Regret Quotes

Feelings of regret represent our aversion to reality.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

All people share doubts. The lingering question that eventually worms it way into all thinking people’s brain is how to live splendidly and how to die without remorse and regret.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

The point is that everyone needs some exposure to the various ways of life. People buy things out of catalogues too much. They see in Time magazine that they're suppose to be feeling in such and such a way, and they dash off a check and buy that life-style sight unseen. A pig in a poke if there ever was one, for once you've bought the thing there's no refund. We ought to be able to try things before we sign up for them. Used to be you could listen to the records in a record store before you bought them. Now they're sealed, for your protection, they say. Bullshit! It's for their goddamned protection, not ours. We don't need to be protected. We need to be allowed to get a taste of something before we accept it.

~ Arthur Alexander

The cern paled, and all the courageous which accompanied him into the conversation was now all done away. He shrunk back, his audacity dwizzening under the teneberous gloom of the giant’s long shadow. He turned to entreat the help of his fellow soldiers with desperate looks, but there was little more than half of the regiments left behind him, all of them unwilling to intervene, and his bowels rumbled, his heart sinking into the grave of conscience, and never had he felt more mistaken in his conduct.

~ Michelle Franklin

How we begin and how we end any relationship is a product of planning, fortuity, and personality. Many enterprises commenced in good faith spiral into confusion, discord, and disarray, generate turmoil and corruption, sunburn the sensitive parties, and conclude in a cesspool of regret and animosity.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Regret is not the same as guilt. It is expressed by: ‘I can’t believe I did that. It’s not like me. This is not how I am! How could I do such a thing?’ It means to see ourselves as the best we can be, and to be disappointed in not living up to that.

~ Yael Shahar

Regret and remorse” is a dialectic issue about what has been done, about what should have been done and about what should not have been done. ( “Island of regret. Island of remorse” )

~ Erik Pevernagie

No, Sully'd decided long ago to abstain from all but the most general forms of regret. He allowed himself the vague wish that things had turned out differently, without blaming himself that they hadn't, any more than he'd blamed himself when his 1-2-3 triple never ran like it should at least once. It didn't pay to second-guess every one of life's decisions, to pretend to wisdom about the past from the safety of the present, the way so many people did when they got older.

~ Richard Russo

12 Things To Ditch For A Great DayBlameGuiltWorryRegretResentmentEntitlementSelf-pityLazinessNegative attitudeFear of embarrassmentUrge to one-up othersYour comfort zone

~ Charles F. Glassman

Can one regret a thing that, however unwise, was beautiful?

~ Cassandra Clare

Explanations are ghosts of guilt, shadows of sympathy, and I have no use for them.

~ Jessica Dawson

She cried aloud, with a great mourning cry for all that she had never known in this life, and the agony of a bereavement unguessed till this moment.

~ Marion Zimmer Bradley

I was Pandora, bound and determined to open that box.

~ Margaret Peterson Haddix

I will not let us be beings of regret. I know my past. What I want is my future.

~ Roshani Chokshi

They were too near to me. I loved them to much. And the love overtaking me and combined with the fact that I was going to spend another evening alone, doing nothing with it, being waited down to motionlessness by my own actions made me want to get it over with and fucking be alone.

~ Courtney Maum

Enough regret can crush any man, living or dead.

~ Marlo Berliner

To avoid a comparative poverty, which her affection and her society would have deprived of all its horrors, I have, by raising myself to affluence, lost everything that could make it a blessing.

~ Jane Austen

Are you all right? With your Guild, I mean?Alain considered the question. They suspect me of being attracted to a Mechanic. They are right, but so far lack proof. They do not suspect that I love you, or who you are, but I have no doubt of what they will do if they discover either of those things. Oh, blazes. Mari lowered her head to rest her brow against the cool stone of the fortification. I have ruined your life. You have given me back my life.

~ Jack Campbell

Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead?

~ Jeff Vandermeer

We regret because we fail to listen to an inner voice that says I Can and we watch as that pledge is hushed by our doubts and fears. We regret because we listened to someone else's voice rather than our own or because we knew what was right and didn't do it. Imagine a life where we trusted ourselves more, believed what others said less and committed to do what was noble. There would be no regret in that.

~ Jason Versey

I stilled. I was sure I'd imagined that all too familiar voice, but there he was. His bright blue eyes saying far more than his words ever could. His iris' held pain and anger and my shame increased tenfold. How foolish I was to think what I'd done would matter to him, or how his reaction would mean so much to me.

~ Freedom Matthews

Regrets are useless, the Fool replied. All you can do is start from where you are.

~ Robin Hobb

When all you wanted was to be wanted, you wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now.

~ Taylor Swift

The road home is tinged with regret and the road forward is full of the unknown.

~ Joaquin Lowe

Because even if you buried yourself in guilt, you can't go back and change what happened.

~ Katherine Fleet

Regret is like a mental parasite that alters your behavior.

~ Peter Tieryas

In hours of bliss we oft have met:They could not always last;And though the present I regret,I'm grateful for the past.

~ William Congreve

Consider the odd morphology of regret.

~ Wallace Stevens

Death changes everyone....It changes the way you think, the way you feel, and the way you live your life. Sometimes it makes you thankful for what you have, but more often than not, it makes you regret what you've lost.

~ Tara Sivec

I never wanted to regret the kisses I missed.

~ Lynsey Addario

I never want to regret the kisses I missed.

~ Lynsey Addario

I refuse to live a life of regret. I refuse to hope things will get better in the future when I have complete control over making them the best possible right here and now. We have one life-and none of us knows how long our life will be or what will becomme of it. The possibilities are truly infinite.

~ Connor Franta

You realize how much you love someone once that someone is gone…gone forever, and you are filled with regret and sadness.

~ Ama H. Vanniarachchy

I owed the greater apology, but at the same time I knew that was done was done, that no matter what I said now I would never be able to make it right.

~ Jhumpa Lahiri

What you don't sweat out when you're young will turn into tears when you're old.

~ Japanese Proverb

And maybe that's all a ghost is, in the end. Regret, grown legs, gone walking.

~ Nicole Kornher-Stace

Nor did he think of Celia any more, though he could sometimes remember having dreamt of her. If only he had been able to think of her, he would not have needed to dream of her.

~ Samuel Beckett

If you are single and don't want to be. The only regret is staying that way.

~ Suzette R. Hinton

I don't fear death, I fear I haven't done enough before it happens

~ Aryan Xebat‎

And the General regrets the night.

~ T. Mountebank