Quotes & Sayings About Wasted Opportunity

How many people will die, have died, because of the wasted talents of intelligent and gifted women, forced into domestic drudgery, corseted by paternal demands, strangled by denial of opportunity? — Ayelet Waldman

Strategic air assault is wasted if it is dissipated piecemeal in sporadic attacks between which the enemy has an opportunity to readjust defenses or recuperate. — Henry H. Arnold

Life comes in the form of opportunities, which are easy to recognize, after they have been wasted ... — Javan

If they lacked the opportunity, the strength of their sprit would have been sapped; if they had lacked ability, the opportunity would have been wasted. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Whatever one wants to say about the conduct of the Iraq War, going to war to remove Saddam Hussein in 2003 was a necessary act. It should and could have been done earlier, had not the Clinton White House, which understood the need, not wasted the opportunity through timidity and bluster. — Arthur L. Herman

David."
"Nobody home but you and me," he said, nibbling at her jaw, her throat, her mouth as he guided
her out of the kitchen. "You know what I was thinking the other day?"
"No." How could she? She didn't know what she was thinking right now.
"That it's a complex business. My girlfriend lives with her mother."
She did laugh now, at the idea of being called anyone's girlfriend.
"And I live with my kids. No place to go to do all the things I've imagined doing with you. Do you
know the things I've imagined doing with you?"
"I'm getting the picture. David, it's the middle of the day."
"The middle of the day." He paused at the base of the steps. "And an opportunity. I hate wasted
opportunities, don't you? — Nora Roberts

All I know is that I've wasted all these years looking for something, a sort of trophy I'd get only if I really, really did enough to deserve it. But I don't want it anymore, I want something else now, something warm and sheltering, something I can turn to, regardless of what I do, regardless of who I become. Something that will just be there, always, like tomorrow's sky. That's what I want now, and I think it's what you should want too. But it will be too late soon. We'll become too set to change. If we don't take our chance now, another may never come for either of us. — Kazuo Ishiguro

Any fighter knows that regret that doesn't inform your future is wasted emotion. If you lose and dwell on the missed opportunity rather than the chances to come, you're finished. — Craig Lancaster

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. — Bono

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. — Denis Waitley

It is sad, indeed, to see how man wastes his opportunities. How many could be made happy, with the blessings which are recklessly wasted or thrown away. — John Lubbock

Some people try something new on their Reboot Break only to return to what they had been doing before. That doesn't mean the time was wasted. The opportunity to explore a passion can go a long way toward reducing the stress of feeling as though you've missed an opportunity or that you really should be doing something else. Linda, — Catherine Allen

Most hoarders are capable of discarding things if they can convince themselves that the object will not be wasted, that it will go to a good home, or, as in this case, that the opportunity it presented is no longer available. But the amount of time and effort involved in attaining this certainty makes it impossible to keep up with the volume of stuff entering the home. — Gail Steketee

Our whole life is a fooling around. You can do it because you are not aware of how you waste time, how you waste energy - how life is wasted you are not aware. It is going down the drain. Everything is going down the drain. Only when death comes to you, you may become aware, alert: What have I been doing? What have I done with life? A great opportunity has been lost. What was I doing fooling around? I was not sober. I never reflected upon what I was doing. — Rajneesh

Great entrepreneurs focus intensely on an opportunity where others see nothing. This focus and intensity helps to eliminate wasted effort and distractions. Most companies die from indigestion rather than starvation, i.e., companies suffer from doing too many things at the same time rather than doing too few things very well. — Naveen Jain

Tomorrow is never guaranteed to anyone,young or old. Today could be the last time to see your loved ones, which is why you mustn't wait; do it today, in case tomorrow never arrives. I am sure you will be sorry you wasted the opportunity today to give a smile, a hug, a kiss, and that you were too busy to grant them their last wish. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The difference was not that one was a pessimist and the other an optimist, it was that one's pessimism had led to an ethos of fear, and the other's pessimism had led to a noisy, fractious disdain for Everything-That-Was. One shrank, the other flailed. One toed the line, the other crossed it out. Much of the time they were at loggerheads, and because Willy found it so easy to shock his mother, he rarely wasted an opportunity to provoke an argument. If only she'd the wit to back off a little, he probably wouldn't have been so insistent about making his points. Her antagonism inspired him, pushed him into ever more extreme positions, and by the time he was ready to leave the house and go off to college, he had indelibly cast himself in his chosen role: as malcontent, as rebel, as outlaw poet prowling the gutters of a ruined world. — Paul Auster

I still believe we wasted a golden opportunity to make significant changes in our country. I think people in America would have been ready and willing to do it, but the [George W.] Bush administration took a kind of simplistic, almost moronic approach to it, all because people were so afraid. — Paul Auster

But to deny fate is arrogance, to declare that we are the sole shapers of our existence is madness;if you deny fate life becomes the series of missed opportunities, a regret for what never was and could have been, a remorse of what was not done and could have been done, and the present is wasted, twisted into another missed oppurtunity. — Oriana Fallaci

On a personal level, one of the main reasons I had wanted to cross Antarctica alone was to find out where my limits lay. If I failed because I had found those limits by being unable to continue for mental or physical reasons I would, at least, be returning home with some kind of answer. To fail because I had run out of time was a failure by logistics and as such, answered nothing. I would be left with the same question I had arrived with and that would be the bitter pill, the true failure. I couldn't imagine ever wanting to repeat this journey and so the question would likely always remain unanswered. This was my one and only opportunity and it would be wasted. — Felicity Aston

Hell is when we look back during the fraction of a second and know that we wasted an opportunity to dignify the miracle of life. Paradise is being able to say at the moment I made some mistakes, but I wasn't a coward. I Lived my life and did what I had to do — Paulo Coelho

Without an opportunity, their abilities would have been wasted, and without their abilities, the opportunity would have arisen in vain. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Not a day on your calendar should ever be empty. It's bad luck. Twenty-four hours of wasted opportunity. — John Corey Whaley

Iknow the bitter fact that most lives are incredibly wasted, that opportunities for developing identity, for receiving pleasure, for achieving a sense of self-worth are limited and, not only underdeveloped, but in most cases not developed at all
because no one thinks that a housewife, or a mother, or a typist has anything to develop. — Irena Klepfisz

The students we saw were all bright, attractive, and polite, and the teachers all seemed to be smart and dedicated, and I began to appreciate the benefits of a private school education. If only I'd had the opportunity to attend a place like this, who knows what I might have become? Perhaps instead of a mere blood-spatter analyst who slunk away at night to kill without conscience, I could have become a doctor, or a physicist, or even a senator who slunk away at night to kill without conscience. It was terribly sad to think of all my wasted potential. — Jeff Lindsay

The fact of the matter is that if we were going to do anything about Gaddafi, it should have been at the beginning. And by fooling around like this as long as we have, we have wasted an opportunity that would have gotten rid of him. — Lawrence Eagleburger

There was some expiration point to my life, and it became very important to maximize the time that I did have on Earth. That's what led me to my personal philosophy: "No Opportunity Wasted" - NOW for short, which is about living life to the fullest. — Phil Keoghan

New York just expects so much from a girl - acts like it can't stand even the idea of a wasted talent or opportunity ... Rome says: enjoy me. London: survive me. New York: gimme all you got. What a thrilling proposition! The chance to be "all that you might be." Such a thrill - until it becomes a burden. — Zadie Smith

We receive suffering when it comes as an opportunity for God to do something good in us and through us. We rejoice not in the pain but rather in what it can accomplish for the gospel so that something as costly as suffering is not wasted but used for God's glory, our joy, and others' good. — Mark Driscoll

Step into this moment, because it is the only one you have right now. It is not wasted or thrown away. The divine opportunity could be stolen unless you tell yourself it is here right now; available to you this moment, to make of it anything you choose. Why not choose this moment, right now, to be available to yourself by declaring, I AM GOOD! ... The richness of the present is here. The fullness of now is present. If you are not here now, it means you could be missing the love, joy, peace and brand-new ideas that are here right now. — Iyanla Vanzant

In your 50s, time becomes precious and must not be wasted. Every minute is an excellent opportunity for a good nap. Happy 50th birthday! — Bill Cosby

I used to think the reason I'd like to stop letting fear run my life was that it felt so bad to be afraid, and also that it was pointless - possibly wasted, if the feared thing never did materialize. But now that fear has packed its miserable bags and is running out the door, making slamming noises to call attention to itself, I begin to see how much room fear has occupied. What opportunity opens up! — Jan Frazier

And in examining their life and deeds it will be seen that they owed nothing to fortune but the opportunity which gave them matter to be shaped into the form that they thought fit; and without that opportunity their powers would have been wasted, and without their powers the opportunity would have come in vain. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Every moment of our life has a purpose, that every action of ours, no matter how dull or routine or trivial it may seem in itself, has a dignity and a worth beyond human understanding ... For it means that no moment can be wasted, no opportunity missed, since each has a purpose in man's life, each has a purpose in God's plan. Think of your day, today or yesterday. Think of the work you did, the people you met, moment by moment. What did it mean to you- and might it have meant for God? Is the question too simple to answer, or are we just afraid to ask it for fear of the answer we must give? — Walter J. Ciszek

I might have speculated on my chances of going to Heaven; but candidly I did not care. I could not have wept if I had tried. I had no wish to review the evils of my past. But the past did seem to have been a bit wasted. The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions: the road to Heaven is paved with lost opportunities. — Apsley Cherry-Garrard

Nearly 40% of all food in this country is wasted, and there are over 49 million food-insecure people in the United States. Clearly we have an enormous opportunity if we can find a way to retrieve the imperfect food and to feed the hungry. — Dana Cowin

How to "change the world" in two words: S.T.A.R.T. N.O.W.

1. START - Serve. Thank. Ask. Receive. Trust.

2. NOW - No Opportunity Wasted — Richie Norton

Everybody tells me that they would love to knit, but they don't have time. I look at people's lives and I can see opportunity and time for knitting all over the place. The time spent riding the bus each day? That's a pair of socks over a month. Waiting in line? Mittens. Watching TV? Buckets of wasted time that could be an exquisite lace shawl. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

I had always wanted to go on the Orient Express, but that I'd sort of consider it a wasted opportunity if a murder didn't happen. It's not that I'm particularly bloodthirsty, it's just that I have standards — Jenny Lawson

A wasted opportunity wasn't just a missed chance, but was a wound to your future. Miss too many opportunities, thus sustaining too many wounds, and you wouldn't have a future at all. — Dean Koontz

Each minute wasted with a shark is a missed opportunity to enjoy being with a Dolphin — Miguel Reynolds Brandao