Quotes & Sayings About Regretting

Live in a way that would not leave us regretting after so many years on earth. — Sunday Adelaja

So rather than denying or stuffing your past, go ahead and look at it, but without judgment. Look at it, express it, admit it, acknowledge it, accept it, and move on. In other words, let your past become something that is simply a matter of fact. That's all. Express your disappointment, your regret, your anger, and then LET IT GO! If you don't, you will continue to draw to you the very events that you are still resenting or regretting. — Lynn Grabhorn

If you're busy regretting the past, then a new future can't come in. — Marianne Williamson

I think it's nice to have children. I didn't have many, and while I don't sit around regretting it, I maybe would have liked a couple more. But it wasn't meant to be, and I didn't want it badly enough. — Lulu

You create your luck by being healthy and not regretting the past or being anxious about the future. — James Altucher

Gratitude unleashes the freedom to live content in the moment, rather than being anxious about the future or regretting the past. ELLEN VAUGHN1 — Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Most of us fear reaching the end of our life regretting moments when we didn't speak up, say I love you, or say I'm sorry. — Taylor Swift

There is no point in regretting any part of the past. The past can't now be altered, the future has yet to be lived, and consciously to experience every moment of the present is the only way to gain at least the illusion of immortality. — P.D. James

I knew she was leaving. I knew we were never going to date long-distance. I knew that we wouldn't have been able to be like this back when were were dating, so there was no use in regretting what hadn't happened. I suspected that what happens in hotel rooms rarely lasts outside of them. I suspected that when something was a beginning and an ending at the same time, that meant it could only exist in the present ...
..It was snowing outside, anointing the air with a quiet wonder shared by all passersby. When I got back to my mother's apartment, I was a mixture of giddy thrill-happiness and muddle gut-confusion
I didn't want to leave anything regarding Sofia to chance, and at the same time I was enjoying this step away from it. — David Levithan

The time to be upset is during the race, when you can actually do something about it. Nothing could be done now. A thousand times I'd told them: the key to racing is to come off the water regretting nothing. — Brad Alan Lewis

Every historian loves the past or should do. If not, he has mistaken his vocation; but it is a short step from loving the past to regretting that it has ever changed. Conservatism is our greatest trade-risk; and we run psychoanalysts close in the belief that the only "normal" people are those who cause no trouble either to themselves or anybody else. — A.J.P. Taylor

No one dies from loneliness, but I really hope you would die alone. Regretting every moment of your life for letting me go — Mohamed Ghazi

The idea of regretting not doing this seemed insane to me. Sitting in the corner at a bar at age 60, saying: 'I could've been Bond. Buy me a drink.' That's the saddest place I could be. At least now at 60 I can say: 'I was Bond. Now buy me a drink.' — Daniel Craig

Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all. — William James

Then it's just day by day. And most days are beautiful, Don. It's regretting yesterday or overthinking tomorrow, that's when ugliness comes in, right? — Dean Bakopoulos

[When I die], I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered. — Anthony Bourdain

What did you learn?"
"Letting go of my past, because it's all soot, nothing is left
of it, if I wandered there for long I would be running in circles
in the dark, no hope, no life. And if I chose to live in those
places rebuilt from ashes, I can never get rid of the darkness
which would prevail underneath."
"The present is my ray of hope. I could have stayed there,
complaining about the gloominess of the light, and regretting
not having turned a corner to explore a new horizon at the same
time I needed to respect that light because it was my savior from
the dark. I learnt it finally and that's why I reached here today
and found you — Dixy Gandhi

The rapid progress true Science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. — Benjamin Franklin

You have nothing to be embarrassed about. Life would be awfully dull if we could look back without regretting at least one affair. — J.D. Robb

When to give grace? I'd rather stand before God knowing I loved others too much rather than regretting that I judged too harshly. — Lysa TerKeurst

What have you done? (Apollymi)
Mulling mostly coupled with a shot or two of reminiscing and a drop of regretting a few past decisions. Some might even call it moping, but I'd kill anyone so stupid as to suggest that of me. (Stryker) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Some might call it manipulation, but I like to consider it simply using what God gave me. And the word manipulation is so ugly. It's what people say to disavow their own choices. If they end up never regretting their decision, does that mean that no one has manipulated them? — M.E. Thomas

Decisions are never made in retrospect, hence there is no point regretting them, ever. — David Darson

Heden chose to shut up. He could not remember ever regretting silence. — Matthew Colville

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. — Arthur Brisbane

What's your name?" he asked, a boyish grin creeping across his face.
"Henley Brooks," I murmured, tucking my hair behind my ear.
"My name's Lucas."
"I know," I replied, regretting the words as soon as they left my mouth. His grin grew larger as he ran his fingers through his dark hair.
"No wonder you look so scared. — Teresa Mummert

In 'Straight Talking,' I had bared my soul, and the press attention had been overwhelming. There were times when I felt scared and vulnerable, regretting the articles I had written to publicize the book, regretting I had opened my life up for all to see. — Jane Green

I have always regretted instances in which I failed to live up to the highest standards of conduct or principles of compassion that I cherish and teach. Being human, I anticipate regretting future failures. — K. Lee Lerner

After all, the past wasn't something that could be changed by fretting. Or by regretting — Suzanne Brockmann

There's a house across the river, but alas, I cannot swim
I'll live my life regretting that I never jumped in — Laura Marling

Some clever children don't discover how bright they are until after they've left school,' continued Mr Holcombe, 'and then spend the rest of their lives regretting the wasted years. — Jeffrey Archer

Suddenly she realized that what she was regretting was not the lost past but the lost future, not what had not been but what would never be. — F Scott Fitzgerald

I would much rather have regrets about not doing what people said, than regretting not doing what my heart led me to and wondering what life had been like if I'd just been myself. — Brittany Finamore

And as terrified as she might have been as she lay in that room, perhaps regretting herself to the core, she had already resolved not to show any fear, no matter what was in store for her. So when — Chang-rae Lee

It's never too late to stop regretting. It's never too late to see your present self as the young one and to listen to the person you hope to become. — Hugh Howey

If you are crying fight against it! If you are regretting walk forward! Only complaining about your misfortune, you're nothing but a common pig! — Yana Toboso

Each minute we spend worrying about the future and regretting the past is a minute we miss in our appointment with life- a missed opportunity to engage life and to see that each moment gives us the chance to change for the better, to experience peace and joy. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies. Psalms 5:8 Very bitter is the enmity of the world against the people of Christ. Men will forgive a thousand faults in others, but they will magnify the most trivial offence in the followers of Jesus. Instead of vainly regretting this, let us turn it to account, and since so many are watching for our halting, let this be a special motive for walking very carefully before God. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

When I've regretting saying something on the internet, it's never been about love. I've never regretting loving or encouraging or celebrating something. I have often regretted slamming or dismissing or criticizing something, because when I do that online, it's outside of relationship, outside of shared understanding, outside of context. I — Shauna Niequist

You're not living if you're not regretting. — Nicola Yoon

As a leader, I am there to make the best decisions possible with the evidence at hand and to be able to justify that decision. If it goes wrong, we add to the evidence for making the next decision, but there is no reason for regretting failure, as failure is just the production of evidence. — Michael A. Wood Jr.

I started with the firm conviction that when I came to the end, I wanted to be regretting the things that I had done, not the things I hadn't. — Michael Caine

All this is a natural part of the aging process, in which you find yourself with less to do and more opportunities to eat your guts out regretting everything you have done. — Richard Ford

Not truly living in the present moment and later regretting is like closing your eyes when a peacock is dancing, only to want to see it dance once it is gone.-RVM — R.v.m.

You're stalking me," Owen said.
Sterling shook his head. "I prefer the word 'following'; it sounds less creepy."
"But that doesn't make it any less annoying." Owen said,raising his eyebrows. "You almost make me wish you were mine to deal with; I can promise you'd be regretting this behavior very soon."
That wiped the grin off Sterling's place. "God,I wouldn't regret anything if I was. Yours,I mean. I'd let you do whatever you wanted.
"'Let me'?" Owen asked pointedly. "Somehow,I think you've misunderstood the definition of submission — Jane Davitt

Seize the day or die regretting the time you lost
It's empty and cold without you here, too many people to ache over
I see my vision burn, I feel my memories fade with time
But I'm too young to worry
These's streets we traveled on will undergo our same lost past — Avenged Sevenfold

I don't spend much time regretting the past, once I've taken my lesson from it. I don't dwell on it. — Charlie Munger

I'm learning how much I have to learn, how little I know, how fragile my understanding is. I'm learning to be thankful and patient; today is all that we will ever have in this life. If we spend our time obsessing with the future or regretting the past then we will never live. Tomorrow will always be tomorrow and yesterday cannot be changed. The wise man seeks God in the now and brings both his regrets and fears before Him. The freedom that we are offered is truly amazing: to live, today, free from even our own fallen desires. This is where I want to be. — Jon Foreman

I have long dreaded the thought of getting to the end of life and regretting that I allowed my own timidity or other people's expectations to determine the course of my life. I had decided at a much younger age that several of my beliefs should determine the course of my life ... I ... believe that Waengongi, the Creator, has an epic script into which my minute presence has been written. — Steve Saint

For years afterward when Amory thought of Eleanor he seemed still to hear the wind sobbing around him and sending little chills into the places beside his heart. The night when they rode up the cold slope and watched the cold moon float through the clouds, he lost a further part of him that nothing could restore; and when he lost it he lost also the power of regretting it. Eleanor was, say, the last time that evil crept close to Amory under the mask of beauty, the last weird mystery that held him with wild fascination and pounded his soul to flakes. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Grandmother was always regretting the old days-she was younger in old days,and the sun was warmer in old days,and cream did not turn so sour in old days-it was always the old days! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Sometimes you regret the things you do, but they're over and done. Regretting the things you didn't do is tougher because they're still out there, haunting you with the what ifs. — Elin Hilderbrand

Living in the present moment or commonly know as Mindfulness is being aware and conscious of your surroundings. From awareness, we evolve into the moment rather than regretting the past or fearing the future. It leads to full consciousness, even intuition. — Suresh Devnani

If things are tough, remember that every flower had to go through a whole lot of dirt to get there. So do not grieve about a bitter experience. The present is slipping by while you are regretting the past and worrying about the future. Regret will not prevent tomorrow's sorrows; it will only rob today of its strength. — Barbara Johnson

I'm sorry you don't want to know me anymore. I will spend the rest of my life regretting the fact that I wasted my second chance to know you. And I will always be conscious of your absence.- Gabriel to Julia. — Sylvain Reynard

When men are not regretting that life is so short, they are doing something to kill time. — E.W. Howe

Love is ... what I gave you, Noona. That is love. After you lost it, you realized how precious it was. You're regretting it to the degree you could vomit blood. No matter what price you have to pay, you want to find it again. That is love, right, Noona? — Ma-Roo

I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft carrier [actually, it was in an anti-aircraft gun emplacement, not a carrier], which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. [Actually, that was her intention in posing for the photograph the way she did.] It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless. — Jane Fonda

What do I have left after running away from believing? I've come to think that even if I believe in people and get hurt it is much better than regretting not doing so. — Hotaru Odagiri

Self-confidence is not pride. Just the contrary: only a person or a nation that is self-confident, in the best sense of the word, is capable of listening to others, accepting them as equals, forgiving its enemies and regretting its own guilt. — Vaclav Havel

Never leave yourself open to regret Grace. We can only make a decision when we know the choices we are faced with. If we shy away, turn our backs and hide, we will simply never know. And that is when you end up old and wondering and regretting. Live a life of hope. Don't live a life of regret. — Hazel Gaynor

In twenty years you could say and do a lot you wish you hadn't. In twenty years you could store up a lot of regrets. And then, when it was too late, when there was no one left to say "I'm sorry" to, "I didn't mean it" to, you could stop sleeping for regret, stop eating, talking, working, for regret. You could stop wanting to live. You could want to die for regret.
It was only remembering the good times that kept you from taking the knife from the kitchen drawer and, holding it so, tightly in your fist, on the bed, naked to no purpose except that that was how you came into the world and how your best moments in the world had been spent
holding it so, roll onto the blade, slowly so that it slid like love between your ribs and into that stupidly pumping muscle in your chest that kept you regretting. — Joseph Hansen

I don't believe in regretting - one should try to move on. My mum was good at that. She was deeply in love with my father, and he died when I was nine. She remarried, and her second husband died, too. I saw the grieving process she went through. My mother had this way of moving on. It was a fine trait. — Robert Winston

I had this vivid image of myself at the age of 60 looking back on my life and truly regretting the fact that I hadn't tried to be an actor — Lupita Nyong'o

When I went into the last lap I was regretting a bit that it was over. I was enjoying again the first sector for the last time. Simply fantastic this circuit, and if you get 53 laps more, you appreciate it even more. It's made by God's hands. — Sebastian Vettel

Instead of regretting what we cannot do, it is better to do anything we can do. Even if what we do does not bring us to our goal, it brings us much closer to it. — CLAMP

And he began to understand what a wild game we play in life; he began to understand that a thing once done cannot be undone nor changed by saying I am sorry! — Robert Louis Stevenson

I don't regret one day of breaking that rule. Because it'd mean regretting every moment that I spent with Baylee. And I don't. I just don't. I can't. — Krista Ritchie

Shall we go?' he murmured, perhaps regretting his decision to show me his army of plastic cartoon figurines. — Jon Ronson

We keep ourselves so tied up in regretting the past and fearing the future that we don't have any energy left to figure out who we are and what we want to create right now. — Gay Hendricks

Good Lord, I'm regretting this now," I muttered. "I have never - ever - smelled BO this bad in my life. And I once had s'mores wit a Sasquatch."
"Hang out with him for awhile," Mort gasped. "Eventually it's not so bad."
"Wow. Really?"
"No. Not really. — Jim Butcher

Heredity. It's like going to a fortune-teller and regretting it. As human beings, we tend not to like things we can't avoid. Death, for instance. — Jo Nesbo

The Greeks put us to shame not only by their simplicity, which is foreign to our age; they are at the same time our rivals, nay, frequently our models, in those very points of superiority from which we seek comfort when regretting the unnatural character of our manners. We see that remarkable people uniting at once fullness of form and fullness of substance, both philosophising and creating, both tender and energetic, uniting a youthful fancy to the virility of reason in a glorious humanity. — Friedrich Schiller

Part of being of a true existentialist is wanting to be what we make ourselves be by the way we choose to act, as opposed to making excuses for the way we act and regretting it. — Gary Cox

Mike Mason says, "A decision to rejoice in the present changes not only the present, it also changes my view of the past and ignites my future with hope."[26] I've stopped demanding that a moment last longer than it can. I don't require a moment to be anything other than what it is: a brief span of time that has been given by a gracious Father. I will wring every bit of pleasure out of this moment because I don't know when the next one will come. We're rarely satisfied with today; we spend too much time regretting the unrepeatable past and wishing we could get a do-over, or we waste our energy on worry and anxiety about the unknowable future. Either way, TODAY is ignored or minimized. — Kay Warren

Some things you did were worth regretting; others not. — Richard Yates

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. — Michael Caine

I turned up the inane sound effects and let them fill the room, setting up an atmosphere of mind-body pollution while Miss Chianti and I got better acquainted. A couple of glasses had me convinced that she's a real sweetheart, though a protracted rendezvous was probably going to leave me regretting the entire encounter. It's always the quiet ones that come back to bite you. — Alice Yi-Li Yeh

Always be truthful and you will have fewer visits from regret, guilt or fear. — Suzy Kassem

True penance consists in regretting without ceasing the faults of the past, and in firmly resolving to never again commit that which is so deplorable. — Bernard Of Clairvaux

We all have regrets,' Leo said, taking a sip of brandy, letting the velvet fire slide down his throat. 'It's why I cling to my bad habits. One doesn't have to start regretting something unless one stops doing it. — Lisa Kleypas

No matter how bad he felt, there was nothing to be done about it. He had made hard and even cruel choices, but in the end they were the ones he knew were right. There was no use in regretting them. — Ginn Hale

She's spending the night here and she's more than welcome. She just went to bed about an hour ago after watching every move our doctor made." Without thinking, he carefully tucked the sheet around her body. "I'll make sure you're safe, doc. I promise." "I'm sorry," she said after several moments. "For what?" Irene shrugged, then grimaced, probably regretting the move, considering the pain it most likely caused. "For always thinking — Shelly Laurenston

I have found that the only consolation is never regretting anything that you do. Never look back, always look forward and continue moving along with a confidence that everything you're doing and everything you've done is the way it's supposed to be. — Randolph J. Rogers

There cannot be many people who can go through life without regretting sooner or later a lack of knowledge about horses. — Muriel Wace

To me, it's always interesting to see what people end up regretting, as a way maybe to avoid such regrets in your own life. — Robin Marantz Henig

The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn. — T.H. White

We suddenly feel fearful and apprehensive, naked in our perishable flesh, and for just a moment we wish we could go back to being stone - crumbling in death rather than rotting, trapped inside an immobile prison of stone rather than reduced to immaterial souls like those that now rattled within our skulls. The moment passes. There is no point in regretting irreversible decisions - one has to live with them, and we try. — Ekaterina Sedia

RVM Thoughts for Today -
If only I had spent my life Smiling and Laughing rather than regretting and cursing , I would have been much Happier. — R.v.m.

Again, speaking for the sisterhood, if you gave all that devotion and loyalty to a woman and she was a good woman, I swear, honey, you will live every day for the rest of your life until your dying breath never regretting it. — Kristen Ashley

There's no point regretting things. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Life's too short to worry about things I've said. — Robbie Williams

No, war will not be stopped. But it is a comfort, in the midst of a war, to read an antiwar book this good, and be reminded that just because something keeps happening, doesn't mean we get to stop regretting it. Massacres are bad, the death of innocents is bad, hate is bad, and there's something cleansing about hearing it said so purely. — George Saunders

His look makes me think of all the people who lay on their deathbed regretting the lives they led. His look gets me to believe that there are really only two ways out of life, that you leave either unsatisfied or dissatisfied. — M.B. Julien

You have a way of turning the established order on its head." Instantly regretting that, he forced his face to relax; Lynx must not see anger in his eyes. — Gwynn White

My life suddenly felt like an hourglass with a decision placed at my feet. Do I live as I am, or do I make a choice to become something else? No matter which way I went, I could end up regretting that choice. — Dannika Dark

It's unfair."
As a rule, life is unfair," I said.
Yeah, but I think I did say some awful things."
To Dick?"
Yeah."
I pulled the car over to the shoulder of the road and turned off the ignition. "That's just stupid, that kind of thinking," I said, nailing her with my eyes. "Instead of regretting what you did, you could have treated him decently from the beginning. You could've tried to be fair. But you didn't. You don't even have the right to be sorry. — Haruki Murakami

My evanescent anarchistic tendencies are purely classical. I use the word anarchist in the sense in which it was understood by the ancient Greeks. They, of course, accepted the anarchist as a fairly respectable--if somewhat vehement--opponent of government encroachment on the individual's rights to think and act freely. It is in this sense that I glimpse myself as an anarchist--regretting the growth of government and the ever-increasing trend toward regulation and, worst of all, standardization of human activity. — J. Paul Getty

It is not by regretting what is irreparable that true work is to be done, but by making the best of what we are. It is not by complaining that we have not the right tools, but by using well the tools we have. What we are, and where we are is God's providential arrangement - God's doing, though it may be man's misdoing; and the manly and the wise way is to look your disadvantages in the face, and see what can be made our of them. — Will Schwalbe

They knew that flowers die and leaves fall, but they could not carry that knowledge into their own lives; the acceptance was beyond them. Sighing for the blossom, they missed the fruit, growing and ripening. Regretting the fruit, they did not see the delicate tracery of bare boughs against a winter sky. — Lettice Cooper

There's a difference between a mistake and a regret. Everything up to this moment has made this moment. If you can change a mistake, then go out and do what you can to change it. If you can't change it, there's no use regretting it because it will just make you miserable. Live right now, even if that involves dealing with the consequences of your actions. Time travel always ends badly. — Rebecca McKinsey