Every noble work is bound to face problems and obstacles. It is important to check your goal and motivation thoroughly. One should be very truthful, honest, and reasonable. One’s actions should be good for others, and for oneself as well. Once a positive goal is chosen, you should decide to pursue it all the way to the end. Even if it is not realized, at least there will be no regret.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (b.1935) Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader, Civil Rights Leader, Philosopher, Author
Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.
—Sivananda Saraswati (1887–1963) Indian Hindu Spiritual Teacher
We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
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
Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy—the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
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
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
One’s best success comes after their greatest disappointments.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations—one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it—you will regret both.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
I have many regrets, and I’m sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret … if you have any sense; and, if you don’t regret them, maybe you’re stupid.
—Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) American Actor, TV Personality
The best enjoyment is half disappointment to what we intend or would have in this world.
—Gamaliel Bailey (1807–59) American Journalist
Fools live to regret their words, wise men to regret their silence.
—Unknown
Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.
—George Sand (1804–76) French Novelist, Dramatist
Disappointments are to the soul what a thunder-storm is to the air.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently.
—Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American Essayist, Novelist
The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfilment of that hope never entirely removes.
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English Novelist, Poet
Opportunity is a favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Man must be disappointed with the lesser things of life before he can comprehend the full value of the greater.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
We mount to heaven mostly on the ruins of our cherished schemes, finding our failures were successes.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American Teacher, Writer, Philosopher
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.
—Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Life often seems like a long shipwreck of which the debris are friendship, glory, and love.—The shores of existence are strewn with them.
—Anne Louise Germaine de Stael (1766–1817) French Woman of Letters
My one regret in life is that I’m not someone else.
—Woody Allen (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
—Helen Keller (1880–1968) American Author
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
We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
You’ll seldom experience regret for anything that you’ve done. It is what you haven’t done that will torment you. The message, therefore, is clear. Do it! Develop an appreciation for the present moment. Seize every second of your life and savor it. Value your present moments. Using them up in any self-defeating ways means you’ve lost them forever.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
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
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