Regret is a powerful emotion. It can make us feel like we’re living in a nightmare, stuck in the past and unable to move on. And while it’s important to learn from our past experiences, it’s also helpful to remember that everyone makes mistakes and that no one is perfect. When we take a step back and look at regret from a different perspective, it can actually be one of our greatest teachers.
These quotes about regret offer some much-needed perspective on this universal feeling. They remind us that regret is a natural part of life, and that the most important thing is to move forward with grace and compassion. Read on for inspiration to let go of your regrets and focus on the present moment.
Quotes About Regret
No one looks back and regrets leaving this world. What’s regretted is how real we thought it was.
Rumi
As far as I’m concerned, I regret nothing.
Miyamoto Musashi
It is regret for the absence of his loved one which causes a mourner to grieve: yet it is clear that this in itself is bearable enough; for we do not weep at their being absent or intending to be absent during their lifetime, although when they leave our sight we have no more pleasure in them. What tortures us, therefore, is an idea.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
In February there is everything to hope for and nothing to regret.
Patience Strong
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
Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.
C.S. Lewis
Remorse is the punishment of crime; repentance, its expiation. The former appertains to a tormented conscience; the latter to a soul changed for the better.
Joseph Joubert
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
With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.
Wayne Dyer
Prefer loss to the wealth of dishonest gain. The former vexes you for a time; the latter will bring you lasting remorse.
Chilo
Don’t be so bitter about a bad experience from your past that you miss the opportunities in front of you.
Robert Kiyosaki
Remorse is the poison of life.
Charlotte Bronte
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
You’ll seldom experience regret for anything that you’ve done. It is what you haven’t done that will torment you. The message, therefore, is clear. Do it! Develop an appreciation for the present moment. Seize every second of your life and savor it.
Wayne Dyer
As a general rule, most “regrets” after one is caught aren’t regrets about having committed the action, but regrets about having been caught. Apologies count only when they are spontaneous, coming out of deep principles. Otherwise they are just an expression of submission.
Nassim Taleb
Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future.
Fulton Oursler
Remorse goes to sleep during a prosperous period and wakes up in adversity.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The greatest freedoms are freedom from regret, freedom from fear, freedom from anxiety, and freedom from sorrow.
Thich Nhat Hanh
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
I come to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home.
Henry David Thoreau
If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world.
Mercedes Lackey
We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.
Jim Rohn
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
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
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
Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.
Jean Plaidy
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
This is our big mistake: to think we look forward to death. Most of death is already gone. Whatever time has passed is owned by death.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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
Remorse is virtue’s root; its fair increase are fruits of innocence and blessedness.
William C. Bryant
Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Ambrose Bierce
Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.
George Sand
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.
Søren Kierkegaard
Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.
Carlos Castaneda
It’s not what you are, it’s what you don’t become that hurts.
Oscar Levant
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
Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so.
Ray Stannard Baker
Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because the regret is stronger than gratitude.
Anne Frank
Neither look forward where there is doubt nor backward where there is regret. Look inward and ask not if there is anything outside you want, but whether there is anything inside that you have not yet unpacked.
Quentin Crisp
Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.
Louisa May Alcott
The follies which a man regrets the most in his life are those which he didn’t commit when he had the opportunity.
Helen Rowland
Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.
Arthur Miller
No one looks back and regrets leaving this world. What’s regretted is how real we thought it was.
Rumi
It is with regret that I pronounce the fatal truth: Louis ought to perish rather than a hundred thousand virtuous citizens; Louis must die so that the country may live.
Maximilien Robespierre
Remorse goes to sleep during a prosperous period and wakes up in adversity.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Regrets are a waste of time. They’re the past crippling you in the present.
Federico Fellini
My only regret in life is that I did not drink more wine.
Ernest Hemingway
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
My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well, and don’t regret the things it interferes with. Don’t be disabled in spirit, as well as physically.
Stephen Hawking
The perfect man uses his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing. It regrets nothing. It receives but does not keep.
Zhuangzi
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
One regret dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough.
Hafez
The great tragedy of the average man is that he goes to his grave with his music still in him.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.
Ogden Nash
Regret for wasted time is more wasted time.
Mason Cooley
Do not regret what you have done.
Miyamoto Musashi
To regret the past, to hope in the future, and never to be satisfied with the present: that is what I spend my whole life doing.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
The only conquests that are permanent and leave no regrets are our conquests over ourselves.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Bereavement is terrible, of course. And when somebody you love dies, it’s a time for reflection, a time for memory, a time for regret.
Richard Dawkins
I often regret that I have spoken; never that I have been silent.
Publilius Syrus
In my flowery dreams there’s always you. I do not regret it one bit.
Alfred de Musset
Tap into that one fear that drives greatness – the fear of regret.
Betty Liu
For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, ‘It might have been’.
John Greenleaf Whittier
One truth discovered, one pang of regret at not being able to express it, is better than all the fluency and flippancy in the world.
William Hazlitt
I don’t spend much time regretting the past, once I’ve taken my lesson from it. I don’t dwell on it.
Charlie Munger
We suffer more in imagination than in reality.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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
One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead.
Oscar Wilde
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
I regret very much that I have painted a picture that requires any description.
Winslow Homer
There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Remorse is virtue’s root; its fair increase are fruits of innocence and blessedness.
William Cullen Bryant
So often is the virgin sheet of paper more real than what one has to say, and so often one regrets having married it.
Harold Acton
Parting Words
Regret is one of the most powerful emotions we experience in our lives. It can keep us up at night, make us second-guess ourselves, and generally cause a lot of pain. But sometimes, regret is a good thing. It can be what motivates us to make a change, to do better next time. And when we look back on our regrets, if we’re honest with ourselves, they often make us wiser and more compassionate people.
These quotes about regret offer some perspective on this powerful emotion – and maybe they’ll help you move on from your own regrets a little bit easier.
What’s your favorite quote about regret? Leave it in the comments below!
You Might Also Like These Related Quote Collections:
- Quotes About Moments
- Quotes About Idleness (The Good and the Bad)
- Quotes About Memories
- Quotes About Dreams and Reality
- Quotes About Hope
Originally Published: November 15, 2022
✍️ Cusco, Peru
