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Regret quotes

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“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 unextinguishable regrets.” Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” - 1899

“no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused!” Charles Dickens, “A Christmas Carol” - 1843

“I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished.” Charles Dickens, “David Copperfield” - 1850

“Things without all remedy should be without regard: what's done is done.” William Shakespeare, “Macbeth” - 1623

“If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul.” William Shakespeare, “Titus Andronicus” - 1594

“And once we decided to do something, we should never look back, never regret it.” Richard Branson, “Screw It, Let's Do It” - 2006

“You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don’t plan for it!” Tennessee Williams, “The Glass Menagerie” - 1944

“To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.” Oscar Wilde, “De Profundis” - 1905

“The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered—and that I loved it, that is the unanswered in my life.” Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead” - 1943

“There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth. But since my duty has not been incompatible with the admission of that remembrance, I have given it a place in my...” Charles Dickens, “Great Expectations” - 1861

“I’ve lived out my melancholy youth. I don’t give a fuck any more what’s behind me, or what’s ahead of me. I’m healthy. Incurably healthy. No sorrows, no regrets. No past, no future. The present is enough for me. Day by day. Today!” Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer” - 1934

“Alas, how easily things go wrong! A sigh too much, or a kiss too long, And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, And life is never the same again.” George MacDonald, “Phantastes” - 1858

“If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless.” John Green, “Looking for Alaska” - 2005

“It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many unavailing sorrows and regrets.” Charles Dickens, “David Copperfield” - 1850

Related topics

past life self-knowledge time future reality meaning futility forgetting emptiness experience memory opportunity good present remembrance action melancholy denial consequences

Related authors

Charles Dickens (4)
William Shakespeare (2)
Oscar Wilde (2)
John Green (1)
Ayn Rand (1)
Joseph Conrad (1)
George MacDonald (1)
Richard Branson (1)
Henry Miller (1)
Tennessee Williams (1)

Related sources

David Copperfield (2)
Macbeth (1)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1)
Titus Andronicus (1)
The Fountainhead (1)
Heart of Darkness (1)
Screw It, Let's Do It (1)
Tropic of Cancer (1)
The Glass Menagerie (1)
Looking for Alaska (1)
De Profundis (1)
A Christmas Carol (1)
Great Expectations (1)
Phantastes (1)