I’d like to say that I’ve never regretted anything in life. However, as these quotes about regret prove, we have all worried about things we couldn’t do or say.
Nevertheless, I believe that regret is the biggest problem in most of our lives. No matter how unimportant it feels at first, it can grow over time.
It can change our lives for the worse just by feeding off the negative feelings that loss or not doing something can incur. What’s more, regret is not a fleeting feeling; sometimes, it changes the course of our lives and determines which path we will continue to follow.
In the end, regretting the stuff we did or didn’t do is a horrible thing to do to ourselves. It robs us of precious moments because, in the back of our minds, regret is always a failure. By nurturing it, we deem ourselves failures, no matter what we do in life.
I hope some of these quotes will serve as a wake-up call for you. Don’t let regret rule your actions and your lifestyle.
Most importantly, never allow it to stop you from fixing your mistakes, even when you feel blue. Instead, make it your ally by learning from it and avoiding it in the future.
23 Tough Love, Motivating Quotes About Regret
Profound Quotes About Regret to Help You Seize the Day
#1. “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
#2. “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
#3. “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
#4. “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
#5. “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
#6. “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
#7. “Don’t live your life regretting yesterday. Live your life so tomorrow you won’t regret today.” — Catherine Pulsifer
#8. “Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.” — Victoria Holt
Quotes About Regret and What It Does to Our Lives
#9. “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
#10. “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
#11. “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
#12. “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
#13. “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
#14. “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 Star
Quotes About Regret, Love, and Family
#15. “Hurting people you love is the heaviest kind of regret.” — Charlotte Eriksson
#16. “Unforgiving hearts die in regret.” — Unknown
#17. “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.” — Unknown
#18. “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
#19. “Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.” — C.G. Jung
#20. “Looking back, I have this to regret . . . that too often when I loved, I did not say so.” — David Grayson
#21. “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.” — Unknown
#22. “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
#23. “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
To Conclude
As many people can testify, regret is a powerful emotion that feeds off you from within, grasps your heart, and doesn’t let go so easily. Fortunately, some of these quotes about regret clearly tell you what it does to your life and why you ought to live each day as if it were your last.
Read them carefully whenever you feel unsure of yourself or your next step — the wisdom of many will guide you in the right direction. If you need help working through your regret or other emotional concerns, click here.
