Quotes About Regret

What haunted people even, perhaps especially, on their deathbed? What chased them, tortured them and brought some of them to their knees? And [he] thought he had the answer. Regret. Regret for things said, things done, and things not done. Regret for the people they might have been. And failed to be.

Let me tell you a few things about regret...There is no end to it. You cannot find the beginning of the chain that brought us from there to here. Should you regret the whole chain, and the air in between, or each link separately as if you could uncouple them? Do you regret the beginning which ended so badly, or just the ending itself?

Boldness in the course of a noble fight is worth the risk... If you stand on truth, you'll only regret your timidity later, but you'll never regret being bold.

If you do what you think is right for the benefit of everybody and everything and you make decisions, to go back and regret them afterwards - it's a futile experience and it's not worth thinking about. Because life just unfolds. Provided you do your best and you think you're on the right track, you can only be right or wrong. But to regret it - I don't think there are any huge errors or misdemeanors.

I do not regret getting married nor do I regret getting divorced.

Consider the possibility that I made a mistake I regret-and that I'll continue to regret that mistake and try to convince you to give me another chance until the earth stops turning.

I think I don't regret a single 'excess' of my responsive youth - I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace.

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.

But what's regret anyway? Regret, I am learning these days, is a lot of things. But mostly, it's a slippery seed of longing, of looking back and asking yourself why you didn't know better when the answers were so obvious all along.

Living in regret will become your biggest regret.

Strauss admits to being obsessed by his mother's rejection, and with the resultant rents in self-esteem. The Game echoes with disturbingly abusive comments leveled at his adolescent self, a self he feels was unacceptable. With bravado, he expresses regret that he didn't rack up more sexual conquests in his teens; in person, he expresses a truer regret that he was intimidated by life itself.

A regret understood by no one: the regret to be a pessimist. It’s not easy to be on the wrong foot with life.

I never regret anything. I always said that when I'm old, I want to be sitting there regretting the things that I did and not the things that I didn't do; and now I'm old, and I don't regret anything! I had fun. I had fun, and I'm still having it.

No. I don’t regret it. It wasn’t the right thing to do, but I don’t regret it. - Toni

To regret religion is to regret Western civilization.

I am an average mother in almost every way, so yes, much to my regret, I do yell at my children.

Pack a pillow and blanket and see as much of the world as you can.You will not regret it.

No. No, I don't believe you'd betray me with her. I don't believe you'd cheat on me. But I'm afraid, and I'm sick in my heart that you might look at her, then at me. And regret.

While it is important to trash the governor, it should be done in the context of regret, sadness and balance.

Right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past - the best evidence of regret for them that we can offer, or the world receive.

You didn't want to die. Most mortals don't, even if they find themselves in as desolate and soul-destroying a spot as you. Almost all of those who take their own lives wish at the last moment that they hadn't. They see at the end how much they've given up, how precious life is, even when it's treated them like dirt and crushed their dreams. Many think they've passed beyond hope, but they never really have, not until they pass beyond life itself. Alas, that knowledge comes too late for most would-be-suicides and they die with regret. Very few are offered the chance that you have been handed.

A brotherly person rejoices on my account when he approves me, but when he disapproves, he is loving me. To such people I will reveal myself. They will take heart from my good traits, and sigh with sadness at my bad ones. My good points are instilled by you and are your gifts. My bad points are my faults and your judgements on them. Let them take heart from the one and regret the other. Let both praise and tears ascend in your sight from brotherly hearts, your censers. ...But you Lord...Make perfect my imperfections.

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.

Regret is an appalling waste of energy, and no one who intends to be a writer can afford to indulge in it.

When the human organism is discharging its negative experience efficiently, the mind is empty of past or future concerns; there is no worry, anticipation, or regret. This means that the mind is left open to Being, the simplest state of awareness.

I think that the whole idea of ‘no regrets’ was always a silly idea to me, because of course I regret all the places I went wrong, but that’s what creating anything, and being human, is all about. Of course if I could go back and knew what I know now, I absolutely would do it differently, I’d do it the right way, but part of being human is that we can’t go back, we can only hope that if we come across that moment again, we’ll do it the right way.

One truth discovered, one pang of regret at not being able to express it, is better than all the fluency and flippancy in the world.

Present fear is never as bad as later regret.

My father told me "If you choose to let this money destroy your initiative and independence, then it will be a curse to you and my action in giving it to you will have been a mistake. I shall regret very much to have you miss the glorious feeling of accomplishment. Remember that often adversity is a blessing in disguise and is certainly the greatest character builder."

I believe the war on terror is the vital discussion of this decade and of our generation, probably. To win the war on terror, you need a good offense and a good defense. On defense, I regret to say, basically, this administration has not come close to doing what is necessary.

The tattooed nation will live to regret this voluntary disfigurement.

I regret exceedingly that the disputes between the protestants and Roman Catholics should be carried to the serious alarming height mentioned in your letters. Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause; and I was not without hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy of the present age would have put an effectual stop to contentions of this kind.

Don't regret growing older...remember that a lot of sugar is to be found at the bottom of the cup.

I regret that I can't sit in the stands and watch me.

Remember, the pain of rejection is nothing compared to the pain of regret.

Pretty much I don't regret anything that has happened in my life. One thing is I wish I could have spent more time with my mama and my pa.

A life totally committed to God has nothing to fear, nothing to lose, nothing to regret.

I regret the times I've been mean to people... It's fine to pick on people who can defend themselves and deserve it. Some people don't deserve to be picked on who I picked on, so I don't do it anymore.

You'll regret the day you ever messed with Philadelphia Collins and sons

And oh, god, how could so much regret and so much sweetness and so much sadness all be present in that single moment. I was already dead and missing my unlived life. I was already dead and Tobias was mourning. I tried to smile. For him.

Time will make it worse! You're...the other half of his soul. He's never going to get over you. And no matter how much you hope that you will... you'll never get over him. You're going to wake up one day and realize what you've done, and you're going to regret the time you wasted apart from him for the rest of your life.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.

Everybody has anger or regret in them one way or another. They all try different things to get it out. Some people go to psychiatrists. Some paint pictures. Some people talk it out.

Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused!

The biggest regret? This may be one of those years I have no regrets.

I don't know how to incorporate regret. But I'll say, like, "It affected me that way," "I learned this," "Next time maybe I'll do it differently".

If a man in the morning hear the right way, he may die in the evening without regret.

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice... No one can live in the light all the time.