Quotes & Sayings About Regretting Things

Many of our efforts to intentionally craft and subsequently force our limited vision on life has more often than not resulted in some degree of cataclysm or schism or division or any number of other things that aren't all that savory. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

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

I don't go around regretting things that don't happen. — Virgil Thomson

At 38, I look back at my 32-year-old self and regret that he wasted time. Then I regret wasting my current time regretting regrets about regrets. This is pretty sophisticated regretting I'm doing. That's the sole advantage of ageing: I can now effortlessly consolidate my regrets into one manageable block of misery. Otherwise, by the age of 44, I'd need complex database software just to keep track of precisely how many things I'm regretting at once. — Charlie Brooker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They're always looking forward to going places they're just coming back from, or regretting doing things they haven't yet done. They say hello when they mean goodbye. — Martin Amis

Life is filled with challenges, blessing and the awareness that in life there are no guarantees. But one thing I'm sure of, is that for me, I'd rather die regretting the things I've done, then to regret the things I didn't do, but could have. So with this my new motto, I've decided to pursue what has lain quiescent in the back of my mind so now I write. — D.B. Jones

I prefer buying things and figuring out where to put them later than regretting not buying them. — Christian Louboutin

Not regretting it later is the reason I've done at least three-quarters of the best things in my life. — Cheryl Strayed

In real life, people end up doing things because it's convenient and it works for them. You don't get up every day regretting what you're doing. — Mike Colter

Regret has two sides.
the things we've done,
and the ones we wished we had. — Me

people are here to do reckless things, stupid things they might later regret, though the point of it all is in not regretting. For the idea of the party is youth. — Lucy Foley

Hazel wanted to ask him what he was thinking, what he was feeling, if he was regretting the witch or was just too tired to think, if he was embarrassed that the princess had rescued the knight or if he didn't mind so much now that it had happened, if he remembered everything that had passed, if he was mad at himself for going with the witch, if his warm blood was winning the battle against the water in his veins; she wanted to reach out and grab the things in his mind and heart and hold them so they could examine them together, but they were not hers to take. — Anne Ursu

The only thing worse than regretting the things you've done is regretting the things you didn't do. — Samantha Leahy

Hearing those words, I instinctively turn to my new keeper, regretting it, because for only the third time in my entire existence, tears are streaming down my cheeks. — Giselle Simlett

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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'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

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

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

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

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