- “Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the truth, maybe I didn’t want things to turn abstract, but I felt I should say it, because this was the moment to say it, because it suddenly dawned on me that this was why I had come, to tell him ‘You are the only person I’d like to say goodbye to when I die, because only then will this thing I call my life make any sense. And if I should hear that you died, my life as I know it, the me who is speaking with you now, will cease to exist.” ― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name
- I don’t want to be 80-years-old and in a quiet moment of reflection, thinking back over my life, and cataloging a bunch of major regrets. Jeff Bezos (Amazon)
- “Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; I am also call’d No-more, Too-late, Farewell” ― Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The House of Life
- My only regret in life is that I did not drink more wine. Ernest Hemingway
- “Some of us live in the future,Connected to hurts from our past,If tomorrow is colored by bitter regret,Then today has been painted black Some of us live in the presentConnected to gifts from our past,If tomorrow is colored by purposeful thought,the today’s masterpiece has been cast.” ― J.A. Conner
- The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time. Mary Oliver
- Regret is a form of punishment itself. Nouman Ali Khan
- “It’s not that we have to quit this life one day, it’s how many things we have to quit all at once: holding hands, hotel rooms, music, the physics of falling leaves, vanilla and jasmine, poppies, smiling, anthills, the color of the sky, coffee and cashmere, literature, sparks and subway trains… If only one could leave this life slowly!” ― Roman Payne, Hope and Despair
- “In order to grow sometimes we must cease striving to meet other people’s expectations and begin establishing new goals that develop our personal potential. If we live a life to satisfy all the direct or implicit anticipations of other people, we end up living a life full of regret because we failed to develop into a complete manifestation of our being.” ― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
- Overthinking is the problem. Taking action is the solution. Maxime Lagacé
- If you accomplish something good with hard work, the labor passes quickly, but the good endures; if you do something shameful in pursuit of pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly, but the shame endures. Musonius Rufus
- “Arrange your life in such a way that you don’t make choices based on fear of God, instead of love of God.” ― Shannon L. Alder
- Regret is something you’ve got to just live with, you can’t drink it away. You can’t run away from it. You can’t trick yourself out of it. You’ve just got to own it. Anthony Bourdain
- “Droll thing life is — that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself — that comes too late — a crop of inextinguishable regrets.” ― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
- When it comes to regrets, it’s the dreams we didn’t go after that haunt us — the business we didn’t start, the book we didn’t write, the love we let slip away. When pursuing your dreams you won’t remember the bruises and failures, only the person you become. Shane Parrish
- There are no regrets in life, just lessons. Jennifer Aniston
- 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
- “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
- It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Seneca
- My guilt is an ocean for me to drown in. Nicola Yoon
- Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence. Eckhart Tolle (See also: forgiveness quotes)
- “When someone you love says goodbye you can stare long and hard at the door they closed and forget to see all the doors God has open in front of you.” ― Shannon Alder
- “Everybody was sorry. Sorry was easy. Sorry was for suckers.” ― Gretchen McNeil, Possess
- I have often regretted my speech, but never my silence. Publilius Syrus
- Your greatest regret at the end of your life will be the lions you didn’t chase. You will look back longingly on risks not taken, opportunities not seized, and dreams not pursued. Stop running away from what scares you most and start chasing the God-ordained opportunities that cross your path. Mark Batterson
- Making a big life change is pretty scary. But know what’s even scarier? Regret. Zig Ziglar
- Avoid things the best version of yourself will regret. Shane Parrish
- “No one willingly turns his thought back to the past, unless all his acts have been submitted to the censorship of his conscience, which is never deceived; he who has ambitiously coveted, proudly scorned, recklessly conquered, treacherously betrayed, greedily seized, or lavishly squandered, must needs fear his own memory.” ― Seneca, On the Shortness of Life
- “The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd – The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.” ― Fernando Pessoa
- “If you’ve truly tried your best, you’ve got nothing to regret.” ― Pep Talk Radio