Remorse Quotes

Yet each man kills the thing he lovesBy each let this be heardSome do it with a bitter lookSome with a flattering wordThe coward does it with a kissThe brave man with a sword

~ Oscar Wilde

I thought about the days i had handed over to a bottle..the nights i can't remember..the mornings i slept thru..all the time spent running from myself.

~ Mitch Albom

When we are mired in the relative world, never lifting our gaze to the mystery, our life is stunted, incomplete; we are filled with yearning for that paradise that is lost when, as young children, we replace it with words and ideas and abstractions - such as merit, such as past, present, and future - our direct, spontaneous experience of the thing itself, in the beauty and precision of this present moment.

~ Peter Matthiessen

Chimerical words, the words were written,Some are wasted; some are still on the page,Tattered words, the words were written,Some are young, some are aged,Gloomy words, the words were written,Some are unspoken, some are told,Words were hurt, though they can heal,Words are breathless, though can feel,Words won hearts, words shattered hearts,Words lost battles, words won wars,Wars within, words had scars.

~ Nishikant

His pen spoke more to her than he ever did”.In the war of words, some are unwritten and some are unspoken.

~ Nishikant

How might I get over this? How would I be able to overlook the way he used to be with me? How could I overlook that his fingers touched my indiscernible soul before it twisted my nipples? How might I overlook his essence that still is in my garments? Despite everything, I still hear you saying that you love me. Though I know you don't.

~ Nishikant

All she captures is a moment and what she calls it is a memory,Sometimes, it is assumptions that we use; all we need is a theory,Because you don’t know what is there in the future,And all you need is a vision to make a perfect picture.I feel that I have known you for a century,And whatever she calls is a memory.

~ Nishikant

After all these years, all I know is, I need not to do anything as a part of remorse.All I need is to write.Because,'Poetry forgives.

~ Nishikant

Oh Lestat, you deserved everything that's ever happened to you. You better not die. You might actually go to hell.

~ Anne Rice

How easily such a thing can become a mania, how the most normal and sensible of women once this passion to be thin is upon them, can lose completely their sense of balance and proportion and spend years dealing with this madness.

~ Kathryn Hurn

The skeletons of the past must not hold back the dream of a new life, even though fear and regret, guilt and remorse may unsettle us during the effort to give our future a new home. (“Into a new life”)

~ Erik Pevernagie

We tend to deny our humanity because in accepting the fullness of it, we would need to confess how little we’ve done with it.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Like alcohol and poverty, a heartbreak has the power to make a man do something he wouldn’t normally do and to make a woman do someone she wouldn’t normally do.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

We cannot see love yet its nurturing warmth is the essence of our being and sorrow can touch our very soul. For remorse is like a ripple on the ocean, once given it remains only in the heart of the receiver.Believe in Yourself by Grace Willows

~ Grace Willows

Natasha, in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace walked, as women can walk, with the more repose and stateliness the greater the pain and shame in her soul.

~ Leo Tolstoy

...burying themselves in his arm was more about feeling his love in the confusion, in the difficulty, than it was about having moved past it.

~ Donald Miller

So I make no effort to hide my pain. I don’t ever put it all on display like this—but for today and all the rest of the days of the trial, I must. My every flinch, every flicker of pain, will bemagnified a hundred times over, then dissected by the pundits and talking heads. But I’m told it’s necessary; the world needs to see me vulnerable and wounded. I cannot appear not to care or to lack remorse, but that removes a crucial component of my self- defense mechanism and leaves me bleeding for all the world to see. I suppose that’s rather the point.

~ Ann Aguirre

The paint is drying, and time is dying. The pain is crying, lying on my back, trying to get back the time, to brushstrokes too fast, wet went dry and love went dull; now I live in a portrait I never painted.

~ Anthony Liccione

God cannot remove the burdens of your heart, but he will prompt you where to go, what to say and what to do, in order to free yourself from your chains.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Cut anyone and everyone out of your life that makes you feel small, hurt, humiliated, stupid, worthless, etc. do it swiftly and violently and without remorse.

~ Genereux Philip

Daddy thinks history starts fresh every day, every minute, that time itself begins with the feelings he’s having right now. That’s how he keeps betraying us, why he roars at us with such conviction. We have to stand up to that, and say, at least to ourselves, that what he’s done before is still with us, still right here in this room until there’s true remorse. Nothing will be right until there’s that.” “He looks so, sort of, weakened.” “Weakened is not enough. Destroyed isn’t enough. He’s got to repent and feel humiliation and regret. I won’t be satisfied until he knows what he is.”Do we know what we are?We know we aren’t him. We know that to that degree we don’t yet deserve the lowest circle of hell.

~ Jane Smiley

One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life.

~ Charlotte Brontë

In my terms, I settled for the realities of life, and submitted to its necessities: if this, then that, and so the years passed. In Adrian's terms, I gave up on life, gave up on examining it, took it as it came. And so, for the first time, I began to feel a more general remorse - a feeling somewhere between self-pity and self-hatred - about my whole life. All of it. I had lost the friends of my youth. I had lost the love of my wife. I had abandoned the ambitions I had entertained. I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded - and how pitiful that was.

~ Julian Barnes

An inexhaustible capacity to engage in sin is what makes human beings capable of living a virtuous life. To err is human; to seek penance is humankind’s unique act of salvation. Whenever a person fails, it is often their overwhelming sense of anguish that drives them forward to make a second attempt that is far more bighearted than they originally envisioned. The need for redemption drives us to try again despite our backside enduring the terrible weight of our greatest catastrophes. There is no person as magnanimous as a person whom finally encountered tremendous success after previously enduring a tear-filled trail of hardships and repeated setbacks. In an effort to redeem our lost dignity, in an effort to regain self-respect, we find our true selves. By working independently to better ourselves and struggling to fulfill our cherished values, we save ourselves while coincidentally uplifting all of humanity.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Everything since the beginning of time was working together to make my happiness possible: and then you. You walked into the audiovisual lab in your flannel shirt...and you fucked it up! You fucked everything up! Do you understand that? Because of you, the entire universe is ruined...forever!--Kari, The Pavilion

~ Craig Wright

While I meditate on the gulf towards which I travelled, and reflect on my youthful disobedience, for these things I weep, mine eye runneth down with water.

~ John Woolman

Oh God, what do we do?Do? Levi said, looking oddly triumphant, like his plans for the night had finally materialized, Like he had been hoping for some disaster like this to happen so he didn't have to be bored anymore. Like even a dying girl in his bathtub was better than calling his mother to confirm that his grandfather actually was dead, and that what he had heard on the answering machine wasn't a mere auditory hallucination. We save her, of course.

~ Matthew J. Hefti

Cosette, do you hear? he has come to that! he asks my forgiveness! And do you know what he has done for me, Cosette? He has saved my life. He has done more--he has given you to me. And after having saved me, and after having given you to me, Cosette, what has he done with himself? He has sacrificed himself. Behold the man. And he says to me the ingrate, to me the forgetful, to me the pitiless, to me the guilty one: Thanks! Cosette, my whole life passed at the feet of this man would be too little. That barricade, that sewer, that furnace, that cesspool,--all that he traversed for me, for thee, Cosette! He carried me away through all the deaths which he put aside before me, and accepted for himself. Every courage, every virtue, every heroism, every sanctity he possesses! Cosette, that man is an angel!

~ Victor Hugo

...a guilty suffering spirit is more open to grace than an apathetic or smug soul. Therefore, an age without a sense of sin, in which people are not even sorry for not being sorry for their sins, is in a serious predicament. Likewise an age with a Christianity so eager to forgive that it denies the need for forgiveness. For such an age, therefore, Lent can scarcely be too long!

~ Edna Hatlestad Hong

I no longer look to my abusers with any expectation– of remorse, or apology or restitution or restoration or relationship. I’m at peace, accepting that they won’t and can’t help me out of the mess they created. But, I’m the best qualified for that job anyway and I’m happy with the job I’m doing.

~ Christina Enevoldsen

The universe does not work in phrases, don’t focus on the commas, just wait for the full stop.

~ Jude Idada

Lo, God! I am Thy handiwork. I have sinned and have done great evil, yet I am still Thy handiwork, who hath made me what I am. So, though I may not undo that which I have done, yet I may, with Thy aid, do better hereafter than I have done heretofore.

~ Howard Pyle

Apologizing is different from begging, it doesn't change your status, go ahead and get on your knees, spill tears if you got it, for the person you offended, if at all you had a place in their hearts, you'll be totally forgiven and accepted.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

I shall die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me, or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched ... Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer, and heard the rustling of the leaves and the chirping of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation.

~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

It is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace. The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in indulging the excess of grief.

~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

I need to confront my loss, not run away from it. I wanted to wade in with my eyes open and all my senses alert. I wanted to register everything, from the giant waves of sorrow to the inkiest ripples of remorse. I didn't want to miss any of it.

~ Alex George

The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in the excess of grief.

~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The graces are restless today. They pweet and muss, shuddering their wings so that the feathers stick out at defensive angles. I feel that restlessness too. When the sea is fractious like this – when it chutters and schwaks against the moorings, when it won't talk but only mumbles – it's difficult to think.

~ Kirsty Logan

A life premised upon honest effort and questing for love is bound to generate regret and remorse.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster