Last Updated: March 15, 2023 by Quote.cc Team
Regret is a negative emotion that arises when we feel unhappy or disappointed about past decisions, actions, or events. It is a normal part of the human experience and can be a helpful emotion that helps us learn from our mistakes and make better decisions in the future.
Regret can be caused by various situations, including missed opportunities, wrong decisions, bad investments, lost friendships or relationships, or small things like not speaking up or standing up for oneself.
While some level of regret is average and can be a motivating force for positive change, excessive regret can be harmful. It can lead to feelings of depression, anxiety, and self-doubt. Learning from past mistakes and moving forward rather than dwelling on them is essential.
To cope with regret, reflecting on the situation and identifying what we could have done differently can be helpful. We can also reframe the situation positively by focusing on the lessons learned or the opportunities that may arise from experience. Practicing self-compassion and forgiving ourselves can also help us move forward and let go of feelings of regret.
Here are 300 of the most inspiring regret quotes I could find. Don’t live your life of regret. May these regret quotes help you acquire more ideas about it and give you thoughts on handling them. Share these no-regrets quotes with your friends, family, and loved ones to inspire them.
300 Of The Best Quotes About Having Regrets
Top 10 Regret Quotes
“Your higher self never looks back. Everything valuable is in the now.” – Andy Wang
“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
“Your children make it impossible to regret your past. They’re its finest fruits. Sometimes the only ones.” – Anna Quindlen
“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 Adler
“When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” – Alexander Graham Bell
“When it’s gone, you’ll know what a gift love was. You’ll suffer like this. So go back and fight to keep it.” – Ian McEwan
“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
“When I look at my life I realise that the mistakes I have made, the things I really regret, were not errors of judgement but failures of feeling.” – Jeanette Winterson
“What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose.” – Henry Ward Beecher
“The longer our trail of regrets, the more we tend to value the importance of making wise decisions.” – Bob Santos
Related topics: 100 Mistakes Quotes That’ll Help You Learning From Mistakes
Never Regret Quotes
“The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love.” – Gabriel García Márquez
“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.” – Ted Hughes
“The one thing I regret was that my work required an enormous amount of my time, and a lot of travel.” – Neil Armstrong
“The one thing I learned is to just give everything a shot. You don’t want to live in regret.” – Chloe Kim
“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
“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” – Henry Ward Beecher
“The mistakes I’ve made are dead to me. But I can’t take back the things I never did.” – Jonathan Safran Foer
“The love of family and the admiration of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege.” – Charles Kuralt
“Regret doesn’t come from failure. It comes from giving up.” – Mel Robbins
“Regets are not inherited. Regrets are those elements of life that seek to undermine our enthusiasm and our willingness to assume a life filled with new discoveries and the attainment of goals. Let not your regets be your undoing but instead your vehicle to learn from what did not work. With every mistep or mistake comes the opportunity to rise above; to learn; and to achieve.” – Byron Pulsifer
“People should not judge failed love affairs as failed experiences, but as part of the growth process. Something does not have to end well for it to have been one of the most valuable experiences of a lifetime.” – Ethel Person
“People die all the time. Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely. It’s too easy not to make the effort, then weep and wring your hands after the person dies.” – Haruki Murakami
“Past is a fiction. You can’t go back. All that remains is a hazy interpretation of a hazy memory. It’s not helpful.” – Naval Ravikant
“Parents were the only ones obligated to love you; from the rest of the world you had to earn it.” – Ann Brashares
“Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted.” – Paul Pearshall
“Our biggest regrets are not for the things we have done but for the things we haven’t done.” – Chad Michael Murray
“Only one infinite deception is possible: self-deception.” – Søren Kierkegaard
“One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.” – Shannon L. Alder
“It takes a certain lack of imagination to have an entirely clean conscience.” – Alain de Botton
“It is not the things we do in life that we regret on our death bed. It is the things we do not.” – Randy Pausch
“It is not the experience of Today that drives a person mad, it is the remorse or bitterness of something which happened Yesterday and the dread of what Tomorrow may bring.”
“It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards.” – Baltasar Gracián
“It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.” – Jackie Joyner Kersee
“In time of test, family is best.” – Burmese Proverb
“In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take, the relationships we were afraid to have, and the decisions we waited too long to make.” – Lewis Carroll
“In my experience working with a variety of people over several decades, far too many individuals choose to be anonymous members of the pack, therefore suffering from the inner remorse that makes them feel like failures, filled with conflict and resentment and wondering what the meaning of life is.” – Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
“In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions.” – Carlos Castaneda
“Imagine if every person on earth threw themselves fully and completely into their positive obsessions without reservation, regret, or apology. Overnight the world would be a different and better place. With everyone so focused on their own production and creating their own success, there would be no time for war, drugs, or other wasteful, unnecessary destruction. We’d all hit levels of success previously thought impossible – and inspire one another to do more and be more.” – Grant Cardone
“If I’m sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow.” – José Saramago
“I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.” – Lucille Ball
“I’m very versatile and there’s nothing I really regret in my life. I’m excited with who I am and I’m just going to keep riding the wave.” – Rick Ross
“I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.” – Lucille Ball
“I would rather regret the things that I have done than the things that I have not.” – Lucille Ball
“I would much rather have regrets about not doing what people said, than regretting not doing what my heart led me to and wondering what life had been like if I’d just been myself.” – Brittany Renée
“I wish I could turn back the clock. I’d find you sooner and love you longer.”
“I want to undo this. To make it right. But I have no idea how. I don’t seem to know how to open up to people without getting the door slammed in my face. So I do nothing.” – Gayle Forman
“I try to face things without regret, or make sure that I’m happy with things and leave nothing unsaid if I can.” – Hozier
“I think to regret is useless in life. It belongs to the past.” – Marlon Brando
“I think people that have a brother or sister don’t realize how lucky they are. Sure, they fight a lot, but to know that there’s always somebody there, somebody that’s family.” – Trey Parker
“I see it all perfectly, there are two possible situations, one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it, you will regret both.” – Soren Kierkegaard
“I never regret anything. Because every little detail of your life is what made you into who you are in the end.” – Drew Barrymore
“I made decisions that I regret, and I took them as learning experiences. I’m human, not perfect, like anybody else.” – Queen Latifah
“I look at the dash of a particular person’s marker and wonder, What did he live for? Whom did she love? What were his passions? What were her biggest mistakes and greatest regrets?” – Kerry Shook
“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.” – Jeff Bezos
No Regret Quotes
“What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.” – George Saunders
“What I like, I want right now. This capricious impatience is typical of children, but also of adults who have never really grown up. We may let slip one word or gesture too many, we may act on an impulse and then regret it. It is hard to control ourselves and to wait. On the other hand, whatever we have no desire to do, we put off. A plethora of studies have shown that self-regulation is connected with self-confidence, health, and success.” – Piero Ferrucci
“What hurts more; the pain of ‘what ifs’, or the pain of rejection?” – Izey Odiase
“What does God want you to do with your regrets instead? Admit your guilt. . . .Accept Christ’s forgiveness. . . .Forgive yourself, and focus on the future.” – Rick Warren
“We should have taken our chances back then, when we were young and beautiful and didn’t even know it.” – Lois McMaster Bujold
“We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.” – Jim Rohn
“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.” – Jim Rohn
“We limit ourselves through regret, hostility and guilt. Yet none of this controls us.” – Brian M. Heater
“We have to let go of all blame, all attacking, all judging, to free our inner selves to attract what we say we want.” – Joe Vitale
“We don’t have to be defined by the things we did or didn’t do in our past. Some people allow themselves to be controlled by regret. Maybe it’s a regret, maybe it’s not. It’s merely something that happened. Get over it.” – Pittacus Lore
“We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow.” – Fulton Oursler
“Looking back, I have this to regret . . . that too often when I loved, I did not say so.” – David Grayson
“Looking back over a life of hard work… my only regret is that I didn’t work even harder.” – Henry Louis Mencken
“Look to your own means, leave everything that isn’t yours alone. Make use of what material advantages you have, don’t regret the ones you were not allowed.” – Epictetus
“Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?” – Khalil Gibran
“Living with regrets was like driving a car that only moved in reverse.” – Jodi Picoult
“Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.” – Mary Anne Radmacher
“Live in the present tense, facing the duty at hand without regret for the past or worry over the future.” – William de Witt Hyde
“Live fast, fight hard, no regrets!” – John Cena
“Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.” – Catherine M. Wallace
“I’m too old to recover, too narrow to forgive myself.” – Lillian Hellman
“If you’re always dragging yourself down with the past, how is God going to lift you up in the future?” – Stephen Arterburn
“If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them and half as much money.” – Abigail Van Buren
“If you put in little effort and expect big returns, you will be deeply disappointed. You don’t get apples by planting lemon seeds.” – Catherine Pulsifer
“If you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry, you will also regret it.” – Søren Kierkegaard
“If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you’ll be a better person. It’s how you handle adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit.” – William J. Clinton
“If you had to relive your life exactly as it was, same successes and failures, same happiness, same miseries, same mixture of comedy and tragedy, would you want to? Was it worth it.” – Gavin Extence
“If you ever react with anger, it will overtake you. You will say something or do something you regret.” – Rhonda Hart
“If you don’t set goals, you can’t regret not reaching them.” – Yogi Berra
“If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.” – Jim Carrey
“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.” – Chinese Proverb
“If you are afraid to take a chance, take one anyway. What you don’t do can create the same regrets as the mistakes you make.” – Iyanla Vanzant
“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
“If we fill our hours with regrets over the failures of yesterday, we have no today in which to be thankful.” – Anonymous
“If we don’t deal with the roots of our regrets, if we don’t make the choice to start over, the costs of what we’re missing out on can be enormous and will accrue exponentially over time.” – Dave Ferguson
“If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world.” – Mercedes Lackey
“I have to laugh at the times I’ve knocked myself out over a tough spot only to find out afterwards there was an easier way.” – Robert Franklin Leslie
“I have often regretted my speech, but never my silence.” – Publilius Syrus
“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
“I have learned that I should be careful with the words I choose to say when I am angry because later, those words always leave a huge wound of regrets in my heart besides hurting the loved ones.” – Nino Varsimashvili
“I guess if a person didn’t quit when the going got tough, they wouldn’t have anything to regret for the rest of their life.” – Lance Armstrong
“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
“I don’t think I have any regrets, but I can tell you what I learned from mistakes or failures. I’ve had plenty of those. I just don’t believe in regret, and my economic world is not what I would ever have imagined; I’m financially free.” – Tony Robbins
“I don’t regret any of the decisions I’ve made in my life. Because with every choice I’ve made, I’ve learned something new.” – Ariana Grande
“I don’t dwell in the past; I don’t wallow in old events and emotions. I don’t waste time on regret. No use going over and over the details of what already happened.” – Yanni
You Will Regret Quotes
“You will never regret doing the right thing.”
“You should never regret anything in life. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.” – Victoria Holt
“You get one life. Do it all. Don’t leave anything in reserve.” – Shane Parrish
“You can’t regret the life you didn’t lead.” – Junot Díaz
“You can’t win an argument. You can’t because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.” – Dale Carnegie
“You can never regret anything you do in life. You kind of have to learn the lesson from whatever the experience is and take it with you on your journey forward.” – Aubrey O’Day
“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.” – Frederick Buechner
“You can always find a “good reason” to put off what needs to be done. Time will turn excuses into regrets.”
“Worrying about past regrets does nothing to change the past. Your future is where your focus should be.” – Catherine Pulsifer
“Worry often times becomes a guilt-trip and then feeds into regret as a way that one “should have” done this or that.” – DA Southern
“One day of effort is one day of bliss; One day of sloth is a hundred years of regret.” – Awa Kenzô
“Once you see there is a solution to every obstacle that stands in your way, you’ll be left with no more excuses for not getting everything you want in your life.” – Mark Black
“On your deathbed, you won’t wish you had more twitter followers, an extra zero in your bank account, or were the President. Instead, you’ll be thinking about the people that mattered and whether you were there for them. It’s not too late. Change the path, change the outcome.” – Shane Parrish
“Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, ‘It might have been.” – Kurt Vonnegut
“Not everything’s perfect, especially in the beginning. And it’s all right to have a little bit of regret every once in a while. It’s when you feel it all the time and can’t do anything about it. That’s when you get into trouble.” – Sarah Dessen
“Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” – George Halas
“No space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused.” – Charles Dickens
“No regrets, just love. We can dance until we die. You and I, we’ll be young forever!” – Katy Perry
“No matter what you’ve done for yourself or for humanity, if you can’t look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?” – Elbert Hubbard
“Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don’t and believe that everything happens for a reason.”
“Life is simple: Make choices and don’t look back.” – Sung Kang
“Let’s dare to promote ourselves to better ‘us’ by working hard and moving forward instead of regretting and rewinding the past.” – Pantea Kalhor
“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing.” – Seneca
“Let us make one point, that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family.” – Mother Theresa
“It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.” – Seneca
“It’s better to start something and risk looking like an idiot than sit there and accomplish nothing.” – Shane Parrish
“It’s better to bet on this life than on the next.” – Albert Camus
“It was like trying to bail out an ocean of water with a teaspoon.” – Jodi Picoult
“I don’t believe in regrets. Regrets just keep you chained to the past. You gotta make peace with the past. There’s no reason to regret it. You’ve done it, just make peace with it.” – Bob Dylan
“I believe the worst regret in life is to miss the ultimate goal – our eternal home – Heaven. If we blow it on this single issue, nothing else matters.” – Robert Rogers
“I believe that what we regret most are our failures of courage, whether it’s the courage to be kinder, to show up, to say how we feel, to set boundaries, to be good to ourselves. For that reason, regret can be the birthplace of empathy.” – Brené Brown
“Hurting people you love is the heaviest kind of regret.” – Charlotte Eriksson
“Heartbreak could be lived with if it weren’t accompanied by regret.” – Laura Kasischke
“Have you ever hoped for something? And held out for it against all the odds? Until everything you did was ridiculous.” – Ali Shaw
“Have no regrets. The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets.” – Author Unknown
“Have more fear of regret than failure.” – Thibaut
“God wants to be involved in our quest to move beyond regret. He created us and wants an intimate relationship with us. He is not waiting for us to “fix” ourselves and then enter into relationship with Him. On the contrary, we need to come to Him first – He will take us through the “fixing” process.” – Laurie Driesen
“A moment in life – followed by an eternity of situations to grow from or regret – is the reality that love is not about winning or losing, but simply to survive.” – William E. Lewis
“A man is not old until his regrets take the place of his dreams.” – Yiddish proverb
“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
Relationship Regret Quotes
“Will you continue to be defined by your bad decisions, or will you look beyond them to God, who can take what you give him and turn it into something productive and eternal? You can choose a life of prolonged regret or a life of optimism and fulfillment. It’s your call.” – Erwin W. Lutzer
“Why didn’t I learn to treat everything like it was the last time. My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.” – Jonathan Safran Foer
“While you may want to say many things that are not positive, chances are that you will regret it later. Therefore, make sure to say what is on your mind using a method that allows the other person to leave the conversation with their self-worth still intact.” – Eric Davenport
“While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.” – Angela Schwindt
“While some people can’t wait until their retirement, others feel cheated that they have to retire at all..” – Catherine Pulsifer
“When you loved someone and had to let them go, there will always be that small part of yourself that whispers, “What was it that you wanted and why didn’t you fight for it?” – Shannon Alder
“When you give it your all and it doesn’t work out, you are broken for a while but it passes because you have no regrets. You gave it everything you had.” – Shane Parrish
“No human on his deathbed ever regretted having spent too much time with his children.” – George Stamatis
“No amount of guilt can change the past and no amount of worrying can change the future.” – Umar ibn Al-Khattab
“Never take someone for granted. Hold every person close to your heart because you might wake up one day and realize that you’ve lost a diamond while you were too busy collecting stones.”
“Never take anyone for granted…we never seem to realize what we have until it is no longer ours then it becomes the only thing we want.”
“Never say that you regret something, because at one point in your life, you wanted it.” – Drake
“Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.” – Victoria Holt
“Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today and you make your tomorrow.” – L. Ron Hubbard
“Never regret trusting someone. It proves you have a heart. But if he turns out to be a lying worm, I’m not going to waste my time crying. Because I am way too fabulous for that.” – Jude Watson
“Never regret anything you have done with a sincere affection; nothing is lost that is born of the heart.” – Basil Rathbone
“Never regret anything that made you smile.” – Mark Twain
“Never regret anything from your past because one day, you’ll look back and thank it for hurting you so much that you decided to become a stronger human being.” – Faith Starr
“Never regret anything because at one time it was exactly what you wanted.” – Marilyn Monroe
“Get correct views of life, and learn to see the world in its true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when summoned away, to leave without regret.” – Robert E. Lee
“Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.” – Ted Chiang
“Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other path, no other way, no day but today.” – Jonathan Larson
“First, imagine taking the potentially regret – producing path of inaction. Then imagine what the very best outcome would be were you to take this risk. By picturing both scenarios in advance, you can avoid the regret of what might have been.” – Wayne Dyer
“Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible — the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family.” – Virginia Satir
“Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley
“Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs. The ones you accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile, and who love you no matter what.”
“Family is the most important thing in the world.” – Princess Diana
“Family faces are magic mirrors looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future.” – Gail Lumet Buckley
“Failure hurts but passes quickly. Regret hurts forever.” – Shane Parrish
“Everyone needs a house to live in, but a supportive family is what builds a home.” – Anthony Liccione
Living With Regret Quotes
“When you are grieving, you might find it helpful to have a trusted confidant to talk with about your memories, regrets, fears, joys and feelings. Talking helps you process what you’re feeling and come to terms with how things will change.” – Sandra V. Abell
“When we grow old, there can only be one regret, not to have given enough of ourselves.” – Eleonora Duse
“When tomorrow comes this day will be gone forever, but I shall hold something which I have traded for it. It may be no more than a memory, but if it is a worthy one I shall not regret the price.”
“When the fear of being a fool is stronger than the hope of being a genius, the status quo thrives.” – Thibaut
“When something goes wrong in your life, it doesn’t finish you, and you should become braver, knowing that you’ve got to go for things in life and don’t regret because you didn’t try to be as good as you might be.” – Gareth Southgate
“Never look back in regret – move on to the next thing.” – Richard Branson
“Never ignore a person who loves and cares for you, because one day you may realize that you’ve lost the moon while counting the stars.” – Anonymous
“Never despair, keep pushing on!” – Sir Thomas Lipton
“My religion is to live and die without regret.” – Milarepa
“My only regret in life is that I did not drink more wine.” – Ernest Hemingway
“My old high school football coach used to say … If you give it everything you have and you fail you’ll have one night of bad sleep but if you don’t give it everything you have and you fail you will think about how you should have for the rest of your life.” – Shane Parrish
“My guilt is an ocean for me to drown in.” – Nicola Yoon
“My dad used to say that living with regrets was like driving a car that only moved in reverse.” – Jodi Picoult
“My biggest regret could be summed up in one word, and that’s procrastination.” – S. J. Thompson
“Most of us have had regrets and recognize how they can hold us back or keep us stuck in life and relationships. Overcoming the past is important for anyone desiring to live beyond mistakes and the problems they make.” – Ron Neff
“Most failures are one-time costs. Most regrets are recurring costs. The pain of inaction stings longer than the pain of incorrect action.”
“Mistakes we make in the past sometimes keep us connected. Heartache sometimes keeps us connected.” – Jacqueline Simon Gunn
“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.” – Arthur Miller
“Bravery is the solution to regret.” – Robin S. Sharma
“Avoiding regret is more important to life satisfaction than increasing accomplishments.” – Shane Parrish
“Avoiding doing something that could fail ensures you never do anything great.” – Shane Parrish
“Avoid things the best version of yourself will regret.” – Shane Parrish
“At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more race, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with your family.” – Barbara Bush
“At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets.” – Steve Maraboli
“As far as Im concerned, I regret nothing.” – Miyamoto Musashi
“And perhaps some will never understand, it is mostly the farewells that unite us, and last in our memory forever, even more than the first meeting.” – Mimi Novic
“An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by fullness, not by reception.” – Harold Loukes
“Always kiss your children goodnight – even if they’re already asleep.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“Ah, it’s my longing for whom I might have been that distracts and torments me!” – Fernando Pessoa
“Advice my dad just gave me: “Do your best and be at peace with it.” A good reminder for us all, I think.” – James Clear
“Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.” – Abraham Lincoln
“A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.” – Agatha Christie
Regret Quotes For Her
“We cannot always change what has happened to us, but we can change how we react and how we live in the future. Living with no regrets is living successfully.” – Dr. Ellen Taricani
“We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here now with the power to shape your day and your future.” – Steve Maraboli
“We all make mistakes in life that’s true. Some little, some big, some simple and some more complex. Some mistakes we regret forever.” – Rashard Royster
“We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it’s like chasing clouds.” – Libba Bray
“Until we have finally accepted the fact that there is nothing we can do to change the past, our feelings of regret and remorse and bitterness will prevent us from designing a better future with the opportunity that is before us today.” – Jim Rohn
“unlived life of the parent.” – C.G. Jung
“Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting.” – Haruki Murakami
“Unforgiving hearts die in regret.”
“Regret is such a pointless emotion, don’t you agree?” – Cassandra Clare
“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
“Regret is scarier than change.” – Mel Robbins
“Regret is mostly caused by not having done anything.” – Charles Bukowski
“Regret is counterproductive. It’s looking back on a past that you can’t change. Questioning things as they occur can prevent regret in the future.” – Colleen Hoover
“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
“Regret is an odd emotion because it comes only upon reflection. Regret lacks immediacy, and so its power seldom influences events when it could do some good.” – William O’Rourke
“Regret is a universal emotion. We all make wrong or foolish choices, or something or someone does something hurtful to us, and we regret it.” – Dave Ferguson; Jon Ferguson
“Regret is a form of punishment itself.” – Nouman Ali Khan
“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
“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 Harris
“Regret feels a 1000x worse than failure.” – Preethi Kasireddy
“Regret doesn’t remind us that we did badly. It reminds us that we know we can do better.” – Kathryn Schulz
Regret Quotes For Him
“There is no need to lament on the bygone failures, instead concentrate on things that you can change and let other things take their own course.” – Robert Gallagher
“There is no more disastrous mania, no more dangerous whim, than the speculation over roads not taken.” – Juan Gabriel Vásquez
“There are two ways to achieve calm: one is to never do what you regret, the other to never regret what you do.” – August Strindberg
“There are two kinds of guilt: the kind that drowns you until you’re useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose.” – Sabaa Tahir
“There are no regrets in life, just lessons.” – Jennifer Aniston
“There are moments in your life where you realize you could do nothing, but if you do, you’ll probably regret it forever.” – Milana Vayntrub
“There are certain awakenings that people have – in life and in business – that once they have them, they never go back to the old way of doing things. And when that happens, they are never the same. In short, they got it.” – Henry Cloud
“The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.” – G.K. Chesterson
“The regrets most people have in their old age are for the things they never did.” – N.C. Harley
“Remorse for what is done is useless.” – Philo
“Regrets only apply when we don’t learn from a situation. No sense looking back, look forward with new knowledge and no regret.” – Catherine Pulsifer
“Regrets are pointless. It’s too late for regrets. You’ve already done it, haven’t you? You’ve lived your life. No point wishing you could change it.” – Lemmy Kilmister
“Regrets are not inherited. Regrets are those elements of life that seek to undermine our enthusiasm and our willingness to assume a life filled with new discoveries and the attainment of goals. Let not your regrets be your undoing but instead your vehicle to learn from what did not work.” – Byron Pulsifer
“Regrets are illuminations come too late.” – Joseph Campbell
“Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently.” – Charles Dudley Warner
“Regret, remorse, sorrow all emotions that can result in negative feelings. Only you can change your emotions to positive ones, you cannot change the past but you can change the future” – Catherine Pulsifer
“Regret, is usually a waste of time. As is gloating.” – Pierce Brosnan
“Regret is worse than embarrassment. What exists beats what doesn’t.” – Thibaut
“Regret is useless in life. It’s in the past. All we have is now.” – Marlon Brando
“Regret is the worst human emotion. If you took another road, you might have fallen off a cliff. I’m content.” – William Shatner
“Everybody was sorry. Sorry was easy. Sorry was for suckers.” – Gretchen McNeil
“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” – Kahlil Gibran
“Essentialism means living life without regrets.” – Greg McKeown
“Don’t regret another birthday, the good news is that you are alive and can celebrate it.” – Catherine Pulsifer
“Don’t live your life regretting yesterday. Live your life so tomorrow you won’t regret today.” – Catherine Pulsifer
“Don’t allow yourself to become one who, nearing death, regrets what you might have done if only you had taken a few risks We each have a purpose in life.” – Gillian Stokes
“Don’t think about what you’ve left behind.” – Paulo Coelho
“Don’t regret knowing the people who came into your life. Good people give you happiness. Bad ones give you experience. The worst ones give you lessons and the best people give you memories.”
“Don’t make my mistake. Don’t let yourself be so angry that you stop loving. Because one day you’ll wake up from that anger, and the person you love will be gone.” – Dawson’s Creek
“Don’t live your life regretting yesterday. Live your life so tomorrow you won’t regret today.” – Catherine Pulsifer
“Don’t be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams.” – Derek Sivers
Love Regret Quotes
“Think of your family today and every day thereafter, don’t let the busy world of today keep you from showing how much you love and appreciate your family.” – Josiah
“There’s this place in me where your fingerprints still rest, your kisses still linger, and your whispers softly echo. It’s the place where a part of you will forever be a part of me.” – Gretchen Kemp
“There was once a love which I did not learn to cherish, it was only when I lost it that I felt extreme regret. There is no worse experience than such feeling.”
“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.” – Charles Dickens
“There is one common trait found in all greatness: how people use the space between stimulus and response. In short, how do people deal with adversity, with setbacks, with suffering, heartache, disappointment, and injustice?” – Stephen R. Covey
“There is no point in regretting for things that have happened but it makes a big difference to think about a solution or idea to change the unexpected outcome or effects of the choices made.” – Lindsay Hallie
“The less energy we waste regretting the past or worrying about the future, the more energy we will have for what’s in front of us.” – Ryan Holiday
“The greatest freedoms are freedom from regret, freedom from fear, freedom from anxiety, and freedom from sorrow.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
“The greatest fault in life is that it is always unfinished, that something is being postponed.” – Seneca
“The great tragedy of the average man is that he goes to his grave with his music still in him.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The great source of calamity lies in regret or anticipation: he, therefore, is most wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or the future.” – Oliver Goldsmith
“The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes.” – Susan Sontag
“The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you love them.”
“Many times, the decisions we make effect and hurt our closest friends and family the most. I have a lot of regrets in that regard. But God has forgiven me, which I am very thankful for. It has enabled me to forgive myself and move forward one day at a time.” – Lex Luger
“Many people choose to dwell on their failures. This leads to unnecessary worrying, regret, shame, and stress. Instead of dwelling on the past, you can reflect on your experiences and use negative situations as a learning experience.” – Morris Pratt
“Making a big life change is pretty scary. But know what’s even scarier? Regret.” – Zig Ziglar
“Make the most of your regrets… To regret deeply is to live afresh.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.” – Henry David Thoreau
“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
“Love your family. Spend time, be kind, and serve one another. Make no room for regrets. Tomorrow is not promised and today is short.”
“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.” – Washington Irvin
Life Regret Quotes
“Uncertainty is the worst of all evils until the moment when reality makes us regret uncertainty.” – Alphonse Karr
“Trust before you love, know before you judge, commit before you promise, forgive before you forget and appreciate before you regret.”
“True repentance is to cease from sin.” – Ambrose
“Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.” – Robert Brault
“To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.”
“To not live in regret or fear that my past determines the beauty or success of my future, has been one of my life’s greatest lessons.” – Kendra Tillman
“To love and win is the best thing; to love and lose, the next best.” – William Thackeray
“To live with regret is to be mired in the past and a past that cannot be changed in anyway. No matter how much you may think that recounting issues that have caused you problems over the last few years, it will not help you to move towards creating a better or a new life.” – Catherine Pulsifer
“To give up yourself without regret is the greatest charity.” – Bodhidharma
“Time is one of the most under-appreciated models we all encounter, and yet it’s the most ubiquitous. When employed correctly, time becomes an amplifier. When spent without consideration, it becomes a persistent source of regret.” – Shane Parrish
“Some will be glad the year is over. Some will end the year with regrets. What does this new year hold for you?” – Sumner M. Davenport
“She was stronger alone; and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as, with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be.” – Jane Austen
“She was fabulously wrong when she said it the first time, and stunningly arrogant in her refusal to express any regret for lying to our fellow citizens.” – Trey Gowdy
“Sensitive people either love deeply or they regret deeply. There really is no middle ground because they live in passionate extremes.” – Shannon L. Alder
“Sadly enough, the most painful goodbyes are the ones that are left unsaid and never explained.” – Johnathan Harnisch
“Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father.” – Mitch Albom
“Repent – To regret the wrong actions we have done or our failure to do things we should have done, and to turn from such behaviour, seeking God’s forgiveness.” – Jo Swinney
Regret Marriage Quotes
“The quickest way to stop dwelling on the past is to see that it isn’t there. There are only challenges to be met now.” – Thibaut
“The price of fear is often regret for what could have been.” – Brian Cagneey
“The price of discipline is always less than the pain of regret.” – Nido R. Qubein
“The past makes you wanna die out of regret and future makes you depressed out of anxiety. So by elimination, the present is likely the happiest time.” – Hachiman Hikigaya
“The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable.” – Oscar Wilde
“The pain of trying and failing is intense and over rather quickly. The pain of failing to try, on the other hand, is less intense but never really goes away.” – Shane Parrish
“The pain of inaction stings longer than the pain of incorrect action.” – James Clear
“The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“The only things I regret, and the only things I’ll ever regret are things I didn’t do. In the end, that’s what we mourn. The paths we didn’t take. The people we didn’t touch.” – Scott Spencer
“The correlation between confidence and future regret is incredibly high.” – Morgan Housel
“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe
“The best inheritance a parent can give to their children is a few minutes of their time each day.” – M. Grundler
“The advance of regret can be so gradual that it is impossible to say ‘Yesterday I was happy, Today I am not.” – E.M. Forster
“That’s what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you’re not so lovable.” – Deb Caletti
“Stop fretting about past decisions. They have provided valuable wisdom. Go forward without fear or regret.” – Paul Martens
“Sometimes the best families are the ones God builds using unexpected pieces of our hearts.” – Melanie Shankle
“Sometimes I wish life was written pencil so we could erase it and write it all over again.”
“Something you need most might be something you turn away from, something you turn away from might be something you regret, and something you regret, in the end, might cost you the one chance you ever had.” – Brian Judge
“Don’t allow yourself to become one who, nearing death, regrets what you might have done if only you had taken a few risks We each have a purpose in life.” – Gillian Stokes
“Do not regret what you have done.” – Miyamoto Musashi
“Do not regret growing older; it is a privilege denied to many.”
“Display the level of maturity required to admit you did something wrong (whether you did it intentionally or not). Instead of focusing on regret look for ways to remedy the situation.” – Luke Gregory
“Discipline weighs ounces and regret weighs tons.” – Jim Rohn
“Did you know the #1 regret that people have on their death bed is that they wish they’d had the courage to live a life true to themselves, and not what others expected of them?” – Rachel Rofe
“Death may be close at hand; death may be far off. Transcend death with no-thought, no-idea. Do what you need to do, with no regret.” – Awa Kenzô
“Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because the regret is stronger than gratitude.” – Anne Frank
“Concentrating on negatives, regrets or second thoughts won’t change what has happened.” – A C Aseh
“But who can say what’s best? That’s why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.” – Haruki Murakami
In Conclusion
If you are living with regret, whether in your life, relationship, or family, you can find inspiration in these quotes to help get you through those hard feelings.
Everyone has regrets in life, including mistakes and past decisions that they regret doing. But how you move on from your past unfavorable choices can make a big difference in your life. Making mistakes is part of being human. Taking ownership of your mistakes will ensure you learn important lessons that prevent you from repeating those same mistakes. The trick is to learn from past missteps and move on. Don’t let regret get you down.
Ultimately, it is all right to have regrets. After all, life is not about making the right decisions all the time. Otherwise, everything would be stagnant, boring, and unmoving. Making wrong decisions and committing mistakes are all part of the process of personal growth.
What’s most important is that you can forgive yourself after feeling these regrets and find a way to get back on your feet. With all the lessons your past experiences have taught you, you can become the person you should be in the present moment and the bright future.