Might Have Been Quotes

• For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been'.

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Love, Inspirational, Life

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• I'd rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are; because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star. I'd rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far; for a might have-been has never been, but a has was once an are.

  Milton Berle

  Love, Inspiring, Encouraging

  38 Copy quote

• We can never know what might have been but what is to come is another matter entirely

  C. S. Lewis

  Meaningful, Future, Past

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• If it had not been for the Christians that I have known I might have been a Christian.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Christian, Might, Has Beens

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• Our suffering is caused by holding on to how things might have been, should have been, could have been.

  Stephen Levine

  Should Have, Suffering, Might

  Stephen Levine, Ondrea Levine (2012). “Who Dies?: An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying”, p.3, Anchor

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• The hardest memories are the pieces of what might have been.

  Deborah Smith

  Memories, Pieces, Might

  Deborah Smith (2011). “A Place to Call Home”, p.4, Bantam

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• It's never too late to be who you were meant to be.

  George Eliot

  Successful, Goal, Too Late

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• There are people we meet in life who miss being important to us by inches, days, or heartbeats. Another place or time or a different emotional frame of mind and we would willingly fall into their arms; gladly take up their challenge or invitation. But as it is, we encounter them when we are discontent or content and they are not. Whatever they are, we are not and vice versa. Two trains going in different directions that pass for a few powerful moments at full speed, blasting noise and wind but then they are gone. Whatever serious chemistry might have been possible if, isn’t.

  Jonathan Carroll

  Powerful, Fall, Emotional

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• I had always been in love with him. I counted the lashes of each closed eye. He had been my almost, my might have been, and I did not want to leave him

  Alice Sebold

  Eye, Happy Love, Want

  Alice Sebold (2014). “The Lovely Bones: Picador Classic”, p.200, Pan Macmillan

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• It is a bitter thought, how different a thing the Christianity of the world might have been, if the Christian faith had been adopted as the religion of the empire under the auspices of Marcus Aurelius instead of those of Constantine.

  John Stuart Mill

  Christian, Different, World

  John Stuart Mill (1859). “On Liberty”, p.50

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• 

  If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.

  Yogi Berra

  Inspirational, Funny, Success

  "Yogi Berra, baseball Hall of Famer and New York Yankees catcher, dies at 90" by Alan Evans, www.theguardian.com. September 23, 2015.

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• Stay away from what might have been, and look at what can be.

  Marsha Petrie Sue

  New Year, New Beginnings, Might

  57 Copy quote

• Be what you would seem to be - or, if you'd like it put more simply - never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.

  Lewis Carroll

  Imagination, Identity, Wonderland

  Lewis Carroll (2010). “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass”, p.61, Cosimo, Inc.

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• No star is lost once we have seen, We always may be what we might have been.

  Adelaide Anne Procter

  Inspirational, Stars, Motivation

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• It is never too late to be who you want to be.

  George Eliot

  Successful, Goal, Be Who You Are

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• We can't live our lives according to what might have been. We have to live by what is.

  Terry Goodkind

  Might, Live By, Has Beens

  Terry Goodkind (2015). “The First Confessor: Sword of Truth: The Prequel”, p.70, Head of Zeus

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• I think," Tehanu said in her soft, strange voice, "that when I die, I can breathe back the breath that made me live. I can give back to the world all that I didn't do. All that I might have been and couldn't be. All the choices I didn't make. All the things I lost and spent and wasted. I can give them back to the world. To the lives that haven't been lived yet. That will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life I did live, the love I loved, the breath I breathed.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Loss, Thinking, Voice

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• It's odd to think we might have been Sun, moon and stars unto each other; Only I turned down one little street As you went up another.

  Fannie Heaslip Lea

  Stars, Moon, Destiny

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• You must try never to regret what might have been, child. The past that did not happen is as hidden from us as the future we cannot yet see.

  Richard Martin Stern

  Regret, Past, Might

  "Stanfield harvest".

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• We need be careful how we deal with those about us, when every death carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so little done- of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired! There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, in time.

  Charles Dickens

  Circles, Needs, Survivor

  Charles Dickens (2017). “OLIVER TWIST (Illustrated Edition): Including “The Life of Charles Dickens” & Criticism of the Work”, p.245, e-artnow

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• She gave me this look – she might have been watching from a lifeboat as the ship went down. Or maybe it was the other way around.

  Haruki Murakami

  Looks, Might, Way

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• But let's not speak of what might have been. Let us speak instead of what is. You are whole.

  Kate DiCamillo

  Might, Speak, Whole

  Kate DiCamillo (2009). “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane”, p.150, Candlewick Press

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• The cruelest affront is treating the person as exactly the person he is. We all long to be understood, but not for what we are. We long to be understood for what we might have been had all been for the best in the best of all possible worlds and, at the same time, to be forgiven for what we are.

  Jo Coudert

  Long, World, Might

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• She said a good day ain't got no rain She said a bad day is when I lie in the bed And I think of things that might have been

  Paul Simon

  Lying, Rain, Good Day

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• Such is life and life is such and after all it isn't much. First a cradle. Then a hearse. It might have been better, but it could have been worse.

  Norman Wisdom

  Might, Firsts, Life Is

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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