulled from his own bow. It is the single universal trait which the great of this earth have all shared, while the shadows are fraught with ghosts who roam the winds with mournful wails of regret on their lips. Believe as if your life depended upon it, for indeed it does.

Always regret the things you did do, never the things you didn't.

Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.

It's so much worse to regret something you never did. It's often worth running through your fears to their logical conclusion to help disperse them. One footnote - if life has taught me anything it's to trust the shy people. Popularity means a lot of people like you a bit, you have broad appeal. But who wants broad appeal? Interesting people are always a bit niche. Remember what Steven Patrick Morrissey said: "It takes guts to be gentle and kind.".

One of the things that made me suffer no regret when I was called away from the cramped intellectual jail of atheism into a wider and more wonderful world, was my growing conviction that my fellow atheists were shallow, men without insight into real human nature.

Neil [Simon] was considered our greatest [living playwright] at the time [of their marriage]. Maybe he still is; I don't know. But anyway, he was hugely successful, and I just kind of got folded into that. And in some ways, he protected me, but in other ways, I wasn't fully able to step out, you know? He didn't want me to go away so much. The work that we did together was great, and I don't regret it, but what I am saying is that I didn't get an opportunity to explore some other areas that were offered to me early on. I took what I might call a U-turn.

There is no reason to regret that I cannot finish the church. I will grow old but others will come after me. What must always be conserved is the spirit of the work, but its life has to depend on the generations it is handed down to and with whom it lives and is incarnated

If you learn from Saint Thérèse to depend on God alone and serve him with a wholly pure and detached heart, then you can join with your whole soul in singing the jubilant song of the holy Virgin, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” And like little St. Thérèse you will be able to say at the end, “I do not regret that I have given myself to love.”

Your remarks upon chemical notation with the variety of systems which have arisen, &c., &c., had almost stirred me up to regret publicly that such hindrances to the progress of science should exist. I cannot help thinking it a most unfortunate thing that men who as experimentalists & philosophers are the most fitted to advance the general cause of science & knowledge should by promulgation of their own theoretical views under the form of nomenclature, notation, or scale, actually retard its progress.

I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him.

I regret things all the time. I've never regretted not saying something. I've only regretted saying something.

I'd never understood the injunction not to regret anything, couldn't see how that wasn't cowardice.

I regret not dancing more, just cutting loose on the dance floor. I still admire those who don't care much about what others think of them.

Don't make me regret this", I said breathless. "You haven't regretted me once.

For every person who atones, a hundred others find regret sufficient.

If I lost your respect...I'm just hope you don't look at me as something you regret.

Memories are like fireflies darting across the surface of my mind, showing me here and there images so sharp and vivid that I catch my breath in wonder before the vignette disappears, sinking like a pebble into the quicksand of regret and recrimination.

I was at a restaurant and I heard this little voice at a nearby table pipe up and say, 'I believe I will have the chowder.' I got up and walked out into the middle of the restaurant. There was Sterling Holloway just sitting there being Sterling Holloway. Never in a million years would I have imagined that I'd have the honor of filling his shoes. I just regret not going up to him and saying hello.

Is a lifetime long enough to hold the regret that I have for that fantastically aborted but crazily sweet love affair?

Tabitha blinked innocently. "Why is your consort speaking to me without my having addressed him first?" she asked Kaia. "Have you not taught him the proper order of things?" So the little man wasn't supposed to speak to the women folk without an invitation? Screw that. "Just stay out of my head, Harpy, or I'll make sure you regret it. By the way, how's the leg?" She hissed at him. Win!

Nothing is more frustrating to me than putting a song on an album and regret putting it on there. I'm excited that there are no songs on 'Tailgates & Tanlines' that I'm iffy about.

...conscience looks backwards and judges past actions, inducing that kind of dissatisfaction, which if weak we call regret, and if severe remorse.

If I have one regret in my career, it is that I did not join Rangers a lot sooner.

All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.