Sayings about Regret

There is no repentance after death. ~ Russian Proverbs

Regretting the past is like chasing after the wind. ~ Russian Proverb

The unfaithful woman has remorse, the faithful one has regret. ~ Chinese Proverbs

All of the Earth’s treasures can’t bring back a lost moment. ~ French Proverbs

Perform good deeds; you will not regret them. ~ Moroccan Proverbs

A few moments of misplaced values can mean a lifetime of regret. ~ Saying

The first half of life is spent in longing for the second, the second half in regretting the first. ~ French Proverb

It’s no shame to look into the warm spring sun and regret a lost limb. ~ Norwegian Proverbs

He who believes his wife too much will regret it in the end. ~ French Proverb

Remorse is worse than a beating. ~ Greek Proverbs

Better to be safe than sorry. ~ American Proverbs

Haste and hurry can only bear children with many regrets along the way. ~ Senegalese Proverbs

A gypsy only tells the truth once in his life but he regrets it afterwards. ~ Gypsy Proverb

He who hesitates, regrets. ~ Albanian Proverbs

Regret, like a tail, comes at the end. ~ Ethiopian Proverbs

After a foolish deed comes remorse. ~ Kenyan Proverbs

Quotations about Regrets

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

The follies which a man regrets most are those which he didn’t commit when he had the opportunity. ~ Helen Rowland

Better by far you should forget and smile, than that you should remember and be sad. ~ Christina Rosetti

Regrets over the past should chasten the future. ~ James Ellis

It is human nature to want to go back and fix things or change things that we regret. ~ John Gray

One doesn’t recognize the really important moments in one’s life until it’s too late. ~ Agatha Christie

Let’s not burden our remembrance with a heaviness that’s gone. ~ William Shakespeare

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. ~ Ambrose Bierce

The worst thing you can do is to try to cling to something that’s gone, or to recreate it. ~ Johnette Napolitano

One of the sweetest pleasures of a woman is to cause regret. ~ Paul Gavarni

When you can think of yesterday without regret and tomorrow without fear, you are near contentment. ~ Author Unknown

To regret deeply is to live afresh. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The most painful thing to experience is not defeat but regret. ~ Leo Buscaglia

It’s not what your are, it’s what you don’t become that hurts. ~ Oscar Levant

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment. ~ Jim Rohn

Nobody who ever gave his best, regretted it. ~ George Halas

I have no regrets, I wouldn’t have lived my life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say. ~ Ingrid Bergman

Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets. ~ Arthur Miller

A ton of regret never makes an ounce of difference. ~ Grenville Kleiser

Let the dead Past bury its dead! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

You’ll seldom experience regret for anything that you’ve done. It is what you haven’t done that will torment you. ~ Wayne Dyer

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in. ~ Katherine Mansfield

My one regret in life is that I’m not someone else. ~ Woody Allen

The past will not tell us what we ought to do, but… what we ought to avoid. ~ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

Were it not better to forget than to remember and regret? ~ Letitia Elizabeth Landon

I have always found that each step we take in life is to be regretted — if we once begin to wonder how many other steps might have been possible. ~ John Oliver Hobbes

A few moments of misplaced values can mean a lifetime of regret. ~ Author Unknown

If we always look back, we lose sight of what’s ahead. ~ Justin Sims

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. ~ Sidney J. Harris

Regret for time wasted can become a power for good in the time that remains, if we will only stop the waste and the idle, useless regretting. ~ Arthur Brisbane

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent. ~ Bob Dylan

I have no regrets because I know I did my best — all I could do. ~ Midori Ito

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

I demolish my bridges behind me… then there is no choice but forward. ~ Firdtjof Nansen

A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future. ~ Oliver Goldsmith

Judgement comes from experience, and great judgement comes from bad experience. ~ Robert Packwood

Never look for the birds of this year in the nests of the last. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

When the past has taught us that we have more within us than we have ever used, our prayer is a cry to the divine to come to us and fill us with its power. ~ Rudolph Steiner

Nostalgia: When you find the present tense and past perfect. ~ The Lion

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

Regret of neglected opportunity is the worst hell that a living soul can inhabit. ~ Rafael Sabatini

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it come to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Regrets are the natural property of gray hairs. ~ Charles Dickens

We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow. ~ Fulton Oursler

The biggest thing in today’s sorrow is the memory of yesterday’s joy. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Only in your imagination can you revise. ~ Fay Wray

You must never regret what might have been. The past that did not happen is as hidden from us as the future we cannot see. ~ Richard Martin Stern

There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory. ~ Marcel Proust

The only things you regret are the things you didn’t do. ~ Michael Curtiz

Accept the pain, cherish the joys, resolve the regrets; then can come the best of benedictions, “If I had my life to live over, I’d do it all the same.” ~ Joan McIntosh

The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favor. ~ William Hazlitt

Go to the effort. Invest the time. Write the letter. Make the apology. Take the trip. Purchase the gift. Do it. The seized opportunity renders joy. The neglected brings regret. ~ Max L. Lucado

Heart knows no sorrow like the sorrow of regretting. ~ Martha Lavinia Hoffman