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.

When I'm old I'm never going to say,I didn't do this or, I regret that. I'm going to say,I don't regret a damn thing. I came, I went, and I did it all.

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.

The burden of regret can weigh us down heavily on our spiritual journey. The best way to release regret is to forgive ourselves.

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.

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

Living in regret will become your biggest regret.

If you did something in 1975 that you deeply regret and that you now can recognize as having been profoundly irresponsible, for example, the only way to be lifted out of deep regret and the pain over it is through atonement - through the kind of remorse that leads to genuine atonement, the making of amends, and forgiveness of self and others.

I don't regret my past, I just regret the time I've wasted on the wrong people.

No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been born, dying is such a long tiresome business I always found.

We don't have to be defined by the things we did or didn't do in our past. Some people allow themselves to be controlled by regret. Maybe it's a regret, maybe it's not. It's merely something that happened. Get over it.

Using the stratagem of defining character by what changes and what remains the same, the one constant always seems to be regret. We are defined by the objects of our regret.

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

My biggest regret? Well, I got my boobs done in my early 20's and if I had known it would or could possibly have impacted production of milk, I would never have had them done. I love being a mom.

He felt a momentary pang of regret that he had not spent more time with his beloved wife. But it passed when he remembered that the reason he’d gone to sea in the first place was that he had never really liked his beloved wife.

The feeling I have reminds me of New Year’s Eve, when the countdown is coming and I’m not quite sure whether to grab my camera or just live in the moment. Usually I grab the camera and later regret it when the picture doesn’t turn out. Then I feel enormously let down and think to myself that the night would have been more fun if it didn’t mean quite so much, if I weren’t forced to analyze where I’ve been and where I’m going.

Who that has plodded on to middle age would take back upon his shoulders ten of the vanished years, with their mingled pleasures and pains? Who would return to the youth he is forever pretending to regret?

Sacrfice," the captain said. "You made one. I made one. We all made them. But you were angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost. You didn't get it. Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to.

There were times when I thought I got a bit more punishment than was coming to me, but I don't regret a minute of it now. Each of us must be tempered in some fire. Nobody had more to do with choosing the fire that tempered me than myself, and instead of finding fault with the fire I give thanks that I had the metal to take the temper and hold it.

Anyone who doesn't regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.

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.

I have always tempered my killing with respect for the game pursued. I see the animal not only as a target, but as a living creature with more freedom than I will ever have. I take that life if I can, with regret as well as joy, and with the sure knowledge that nature's way of fang and claw and starvation are a far crueler fate than I bestow.

Never say never. For the right reason, over the years I've been auctioning off masks for charity and it's always for a good cause. I think you would regret it if you just sold it for money.

Indeed, Xcor stayed away for the wrong reason, the bad reason, an unacceptable reason—in spite of all his training, he found himself choosing Throe’s life over ambition: His anger had taken him in one direction, but his regret had led him in another. And the latter one was what won out.

Later in my life, I'm going to look back and smile and be very fulfilled. I know that if I don't give it my all right now I'll regret it later. That's very important to me, because I've worked all my life to have this.

I am more than willing to be judged by the people you claim to represent. I will let them decide what price I should pay. But please do not sit up there with that smug look on your face and expect me to regret the decisions I have made. Because, sir, the truth is I don't.

I thought instead of a good rule for survival on Wall Street: Never agree to anything proposed on someone else's boat or you'll regret in in the morning.

My deepest regret from my years in public service is the failure of the United States and the international community to act sooner to halt these crimes.

I am not a trained actor and am not near the top of anyone's want list. I go after what I am offered, if I am so inclined. Now and then, I get offers for things that are not to my liking, in that I just don't care about the story. All this super tough guy stuff isn't anything that interests me all that much. I can't think of anything I turned down that I regret.

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.".

I don't regret any tweets. I'm not a tweeter and deleter. So I have no regrets.

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.

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.

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

Guilt, regret, resentment, sadness & all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past & not enough presence.

Believe me - I've done very good stuff and very crazy stuff, and I don't regret the crazy stuff.

Don't wear excessive make-up as you grow older. Young women can wear whatever make-up they want, but if you are older, you will regret it.

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.

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.

As for Ellai, she told her sister what had passed, and Nitid wept, and her tears fell to earth and became chimaera, children of regret.

Only one person in a thousand knows the trick of really living in the present. Most of us spend fifty-nine minutes an hour living in the past, with regret for lost joys or shame for things badly done (both utterly useless and weakening) or in a future which we either long for or dread. . . . There is only one minute in which you are alive, this minute, here and now. The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle. Which is exactly what it is-a miracle and unrepeatable.

You mustn't regret decisions that you make. Because the decisions are made out of your gut in a way and you have to stick with them.

The calm. If there is God or something Higher for me it is this. The calm. If there is something that will hold me when I need to hold it is this the calm. There is no anger, no rage, no Fury. There is no want, no need, no desire. There is no hatred no shame no regret. There is no grief, no sadness, no depression. There is no fear. Absolutely no fear. When one lives without fear, one cannot be broken. When one lives with fear one is broken before one begins to live.

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.

Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

Regret is just life's aftertaste.

If you spend five minutes complaining, you have just wasted five minutes. If you continue complaining, it won't be long before they haul you out to a financial desert and there let you choke on the dust of your own regret.

Every song has a piece of you in it, because just general regret, love. You have to basically zero in on the truth of those particular emotions.