Remorse Quotes - Page 5

• I am sorry," I whispered. "I am sorry for all of the ways that I failed you. I am sorry that I was not there to save you, or to die alongside you. I am sorry that I have kept you with me for so long, trapped in my heart, bound in sorrow and remorse. I forgive you too. I forgive you for leaving me, and I forgive you for returning. I forgive you your anger, and your grief. Let this be an end to it.

  John Connolly

  Sorry, Grief, Heart

  John Connolly (2012). “The John Connolly Collection #2: The White Road, The Black Angel, and The Unquiet”, p.1300, Simon and Schuster

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• It's hard not to hate. People, things, institutions. When they break your spirit and take pleasure in watching you bleed, hate is the only feeling that makes sense. That's what I need to tell you. To let you know how hard I'm trying not to cave under the weight of all the awful things I feel in my heart. When I look at my day, I realize most of it was spent cleaning up the damage of the day before. In that life I have no future. All I have is distraction and remorse.

  J-Ax

  Hate, Heart, People

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• We can always get along better by reason and love of truth than by worry of conscience and remorse...we should strive to keep worry from our life.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Worry, And Love, Anticipation

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• I mean that it is more natural for me to be wicked than virtuous, when I do a bad act, and I've done many, I never feel wither shame, remorse or fear, I sometimes wish it was not necessary as I don't like the trouble, but as for any moral sense of principle, I haven't a particle. Many people are like me as actions prove, but they are not so frank in owning it and insist on keeping up the humbug of virtue.

  Louisa May Alcott

  Mean, People, Wicked

  "A Long Fatal Love Chase". Book by Louisa May Alcott, 1995.

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• Remorse for what is done is useless.

  Philo

  Done, Useless

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• For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs-as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.

  Charles Darwin

  Dog, Sacrifice, Order

  The Descent of Man ch. 21 (1871)

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• 

  A character is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse.

  Arthur Miller

  Character, Challenges, Causes

  Arthur Miller (2013). “Timebends: A Life”, p.281, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Remorse sleeps during a prosperous period but wakes up in adversity.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Adversity, Sleep, Insomnia

  "Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau". Book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1782.

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• In my age, as in my youth, night brings me many a deep remorse. I realize that from the cradle up I have been like the rest of the race - never quite sane in the night.

  Mark Twain

  Night, Race, Age

  Mark Twain (2010). “Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review”, p.46, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• Situations in life often permit no delay; and when we cannot determine the course which is certainly best, we must follow the one which is probably the best. This frame of mind freed me also from the repentance and remorse commonly felt by those vacillating individuals who are always seeking as worthwhile things which they later judge to be bad.

  Rene Descartes

  Situations In Life, Worthwhile Things, Judging

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• Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt, fear, remorse, or anger can seize upon one are known to everybody. . . . And emotions that come in this explosive way seldom leave things as they found them.

  William James

  Jealousy, Emotional, Guilt

  William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.185, Library of America

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• When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom — freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse.

  Eric Hoffer

  Lying, Hate, Bully

  Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

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• I am told that the proximity of punishment arouses real repentance in the criminal and sometimes awakens a feeling of genuine remorse in the most hardened heart; I am told this is due to fear.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Real, Heart, Punishment

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2012). “The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky”, p.13, Modern Library

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• And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?

  Khalil Gibran

  Judgement, Misdeeds, Greater

  Khalil Gibran (2007). “Kahlil Gibran: Masterpieces”

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• There is no remorse like a remorse of chess. It is a curse upon man. There is no happiness in chess.

  H. G. Wells

  Men, Chess, Curse

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• And so, resisting the temptation to wallow in artistic remorse, I prefer to leave both well and ill alone and to think about something else

  Aldous Huxley

  Thinking, Temptation, Artistic

  Aldous Huxley (1950). “The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Brave new world”

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• There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgement. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom- freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse. Herein undoubtedly lies part of the attractiveness of a mass movement

  Eric Hoffer

  Lying, Hate, Men

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Flesh and blood,
  You, brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,
  Expell'd remorse and nature, who, with Sebastian-
  Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong-
  Would here have kill'd your king, I do forgive thee,
  Unnatural though thou art.

  William Shakespeare

  Art, Strong, Brother

  William Shakespeare (1867). “The Works of William Shakespeare”, p.18

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• Guilt, remorse. It's what separates us from the animals.

  Arthur Mitchell

  Animal, Guilt, Funny Simpsons

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• Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating into rudeness, or self esteem from swelling into insolence. A thousand incivilities may be committed, and a thousand offices neglected. without any remorse of conscience, or reproach from reason.

  Samuel Johnson

  Self Esteem, Mean, Law

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay”, p.459

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• Now that lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room And twists one in her fingers while she talks. "Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands"; (slowly twisting the lilac stalks) "You let it flow from you, you let it flow, And youth is cruel, and has no remorse And smiles at situations which it cannot see." I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea.

  T. S. Eliot

  Drinking, Hands, Tea

  T. S. Eliot (2012). “The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems”, p.13, Courier Corporation

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• It would be an endless battle if it were all up to ego
  because it does not destroy and is not destroyed by itself
  It is like a wave
  it makes itself up, it rushes forward getting nowhere really
  it crashes, withdraws and makes itself up again
  pulls itself together with pride
  towers with pride
  rushes forward into imaginary conquest
  crashes in frustration
  withdraws with remorse and repentance
  pulls itself together with new resolution

  Agnes Martin

  Pride, Frustration, Ego

  Agnes Martin, Lawrence Alloway (1973). “Agnes Martin: Exhibition January 22 to March 1, 1973”

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• There are evil spirits who suddenly fix their abode in man's unguarded breast, causing us to commit devilish deeds, and then, hurrying back to their native hell, leave behind the stings of remorse in the poisoned bosom.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Men, Evil, Deeds

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• Remorse is memory awake.

  Emily Dickinson

  Memories, Awake

  Emily Dickinson (2016). “The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson”, p.119, First Avenue Editions

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• Bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse.

  Samuel Johnson

  Sorrow, May, Sometimes

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.285

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