Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.
—Robert Brault
The chemist who can extract from his heart’s elements, compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise, and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called love.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
Take every gain without showing remorse about missed profits, because an eel may escape sooner than you think.
—Lope de Vega (1562–1635) Spanish Playwright, Poet
The most painful thing to experience is not defeat but regret.
—Leo Buscaglia (1924–98) American Motivational Speaker
Once my heart was captured, reason was shown the door, deliberately and with a sort of frantic joy. I accepted everything, I believed everything, without struggle, without suffering, without regret, without false shame. How can one blush for what one adores?
—George Sand (1804–76) French Novelist, Dramatist
One doesn’t recognize the really important moments in one’s life until it’s too late.
—Agatha Christie (1890–1976) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Failure is never as scary as regret.
—Unknown
People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, and then repent.
—Bob Dylan (b.1941) American Singer-songwriter
Classic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
The only causes of regret are laziness, outbursts of temper, hurting others, prejudice, jealousy, and envy.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
Some people regret that they have poor memories. Alas! It is much more difficult to forget.
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (1747–1830) French Dancer, Actress
Your past is always going to be the way it was. Stop trying to change it.
—Unknown
Never look for the birds of this year in the nests of the last.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
The first half of life is spent in longing for the second, the second half in regretting the first.
—French Proverb
The only conquests that are permanent and leave no regrets are our conquests over ourselves.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
—Publilius Syrus (fl.85–43 BCE) Syrian-born Roman Latin Writer
Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
—Billy Wilder (1906–2002) American Filmmaker
Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.
My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Sometimes we lose friends for whose loss our regret is greater than our grief, and others for whom our grief is greater than our regret.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
If you’re going to do something tonight that you’ll be sorry for in the morning, sleep late.
—Henny Youngman (1906–98) Anglo-American Comedian, Violinist
One regret dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough.
—Hafez (1325–89) Persian Poet, Mystic
Better by far you should forget and smile, than that you should remember and be sad.
—Christina Rossetti (1830–94) English Poet, Hymn Writer
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
—Sydney J. Harris (1917–86) American Essayist, Drama Critic
Regret, like a tail, comes at the end.
—African Proverb
To regret the past is to forfeit the future.
—Chinese Proverb
The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
Regret for time wasted can become a power for good in the time that remains. And the time that remains is time enough, if we will only stop the waste and the idle, useless regretting.
—Arthur Brisbane (1864–1936) American Newspaper Editor, Investor
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