Quotes About Regret

You'll have to ask him in the next life," said Sol tiredly. "He's dead.

Thomas Blanky wondered if he had been an instrument of evil — or perhaps just of folly — when he had used his more than three decades of ice-master skills to get 126 men the impossible 250 miles through ice to this place where all they could do was die

Don't go, Bobby, said my friend. It's not worth it.

Richard, said Dave, do you ever wonder how much of your life you've spent trying to please the dead?

There's no going back from what happened. You can go back and understand the past, but you can't go back and change it.

I believe he doesn't regret it. But still, has being with me stopped him from being him?

Oh, child! Somewhere inside you, your future has already unfurled like one of those coiled-up party streamers, once shiny, shaken loose, floating gracefully for a brief moment, now trampled underfoot after the party is over. The future you're capable of imagining is already a thing of the past.

Guilt at least has a purpose; it tells us we've violated some ethical code. Ditto for remorse. Those feelings are educational; they manufacture wisdom. But regret—regret is useless.

and in that one night's wickedness I drowned all my repentance,all my reflections upon my past conduct,and all my resolution for the future.

that they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the returning, which only can make them be esteemed wise men.

Now I wished for my boy Xury, and the long boat with the shoulder of mutton sail, with which I sailed above a thousand miles on the coast of Africk; but this was in vain.

That they're no longer ashamed to sin, and but are ashamed to repent; no longer ashamed of the motion for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, however are ashamed of the returning, which only can make them be esteemed smart men.

Thus you see having committed a Crime once, is a sad Handle to the committing of it again; whereas all the Regret, and Reflections wear off when the Temptation renews it self; had I not yielded to see him again, the Corrupt desire in him had worn off, and 'tis very probable he had never fallen into it, with any Body else, as I really believe he had not done before.

We drank the rum, and I forgot my promise to God.

they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent;

they do not relish the repentance as much as they do the crime

they are not asham'd to sin, and yet are asham'd to repent; not asham'd of the action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are asham'd of the returning...

To give the history of a wicked life repented of, necessarily requires that the wicked part should be make as wicked as the real history of it will bear, to illustrate and give a beauty to the penitent part, which is certainly the best and brightest, if related with equal spirit and life.

I was struck with this letter as with a thousand wounds, such as I cannot describe; the reproaches of my own conscience were such as I cannot express, for I was not blind to my own crime;

But the brain's executive center, located behind the forehead in our prefrontal cortex, gives us both a unique advantage among all animals and a paradoxical disadvantage: the ability to anticipate the future—and worry about it—as well as to think about the past—and regret.

Take it back, Ed. Take it all back.

And when love is over when the diner of love seems closed from the outside you want all those hours back along with anything you left at the lover's house and maybe a couple of things which aren't technically yours on the grounds that you wasted a portion of your life and those hours have all gone southside.

The file clanked against me, my stupid idea nobody would have gotten had I ever done it. You even wouldn't have gotten it, Ed, I thought, watching her go. It's why we broke up, so here it is. Ed, how could you?

It's one thing for forgive yourself a mistake. But if you knew it was a mistake at the time, how do you forgive yourself then?