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Regret is ... an unavoidable result of any loss, for in loss we lose the tomorrow that we needed to make right our yesterday or today.
GERALD LAWSON SITTSER, A Grace Disguised
Often regret is very false and displaced, and imagines the past to be totally other than it was.
JOHN O'DONOHUE, Anam Cara
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, Sam Horn's Tongue Fu!
You won't regret the men you never killed, but you will regret the women you passed up.
BERNARD CORNWELL, The Winter King
Remorse is the poison of life.
CHARLOTTE BRONTE, Jane Eyre
In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.
STEFAN ZWEIG, Stellar Moments in Human History
So it is with all life. A tedium that includes the expectation of nothing but more tedium; a regret, right now, for the regret I'll have tomorrow for having felt regret today.
FERNANDO PESSOA, The Book of Disquiet
Of all Sad Words of Tongue or Pen, the Saddest are these, "It Might Have Been."
Is it really so difficult to tell a good action from a bad one? I think one usually knows right away or a moment afterward, in a horrid flash of regret.
MARY MCCARTHY, My Confession
Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
AMBROSE BIERCE, The Devil's Dictionary
Regret, which is guilt without the neurosis, enables us ... to move forward instead of back.
JANE ADAMS, When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us
You'll never regret writing any letter out of love. However, it's a good idea to reread anything you've written in anger.
MARY MATALIN, Letters to My Daughters
Regret is an odd emotion because it comes only upon reflection. Regret lacks immediacy, and so its power seldom influences events when it could do some good.
WILLIAM O'ROURKE, Idle Hands
It is human nature to want to go back and fix things or change things that we regret.
JOHN GRAY, Mars and Venus on a Date
Regret of neglected opportunity is the worst hell that a living soul can inhabit.
RAFAEL SABATINI, Scaramouche
Love lives in sealed bottles of regret.
SEÁN O'FAOLÁIN, Saturday Evening Post, Aug. 13, 1966
Temporary feelings of regret are a normal part of the mourning process. This helps us retrieve our lost dreams. If we hold on to regret, we risk trapping ourselves in a prison of unrealized dreams from which it is difficult to escape.
BARBARA DE ANGELIS, How Did I Get Here?
Here is a sovereign talisman against regret: never do that which might engender it.
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