105 Regret Quotes to Help You Let Go and Move on With Your Life

Regret may trap you locked in the past.

In a recollection that you keep twisting and revolving in your thoughts. Without being able to go forward.

In today’s article I’d like to give the 105 of the most striking regret quotes. To enable you to let rid of that gloomy and heavy cloud hovering over your head.

I believe these timeless concepts will enable you to build a better today and move ahead towards a happier, lighter and more prosperous future.

And if you want even more timeless wisdom and inspiration then check out this article with quotations about inner peace and this one full with Wednesday motivation quotes.

Useful Regret Quotes

“One of the biggest regrets in life is becoming what others would like you to be, rather than being yourself.”

— Shannon L. Alder

“I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done.”

— Lucille Ball

“We must all endure one of two things: the agony of discipline or the anguish of regret or disappointment.”

— Jim Rohn

“Always do your best. Your best is going to alter from moment to moment; it will be different when you are well as compared to sick. In every condition, just do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.”

— Don Miguel Ruiz

“Make the most of your regrets; never squash your grief, but cultivate and nourish it until it grows to have a distinct and fundamental interest. To regret sincerely is to live afresh.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“If you are hesitant to take a risk, take one anyhow. What you don't do might produce the same regrets as the errors you make.”

— Iyanla Vanzant

“When one door shuts, another opens; but we sometimes linger so long and so sadly upon the closed door that we do not perceive the one which has opened for us.”

— Alexander Graham Bell

“There are two sorts of guilt: the kind that drowns you till you’re worthless, and the one that burns your spirit to purpose.”

— Sabaa Tahir

“Stop obsessing over previous choices. They have supplied great knowledge. Move forth without fear or regret.”

— Paul Martens

“When a thing is done, it's done. Don't look back. Look forward to your next objective.”

— George C. Marshall

“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the agony of discipline or the anguish of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces but regret weights tons.”

— Jim Rohn

“First, consider adopting the possibly regret – creating route of inactivity. Then envision what the absolute best result would be were you to take this risk. By envisioning both futures in advance, you may escape the regret of what could have been.”

— Wayne Dyer

“There is no need to mourn on the bygone failures, but focus on things that you can alter and let other things take their own course.”

— Robert Gallagher

“If you live long enough, you'll make errors. But if you learn from them, you'll be a better person. It's how you handle hardship, not how it affects you. The essential thing is never quit, never quit, never quit.”

— Bill Clinton

“Don't spent your life regretting yesterday. Enjoy your life so tomorrow you won't regret today.”

— Catherine Pulsifer

“When the past calls, let it go to voicemail. It has nothing fresh to say and you don't have to listen. Would you truly dip through yesterday's waste to prepare tonight's meal? Do you dive through yesterday's mental junk to produce today's experiences?”

— Louise Hay

”Spend eighty percent of your time focused on the prospects of future rather than the issues of yesterday.”

— Brian Tracy

“I always strive to accomplish as much as I can do. I'm never a person who does not enough, since I'd regret not doing enough and believe I definitely could have done more. I probably go too far and have to pull myself back in, which works in some areas, and other things it doesn't work.”

— Tom Brady

“I'm living with every step. I can't live with regret. The past is the past. I'm not bothered about it. I can't alter it. I can't solve it. That is what it is. I'm simply living.”

— Ryan Sheckler

“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 lament. The routes we didn't take. The folks we didn't touch.”

— Scott Spencer

“If you want to live your life in a creative manner, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be ready to take anything you've done and whomever you were and toss it away.”

- Steve Jobs

“One thing I feel certain about is that it's crucial not to let your life live you. Otherwise, you wind up at forty feeling you haven't truly lived. What have I learned? Maybe to live now, so that at fifty I won't look back upon my forties with regret.”

— Irvin D. Yalom

“I never regret anything. Because every tiny piece of your life is what shaped you into who you are in the end.”

— Drew Barrymore

Regret Quotes that Help You Go On

“Regret is a weird feeling since it arrives only upon reflection. Regret lacks immediacy, and therefore its power rarely changes events when it may do some good.”

— William O'Rourke

“If you aren't in the now, you are either looking ahead to uncertainty, or back to agony and regret.”

— Jim Carrey

“We all make errors, experience challenges, and sometimes regret things in our past. But you are not your errors, you are not your challenges, and you are here NOW with the capacity to define your day and your future.”

— Steve Maraboli

“We should mourn our errors and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.”

— Lucy Maud Montgomery

“Regrets are not inherited. Regrets are those components of life that tend to weaken our excitement and our readiness to assume a life full with fresh discoveries and the realization of objectives. Let not your regrets be your undoing but instead your vehicle to learn from what did not work.”

— Byron Pulsifer

“Remorse is the poison of life.”

— Charlotte Bronte

“A man has grounds for sorrow only when he sows and no one reaps.”

— Charles Goodyear

“Do not obsess over your previous errors and failures since this will just fill your thoughts with anguish, regret and despair. Do not repeat these in the future.”

- Swami Sivananda

“We cannot always alter what has occurred to us, but we can change how we respond and how we live in the future. Living with no regrets is living successfully.”

— Dr. Ellen Taricani

“I placed my job in second place during both my marriages and it suffered. I don't regret it. You make decisions. If you desire a good marriage, you must pay attention to it. If you want to be independent, go ahead. You can't have it all.”

— Lauren Bacall

“Reflect upon your current benefits, of which every man has many-not on your previous calamities, of which all men have some.”

— Charles Dickens

“Never regret anything from your past because one day, you'll look back and appreciate it for hurting you so much that you chose to become a stronger human being.”

- Faith Star

“Many individuals prefer to linger on their shortcomings. This leads to unneeded concern, regret, embarrassment, and stress. Instead of lingering on the past, you may reflect on your experiences and utilize unfavorable events as a learning experience.”

— Morris Pratt

“We all do things we badly wish we could undo. Those regrets simply become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time attempting to alter it, well, it's like chasing clouds.”

— Libba Bray

“A handful of things that someone uttered to somebody many years ago is not who they are now. You regret it, you apologize, you make it right, you go on and you live your life according to the ideals of what you have.”

— Diana Taylor

“I wouldn't say I regret anything. I would say I simply wish I did things better.”

— Greg Odeni

“Every day that we wake up is a fantastic day. Every breath that we take is infused with hope for a brighter day. Every word that we use is an opportunity to convert what is wrong into something good.”

— Walter Mosley

“I don't linger on the past; I don't wallow in previous events and feelings. I don't spend time on regret. No need going over and over the intricacies of what already happened.”

– Yanni

“My advise to other handicapped individuals would be, focus on things your condition doesn't prohibit you doing well, and don't lament the things it interferes with. Don't be crippled in spirit as well as physically.”

- Stephen Hawking

“Wisdom is looking back at your life and recognizing that every single event, person, location and concept was part of the flawless experience you needed to develop your goal. Not one was a mistake.”

— John Federick Demartini

“Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so.”

— David Grayson

“The only calibration that matters is how much heart individuals invest, how much they disregard their anxieties of being wounded or finding out or embarrassed. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live bravely enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else truly matters at all.”’ \s– Ted Hughes

“You can never regret whatever you accomplish in life. You sort of have to absorb the lesson from whatever the event is and carry it with you on your path forward.”

— Aubrey O'Day

“Regrets only apply when we don't learn from a circumstance. No sense looking back, look ahead with fresh knowledge and no regret.”

— Catherine Pulsifer

“Don't look back with sadness, look ahead with enthusiasm; and seize every ounce of enjoyment you can. Don't squander your life being scared to try new things, and don't be frightened of rejection, be terrified of rejecting what you know is right, in your heart.”

— Pippa Franks

Wise Regret Quotes

“At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more exam, not winning one more judgment or not closing one more business. You will regret time not spent with a partner, a friend, a kid, or a parent.”

— Barbara Bush

“If I'm genuine now, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?”

– José Saramago

“Don't regret your errors. You'll always make errors. The better you are, the fewer errors you make. The only way to grow better is to properly evaluate your mistakes.”

— James Altucher

“Regret for the things we did may be mitigated by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.”

— Sydney J. Harris

“Don't allow yourself to become one who, approaches death, regrets what you may have done if only you had taken a few chances. We each have a purpose in life.”

— Gillian Stokes

“Nobody gets to live life backward. Look forward, that is where your future lies.”

— Ann Landers

“I made mistakes that I regret, and I regarded them as learning experiences… I'm human, not flawless, like everybody else.”

- Queen Latifah

“Regret is the worst human feeling. If you chose another path, you may have gone over a cliff. I'm content.”

— William Shatner

“Look not mournfully into the past, it comes not back again. Wisely enhance the present, it is thine. Go forward to confront the gloomy future without fear and with a brave heart.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Listen seriously to everything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen excitedly to the tiny things when they are young, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are grown, because to them all of it has always been huge stuff.”

— Catherine M. Wallace

“Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an atrocious waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's just excellent for wallowing in.”

— Katherine Mansfield

“Regret is a severe but fair teacher. To live without remorse is to assume you have nothing to learn, no corrections to make, and no chance to be bolder with your life.”

— Brené Brown

“The longer our trail of regrets, the more we tend to respect the necessity of making sensible decisions.”

— Bob Santos

“Never regret whatever you have done with a real love; nothing is lost that is born of the heart.”

— Basil Rathbone

“The past is a lovely place and I don't want to erase it or to regret it, but I don't want to remain its prisoner either.”

— Mick Jagger

“The future is filled of unlimited possibilities. Quit looking back and construct your aspirations. The only person you should aim to be better than, is the person you were yesterday.”

— Mattu Mullins

“Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too great to linger on what could have been.”

— Hillary Clinton

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd – The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s awareness build in us a sad landscape, a perpetual sunset of what we are.”

— Fernando Pessoa

“Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so.”

— Ray Stannard Baker

Insightful Regret Quotes

“When we become old, there can only be one regret — not to have contributed enough of ourselves.”

— Eleonora Duse

“Have no regrets. The elderly frequently don't have regrets for what we accomplished, but rather for what we did not do. The only individuals who dread death are those with regrets. Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, ‘It could have been.'”

— Kurt Vonnegut

“You can't start the new chapter of your life if you constantly re-reading the old one.”

— Suzy Kassem

“The most regretful individuals on earth are those who sensed the call to creative activity, who felt their own creative strength restive and surging, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

— Mary Oliver

“They believe you should not suffer through the past. You should be able to wear it like a loose garment, take it off and let it drop.”

— Eva Jessye

“Did you know the #1 regret most individuals have on their dying bed is that they wish they'd had the bravery to live a life according to themselves, and not what others expected of them?”

— Rachel Rofe

“Still, to my opinion he overdid it, and I'd have loved to have an opportunity of expressing to him, in a pretty nice, even kind manner, that I have never been able genuinely to regret anything in all my life. I've always been much too much engrossed in the current moment, or the near future, to reflect back.”

— Albert Camus

“I understand it all clearly; there are two alternative circumstances — one can either do this or that. My honest perspective and my kind counsel is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both .”

— Soren Kierkegaard

“Your children make it difficult to lament your past. They're its greatest fruits. Sometimes the only ones.”

— Anna Quindlen

“I don't regret anything I've gone through. I've experienced ups and downs, tremendous highs and some truly awful lows. I've been so lucky that I could never say, ‘I wish this didn't happen.' It's part of who I am. There's nothing in my life that's so ugh.”

— Jennifer Lopez

“In history as in real life, sorrow does not bring back a lost instant and a thousand years will not retrieve anything lost in a single hour.”

– Stefan Zweig

“I would much rather have regrets about not doing what others suggested, than regretting not doing what my heart led me to and wondering what life had been like if I'd simply been myself.”

— Brittany Renee

“Heartbreak could be coped with if it weren't accompanied with regret.”

— Laura Kasischke

“The only thing I regret about my history is the length of it. If I had to live my life over I'd make exactly the same errors — only sooner.”

– Tallulah Bankhead

“Worrying over past regrets does nothing to alter the past. Your future is where your concentration should be.”

— Catherine Pulsifer

“A big source of tragedy resides in regret and expectation; hence a person is sensible who thinks of the present alone, uncaring of the past or future.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

Brief Regret Quotes

“Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, “It could have been.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

“I frequently regret that I have said; never that I have been silent.”

— Publilius Syrus

“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.”

— John Barrymore

“There are far, much finer things ahead than those we left behind.”

— C.S. Lewis

“Regret is primarily generated by not having done anything.”

— Charles Bukowski

“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the appropriate regrets.”

— Arthur Miller

“Living with regrets was like driving a vehicle that only drove in reverse.”

— Jodi Picoult

“If only. That must be the two saddest words in the world.”

— Mercedes Lackey

“Don't spend your time in anger, regrets, fears, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.”

— Roy T. Bennett

“Don’t regret yesterday. Be in this moment, in now. And remember that you create your tomorrow.”

– Unknown

“Never glance back unless you are going to travel that way.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“No distance of remorse can make apologies for one life's chance misused!”

— Charles Dickens

“It's better to look forward and prepare, than to look back and regret.”

— Jackie Joyner-Kersee

“The fundamental sorrow of old age is remorse.”

- Cesare Pavese

“Don't glance back unless it's a beautiful view.”

- Tupac Shakur

“I'm trying to make myself better. But I don't regret anything that I've gone through, since it makes me who I am.”

— Nick Carter

“The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.”

— George Eliot

“Often regret is quite artificial and misplaced, and imagines the past to be utterly different than it was.”

— John O'Donohue

“One doesn't realize the genuinely critical times in one's life until it's too late.”

– Agatha Christie

“Regret is like tears pouring through closed eyelids.”

- Galway Kinnell

“The bitterest tears shed over cemeteries are for words left uttered and acts left undone.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Never regret. If it's excellent, it's fantastic. If it's awful, it's experience.”

— Victoria Holt

“Never regret something that made you smile.”

- Mark Twain

“‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

— Alfred Lord Tennyson