Popular quotes about Regret! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 68
I rise today with no small measure of regret, regret because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics, regret because of the indecency of our discourse.
Jeff FlakeWhy does man regret, even though he may endeavour to banish any such regret, that he has followed the one natural impulse, rather than the other; and why does he further feel that he ought to regret his conduct? Man in this respect differs profoundly from the lower animals.
Charles DarwinIf 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.
Robert PlantNo one can avoid a challenge in life without breeding regret, and regret is the arsenic of life.
Esther WilliamsI 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.
P. D. JamesStrauss 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.
Antonella Gambotto-BurkeOn out deathbeds we're not going to regret all the work we didn't do. We're going to regret all the sex we didn't have!
John BetjemanNo. I donโt regret it. It wasnโt the right thing to do, but I donโt regret it. - Toni
Maya BanksLife is all about change. We cling to what we know and what we have, and then we lose it, and then we regret not having it and try to replace it by finding and changing to something else.
Lesley ChoyceI 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.
Richard BransonI'd love to do a golf movie. I turned down Don Johnson's role in 'Tin Cup.' I regret that.
Dennis QuaidAll I can do is engage with complete sincerity. Then whatever happens, there is no regret.
Dalai LamaWhen you resolve to become pious, the devil in your nature cries out at you, "Tread not those paths, O confused one; distress and poverty will overcome you. You will be despised, let down by friends, you will regret it." Dread of the devil has bound their souls; the cries of the devil are the drover of the damned; the call of the Lord is a guardian of the saints.
RumiYou 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.
Darren ShanRegret is an appalling waste of energy, and no one who intends to be a writer can afford to indulge in it.
Katherine MansfieldWhen 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.
Deepak ChopraShe was all he wanted. He would give everything for her. Without thought. Without regret.
Sarah MacLeanWe eat pancakes to escape loneliness, yet within moments we want nothing more than our freedom from ever having so much as thought about pancakes. Nothing can prevent us, after eating pancakes, from feeling the most awful regret. After eating pancakes, our great mission in life becomes the repudiation of the pancakes and everything served along with them, the bacon and the syrup and the sausage and coffee and jellies and jams. But these things are beneath mention, compared with the pancakes themselves. It is the pancake--Pancakes! Pancakes!--that we never learn to respect.
Donald AntrimI live without regrets. There are certain things I have done, mistakes that I made, that I would change, but I don't regret them at all, because I've learnt from them.
Lindsay LohanShe leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Leisel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist's suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers...She did not say goodbye. She was incapable, and after a few more minutes at his side, she was able to tear herself from the ground. It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on.
Markus ZusakYou can never regret anything you do in life. You kind of have to learn the lesson from whatever the experience is and take it with you on your journey forward.
Aubrey O'DayIf you learn from Saint Thรฉrรจse 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, โMy 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.โ And like little St. Thรฉrรจse you will be able to say at the end, โI do not regret that I have given myself to love.โ
Edith SteinGuilt, regret, resentment, sadness & all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past & not enough presence.
Eckhart TolleBed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.
Charles Caleb ColtonReading Don Quixote can be compared to an indefinite visit from your most impossible senior relative, with all his pranks, dirty habits, unstoppable reminiscences, and terrible cronies. When the experience is over, and the old boy checks out at last (on page 846 - the prose wedged tight, with no breaks for dialogue), you will shed tears all right; not tears of relief or regret but tears of pride. You made it, despite all that 'Don Quixote' could do.
Miguel de CervantesDo I regret taking the company public? Yes and no. Yes, because it put us under enormous pressure for a young company to go public at that point in its history, something you never could have done in the old days.
David TalbotI took pleasure when I could. I acted clearly and morally and without regret. I'm very lucky.
Jeanne CalmentI 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.
Don ImusI regret that there aren't more short stories in other magazines. But in a certain way, I think the disappearance of the short-story template from everyone's head can be freeing. Partly because there's no mass market for stories, the form is up for grabs. It can be many, many things. So the anthology is very much intended for students, but I think we're all in the position of writing students now. Very few people are going around with a day-to-day engagement with the short story.
Lorin SteinIt is not the conscience which raises a blush, for a man may sincerely regret some slight fault committed in solitude, or he may suffer the deepest remorse for an undetected crime, but he will not blush... It is not the sense of guilt, but the thought that others think or know us to be guilty which crimsons the face.
Charles DarwinAnd 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.
Katherine ApplegateI now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.
W. Somerset MaughamI don't think anything I do in life is planned. Sometimes I regret that and I feel like I try to take ahold of the wheel, but I'm also always super excited when things pop up spontaneously and when I'm a little bit out of my depth. I just find that that thrills me.
Liz PhairAt 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.
Elena TonraPeople say, 'Well don't you regret not having kids?' And I go, 'No, not really.' And then if they keep asking, I always say this, 'Well, you know, maybe I'll adopt.' But I don't mean that. It's just something I say to make me sound like a nicer person.
Wanda SykesOne 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.
Abba Louisa Goold WoolsonI was in the doldrums for a while after my athletics career ended in 1992. I spent six to eight hours a day training, for 18 years, and it took a long time to get over the regret that I wasn't competing in major championships any more. All I ever wanted to be was the best. But I find new projects and I keep things in perspective.
Daley ThompsonI'd never understood the injunction not to regret anything, couldn't see how that wasn't cowardice.
China MievilleI 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".
Tao LinThe past was gone. Nothing could change what had already been. Looking back at it, letting its wounds fester, indulging in regret was just a different, slower way to die. The living moved forward.
Jim Butcher