Top 48 Regret Quotes

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Many people have regrets about things that they have done in their lives. However, you shouldn’t let them hold you back. With that in mind, check out the top 48 regret quotes.

#48 – 40. Regret Quotes

48. “When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.”― Paulo Coelho

47. Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently. Charles Dudley Warner

46. When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us. Alexander Graham Bell

45. “Make the most of your regrets. . . To regret deeply is to live afresh.” Henry David Thoreau

44. “The only conquests that are permanent and leave no regrets are our conquests over ourselves.” Napoleon Bonaparte

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

42. Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience. Victoria Holt

41. “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.”― Jim Rohn

40. Remorse is the poison of life. Charlotte Bronte

#39 – 30. Regret Quotes

39. Regret is an appalling waste of energy, you can’t build on it – it’s only good for wallowing in. Katherine Mansfield

38. Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future. Fulton Oursler

37. Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Katherine Mansfield

36. “The principles of living greatly include the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and trial with humility.”― Thomas S. Monson

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

34. If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world. Mercedes Lackey

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

32. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”―  Jackson Brown Jr.

31. “Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy – the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.” ― Eric Hoffer

30. 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

#29 – 20. Regret Quotes

29. Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. Jonathan Larson

28. Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water is to burning metal; it strengthens, tempers, intensifies, but never destroys it.— Eliza Tabor

27. “If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.” ― Henry David Thoreau

26. “My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.” Alexander Graham Bell

25. “Disenchantment, whether it is a minor disappointment or a major shock, is the signal that things are moving into transition in our lives.”― William Throsby Bridges

24. “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

23. 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

22. 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

21. Only in your imagination can you revise. Fay Wray

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

#19 – 10. Regret Quotes

19. 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

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

17. Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. Hilary Clinton

16. “Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret.” Benjamin Disraeli

15. A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. John Barrymore

14. “The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.” H L Mencken

13. A man has cause for regret only when he sows and no one reaps. Charles Goodyear

12. “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” Alexander Graham Bell

11. “It was one of those times you feel a sense of loss, even though you didn’t have something in the first place. I guess that’s what disappointment is- a sense of loss for something you never had.”― Deb Caletti

10. 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

#9 – 1. Regret Quotes

9. “There’s always failure. And there’s always disappointment. And there’s always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss, and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums.”― Michael J. Fox

8. Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so. David Grayson

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

6. It is human nature to want to go back and fix things or change things that weregret. John Gray

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

4. Often regret is very false and displaced, and imagines the past to be totally other than it was. John O’Donohue

3. 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

2. Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it. George Halas

1.For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: ‘It might have been! John Greenleaf Whittier

The top 48 regret quotes come from the following sources.^[1]Cool Quotes – Regret Quote^[2]Wise Old Sayings – Regret Sayings and Quotes^[3]Everyday Power – 15 Regret Quote On The Things We Didn’t Do