Regret Quotes - Page 9

• What is the special privilege of youth? It is, I think, the power of looking forward, the firm belief that the future holds something that is worth possessing, and that, therefore, one can let the present moment drop from one without regret and without fear.

  Edith Sitwell

  Thinking, Special, Privilege

  Edith Sitwell (Dame), Elizabeth Salter, Allanah Harper (1976). “Edith Sitwell: fire of the mind : an anthology”, Michael Joseph

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• I love the evening star. Does that sound foolish? I used to go into the backyard, after sunset, and wait for it until it shone above the dark gum tree. I used to whisper 'There you are, my darling.' And just in that first moment it seemed to be shining for me alone. It seemed to understand this ... something which is like longing, and yet it is not longing. Or regret - it is more like regret.

  Katherine Mansfield

  Stars, Sunset, Dark

  Katherine Mansfield, Ian Alistair Gordon (1974). “Undiscovered country: the New Zealand stories of Katherine Mansfield”

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• Among even the happiest married couples there are always moments of regret.

  Honore de Balzac

  Happiness, Marriage, Couple

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• As there are some faults that have been termed faults on the right side, so there are some errors that might be denominated errors on the safe side. Thus we seldom regret having been too mild, too cautious, or too humble; but we often repent having been too violent, too precipitate, or too proud.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Humble, Errors, Faults

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.193

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• How subtle is the relationship between the traveler and his luggage! He knows, as no one else knows, its idiosyncrasies, its contents ... and always some small nuisance which he wishes he had not brought; had known, indeed, before starting that he would regret it, but brought it all the same.

  Vita Sackville-West

  Travel, Wish, Nuisance

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• Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.

  William James

  Men, Agents, Half

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• I don't look back. I'm like a shark - I only look forward.

  Rita Rudner

  Sharks, Looks

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• Fading, with the Night, the memory of a dead love, and the withered leaves of a blighted hope, and the sickly repinings and moody regrets that numb the best energies of the soul: and rising, broadening, rolling upward like a living flood, the manly resolve, and the dauntless will, and the heavenward gaze of faith-the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen!

  Lewis Carroll

  Memories, Night, Soul

  Lewis Carroll (2015). “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Other Tales”, p.367, Race Point Pub

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• Yet reason frowns in war's unequal game,
  Where wasted nations raise a single name;
  And mortgag'd states their grandsire's wreaths regret,
  From age to age in everlasting debt;
  Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey
  To rust on medals, or on stones decay.

  Samuel Johnson

  War, Hero, Games

  Samuel Johnson (1820). “The Poems of Dr. Samuel Johnson. To which is Prefixed, a Life of the Author”, p.36

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• From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections.

  Washington Irving

  Spring, Peaceful, Graves

  Washington Irving (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Washington Irving (Illustrated)”, p.136, Delphi Classics

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• Because the truth is - and we know it - we were born to die without regrets. Regret is the only wound from which the soul never recovers.

  Sarah Ban Breathnach

  Soul, Truth Is, Born

  Sarah Ban Breathnach (1999). “Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self”, G K Hall & Company

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• I truly believe that regret is the only wound the soul does not recover from, and so I'm trying to live without regrets. ... Each day is another chance to be swept away.

  Sarah Ban Breathnach

  Believe, Soul, Trying

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• You'll regret opening your mouth. You'll rarely regret keeping it shut.

  Max Lucado

  Mouths, Opening

  Twitter post from Jul 19, 2014

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• children like change - for one thing, they never anticipate regret.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Children, Anticipate, One Thing

  Elizabeth Bowen (1998). “Bowen's Court”

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• Whichever way we look the prospect is disagreeable. Behind, we have left pleasures we shall never enjoy, and therefore regret; and before, we see pleasures which we languish to possess, and are consequently uneasy till we possess them.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Looks, Way, Anticipation

  Oliver Goldsmith, David Masson (1869). “The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith”, p.157

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• Have your fun, my dear; but if you must earn your bread, try to make it sweet with cheerfulness, not bitter with the daily regret that it isn't cake.

  Louisa May Alcott

  Sweet, Fun, Attitude

  Louisa May Alcott (2000). “The Portable Louisa May Alcott”, p.446, Penguin

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• When someone you love dies you pay for the sin of outliving her with a thousand piercing regrets.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Grief, Loss, Someone You Love

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• If we spend our time with regrets over yesterday, and worries over what might happen tomorrow, we have no today in which to live.

  Thomas Sowell

  Yesterday, Worry, Might

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• The memories which come to us through music are not accompanied by any regrets; for a moment music gives us back the pleasures it retraces, and we feel them again rather than recollect them.

  Madame de Stael

  Music, Memories, Giving

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• Every house we have lived in, every building to which our hands have lent their work, belongs to us by virtue of love or of regret.

  Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

  Home, Hands, House

  Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (1989). “Italian Days”, p.353, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• it is a lean employment of time to brood on what might have happened along some other turning.

  Freya Stark

  Employment, Might, Happened

  Freya Stark (1964). “The Journey's Echo: Selections”

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• O that one unguarded moment! / Were it mine to live again, / All the strength of its temptation / Would appeal to me in vain.

  Phoebe Cary

  Temptation, Moments, Vain

  Phoebe Cary (1854). “Poems and Parodies”, p.58

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• I was asked the other day if I would be interested in the Nobel Prize, but I think that for me it would be an absolute catastrophe. I would certainly be interested in deserving it, but to
  receive it would be terrible. It would just complicate even more the problems of fame. The only thing I really regret in life is not having a daughter.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Daughter, Thinking, Deserving It

  "Gabriel García Márquez, The Art of Fiction No. 69". Interviewed with Peter H. Stone. Issue 82, p. 339, www.theparisreview.org. Winter 1981.

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• It is with great disappointment and regret that after having the privilege of writing and performing the music of The Black Crowes over the last 24 years, I find myself in the position of saying that the band has broken up.

  Rich Robinson

  Music, Disappointment, Writing

  "Black Crowes have broken up, says Rich Robinson". www.theguardian.com. January 16, 2015.

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• The power of the present moment is so immense it is capable - when lived in fully - of destroying forever every past mistake and regret.

  Vernon Howard

  Mistake, Past, Forever

  "The Power of Esoterics". Book by Vernon Howard, 1999.

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