Failure is never as scary as regret.
—Unknown
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
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
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
—Publilius Syrus (fl.85–43 BCE) Syrian-born Roman Latin Writer
Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
The follies which a man regrets most in his life, are those which he didn’t commit when he had the opportunity.
—Helen Rowland (1875–1950) American Journalist, Humorist
The past will not tell us what we ought to do, but it will what we ought to avoid.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish Critic, Journalist, Philosopher
Between tomorrow’s dream and yesterday’s regret is today’s opportunity.
—Unknown
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-American Philosopher, Poet, Sculptor
Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.
—George Halas
Go to the effort. Invest the time. Write the letter. Make the apology. Take the trip. Purchase the gift. Do it. The seized opportunity renders joy. The neglected brings regret.
—Max Lucado (b.1955) American Author, Minister, Speaker
All of the Earth’s treasures can’t bring back a lost moment.
—French Proverb
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
People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, and then repent.
—Bob Dylan (b.1941) American Singer-songwriter
Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in.
—Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand-born British Author
People have to face regrets. Becoming mature means learning to accept what you cannot change, facing unresolved sorrows and learning to love life as it really happens, not as you would have it happen. When someone attaches unkindness to criticism, she’s angry. Angry people need to criticize as an outlet for their anger. That’s why you must reject unkind criticism. Unkind criticism is never part of a meaningful critique of you. Its purpose is not to teach or to help, its purpose is to punish. Life isn’t supposed to be an all or nothing battle between misery and bliss. Life isn’t supposed to be a battle at all. And when it comes to happiness, well, sometimes life is just okay, sometimes it’s comfortable, sometimes wonderful, sometimes boring, sometimes unpleasant. When your day’s not perfect, it’s not a failure or a terrible loss. It’s just another day.
—Barbara Sher (1935–2020) American Career Coach
It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.
—Jackie Joyner-Kersee (b.1962) American Athlete
Regret, which is guilt without the neurosis, enables us … to move forward instead of back.
—Jane Addams (1860–1935) American Social Reformer, Feminist
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, Satirist, Short Story Writer
Fools live to regret their words, wise men to regret their silence.
—Unknown
We can’t afford to waste tears on might-have-beens. We need to turn the tears into sweat that can take us to what can be.
—Denis Waitley (b.1933) American Motivational Speaker, Author
There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
Let’s not burden our remembrance with a heaviness that’s gone.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Regretting the past is like chasing after the wind.
—Russian Proverb
Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
—Billy Wilder (1906–2002) American Filmmaker
There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time in the midst of wretchedness.
—Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Italian Poet, Philosopher
The first half of life is spent in longing for the second, the second half in regretting the first.
—French Proverb
The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it. If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.
—Tallulah Bankhead (1902–68) American Actress
You won’t regret the men you never killed, but you will regret the women you passed up.
—Bernard Cornwell (b.1944) British Novelist
I must place on record my regret that the human race ever learned to fly.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
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