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.

I am fifty years old and I have never known what it is to love. I can write those words, know them to be true, but feel only the regret that a tone-deaf man must feel because he can't appreicate music, a regret less keen because it is for something never known, not for something lost.

When your only regret is if anyone thinks you regret anything - that is the definition of conviction.

There's no reason to regret anything. Regret is a waste.

People in Russia say that those who do not regret the collapse of the Soviet Union have no heart, and those that do regret it have no brain.

No, I don't regret anything at this point. That may change on the next phone call, but at the moment I don't regret anything.

Some folks never try to grow beyond lives that have not realized that potential. And as long as they don't regret that, that's fine. Live and let live. But for those who regret never trying, it's a shame because the Web, as complex as it may seem, makes it all possible

The only things I regret, and the only things I'll ever regret are things I didn't do. In the end, that's what we mourn. The paths we didn't take. The people we didn't touch.

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

I have always believed that there is no point in having regrets as you learn far more from mistakes than successes. Embrace a mistake and learn from it; don't regret them.

Do you want to know what I most regret about my youth? That I didn't dream more boldly and demand of myself more impossible things; for all one does in maturity is to carve in granite or porphyry the soap bubble one blew in youth! Oh to have dreamed harder!

I don't regret the decision to retire. My body was losing its edge. I was taking longer to recover from injuries. You have to get out at some point.

I regret that I didn’t realize that actually they’ve got no power over you at school — it’s all just a trick to indoctrinate you into being a conditioned, tame, placid citizen. Rebel, children, I urge you, fight the turgid slick of conformity with which they seek to smother your glory.

Stop. I don't do you favors, Alec. I do things for you because - well, why do you think I do them?" Something rose up in Alec's throat, cutting off his response. It was always like this when he was with Magnus. It was as if there were a bubble of pain or regret that lived inside his heart, and when he wanted to say something, anything, that seemed meaningful or true, it rose up and choked off his words. "I need to get back to the ship," he said, finally.

Huizi would say, never look back to the past. Never regret. Even if there is emptiness ahead, never look back.

My religion is to live and die without regret.

A kiss for luck, demoiselle?" It is a magnificent, lusty kiss and I feel nothing but deep regret that it may be his last. Just before he pulls away, he whispers in my ear. "Duval said to give you that should I get a chance. It is from him.

And it's a necessity [for journalists] to pretend to be competent on every subject, some of which they really do not understand. They are under that necessity, I regret; I'm sorry for them. But to pretend to understand all the things you write about, and habitually to write about things you do not understand, is a very corrupting thing.

Man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake of the imperfections of their author. To confer duration is not always in our power. We must snatch the present moment, and employ it well, without too much solicitude for the future, and content ourselves with reflecting that our part is performed. He that waits for an opportunity to do much at once, may breathe out his life in idle wishes, and regret, in the last hour, his useless intentions and barren zeal.

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

Here I am, safely returned over those peaks from a journey far more beautiful and strange than anything I had hoped for or imagined - how is it that this safe return brings such regret?

I don't have one regret.

My attitude is born out of necessity. I've made mistakes. I've made decisions I regretted. I know what it's like to live with regret. I live with it everyday. But if I let it take over, I'd never get out of bed in the morning.

Each of us must pay for the slightest damage he inflicts upon a universe created for indifference and stagnation, sooner or later, he will regret not having left it intact.

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.

Maybe one small regret is that I never got to play with Paul Scholes - but I was never going to leave Barcelona and he was never going to leave Manchester United.

In middle age we are apt to reach the horrifying conclusion that all sorrow, all pain, all passionate regret and loss and bitter disillusionment are self-made

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.”

Tap into that one fear that drives greatness - the fear of regret.

Every gulp of air that goes out in a cause other than the cause of Allah will turn to sorrow and regret on the Day of Judgement.

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.

It took me less than half a lifetime to realize that regret is one of the few guaranteed certainties. Sooner or later everything is touched by it, despite our naive and senseless hope that just this time we will be spared its cold hand on our heart.

Mistakes are a drag, because you get in the area of regret and self-pity.

If you compromise and hire someone mediocre you will always regret it.

I've - that I regret. That was stupid and ignorant on my part. I went to a party as a guest of a friend of mine, a lawyer. And he had a client who I didn't know, except - maybe I'm pretending I didn't know, but he was a big investor in The New Yorker. And as I found out later in a book about The New Yorker, this guy was very unhappy about [Bill] Shawn.He thought Shawn was spending out - spending too much money on writers.

At a recent show, I looked out and I saw this girl crying in the audience and it really affected me. I wanted to stop the song and go and give her a hug. I should have, actually - I regret not doing that.

I live my life free of compromise, and step into the shadows without complaint or regret.

One must always regret that law of growth which renders necessary that kittens should spoil into demure cats, and bright, joyous school-girls develop into the spiritless, crystallized beings denominated young ladies.

The responsibility for the risks we posed to others in some of our most extreme actions in those underground years never leaves my thoughts for long. The antiwar movement in all its commitment, all its sacrifice and determination, could not stop the violence unleashed against Vietnam. And therein lies cause for real regret.

Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.

I never regret anything I do. It's part of who I am now, and I like who I am now.

To overcome prejudice, we can boldly speak against it and teach our children total intolerance for it. We can get to know one another; when we do so, the stereotypes that impede relationships will fall away. Finally, we can express regret to others for past prejudicial sins and ask God to forgive us and change our thinking.

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

There is nothing I've been through in my life that I regret, or that I would go back and change. I feel like everything that happened - personally and professionally - I went through for a reason, and I learned from those things.

I don't think I have any regrets, but I can tell you what I learned from mistakes or failures. I've had plenty of those. I just don't believe in regret, and my economic world is not what I would ever have imagined; I'm financially free.

May you get exactly what you want and live long enough to regret it.

Regret for time wasted can become a power for good in the time that remains, if we will only stop the waste and the idle, useless regretting.

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.