80 Regrets Quotes to Learn and Grow

Read a collection of inspiring regrets quotes that will help you reflect on the past, embrace the present, and move forward with wisdom and grace.

Regret is a natural and often uncomfortable human emotion that arises from a missed opportunity or a choice that did not go as planned. It can evoke feelings of sadness, disappointment, and even guilt.

However, while regret can be difficult to navigate, it can also be a valuable teacher. By reflecting on our past mistakes and missteps, we can learn valuable life lessons that can inform our future choices.

Regret can also be a source of motivation for personal growth and self–improvement, reminding us that we have the power to shape our lives and take action towards a more fulfilling future. That’s why we compiled regrets quotes to remind you it is a normal part of the human experience.

Whether drawn from literature, art, or personal experiences, regrets quotes can offer catalyst for personal growth and resilience. So, let dive and enjoy our latest collection of regrets quotes!

Emotional regrets quotes

Discover the power of regret quotes that will make you think twice about the choices you make:

As you grow older, you’ll find the only things you regret are the things you didn’t do.
Zachary Scott

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

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

Emotional regrets quotes

Accept everything about yourself – I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets.
Henry A. Kissinger

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

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

It’s better to look ahead and prepare, than to look back and regret.
Jackie Joyner–Kersee

insightful regrets quotes

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

Life is about choices. Some we regret, some were proud of. Some will haunt us forever.
Graham Brown

I have many regrets, and I’m sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret… if you have any sense, and if you don’t regret them, maybe you’re stupid.
Katharine Hepburn

Regrets quotes

Regret is not a proactive feeling. It is situated in disappointment, sorrow, even remorse. It merely wishes things were different without an act to cause a difference. However, repentance is different. Repentance is an admission of, hatred of, and turning away from sin before God.
Monica Johnson

The one thing I learned is to just give everything a shot. You don’t want to live in regret.
Chloe Kim

Speak when you are angry – and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret.
Laurence J. Peter

Regrets quotes

In looking back, I see nothing to regret and little to correct.
John C. Calhoun

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

Remorse is the poison of life.
Charlotte Bronte

Life is too short to hold regrets. Once it’s done, you cannot regret it.
Kay Kay Menon

best regrets quotes

O love, if I regret the age when one savors you, it is not for the hour of pleasure, but for the one that follows it.
Jean–Jacques Rousseau

I made decisions that I regret, and I took them as learning experiences… I’m human, not perfect, like anybody else.
Queen Latifah

The past is a great place and I don’t want to erase it or to regret it, but I don’t want to be its prisoner either.
Mick Jagger

Regrets quotes short

Experience the depth of emotion with these ten regrets quotes that will leave you with a new perspective on life!

Regrets are a waste of time. They’re the past crippling you in the present.
Federico Fellini

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

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

Regrets quotes short

Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because the regret is stronger than gratitude.
Anne Frank

Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so.
Ray Stannard Baker

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

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Ambrose Bierce

short regrets quotes

It’s better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven’t done.
Billie Joe Armstrong

Don’t be so bitter about a bad experience from your past that you miss the opportunities in front of you.
Robert Kiyosaki

I regret those times when I’ve chosen the dark side. I’ve wasted enough time not being happy.
Jessica Lange

Sad regret quotes

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

For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, ‘It might have been’.
John Greenleaf Whittier

How sad, ye Gods, how sad the world is at evening, how mysterious the mists over the swamps! You will know it when you have wandered astray in those mists, when you have suffered greatly before dying, when you have walked through the world carrying an unbearable burden. You know it two when you are weary and ready to leave this earth without regret; its mists; its swamps and its rivers; ready to give yourself into the arms of death with a light heart, knowing that death alone can comfort you.
Mikhail Bulgakov

If I cried me a river of all my confessions, would I drown in my shallow regret?
Sarah McLachlan

I can tell that you been crying all night, drinking all summer, praying for your happiness, hope that you recover.
Drake

My biggest regret is rolling in regret. It is best to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move on.
Andie MacDowell

Of course I regret not having been able to spend time with my family.
Aung San Suu Kyi

If you want to cry, then cry. Decide by yourself whether you are important or not. Even if other people value you, nobody can do anything for you. Ultimately, it’s your problem so if you live without regrets, then over time I think that your problems would disappear.
Kyo

Better to have loved and lost than to live with regret.
Big Pun

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

Inspirational regrets quotes

Regret is an inevitable part of life, but it doesn’t have to consume us. By turning to these inspirational regrets quotes, we can gain perspective on our experiences and find a sense of peace and acceptance.

I regret not having had more time with my kids when they were growing up.
Tina Turner

There are no words to express my sorrow and regret for the pain I have caused others by words and actions. To the people I have hurt, I am truly sorry.
Matt Lauer

I think to regret is useless in life. It belongs to the past.
Marlon Brando

Never do today what you can do tomorrow. Something may occur to make you regret your premature action.
Aaron Burr

I’m living with every step. I can’t live with regret. The past is the past. I’m not worried about it. I can’t change it. I can’t fix it. It is what it is. I’m just living.
Ryan Sheckler

Regret doesn’t remind us that we did badly. It reminds us that we know we can do better.
Kathryn Schulz

The only things you regret are the things you don’t do.
Michael Curtiz

Regret is an odd emotion because it comes only upon reflection. Regret lacks immediacy, and so its power seldom influences events when it could do some good.
William O’Rourke

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

I’d rather regret doing something than not doing something.
James Hetfield

Mistake regret quotes

I live without regrets. There are certain things I have done, mistakes that I made, that I would change, but I don’t regret them at all, because I’ve learnt from them.
Lindsay Lohan

Mistakes are a drag, because you get in the area of regret and self–pity.
Carrie Fisher

We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.
Lucy Maud Montgomery

I don’t have many regrets. I regret mistakes, particularly those that damage other people, and we’ve all made some of those. But I’m not sad about change.
John Gutfreund

For better or worse, I refuse to live my life with regret. Sometimes, I’ll look back on my past mistakes with fondness. But I never wished I wouldn’t have made them. That’s why I don’t like re–takes.
Takashi Miike

I don’t regret things, because I learn from mistakes. If needs be, I always make amends.
Marc Warren

Regrets and Mistakes, they’re Memories made.
Adele

I believe in the redemptive need to admit mistakes, express regret, and ask for forgiveness.
Ana Navarro

Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.
Oscar Wilde

Problems, weaknesses, setbacks, regrets and mistakes teach you if you’re willing to learn, or they punish you if you’re not.
Ralph Marston

Quotes on mistakes and regrets

Here are ten regrets quotes that emphasize the importance of learning from our mistakes and using them as opportunities for self–improvement:

I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I don’t regret any of them. Sometimes that’s the only way you learn.
Nick Nolte

You have to take the good with the bad, smile when you’re sad, love what you’ve got and remember what you had…Always forgive but never forget, learn from your mistakes but never regret, people change, things go wrong, just remember, life goes on.
Anonymous

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

The only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.
Oscar Wilde

Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.
Sivananda

I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.
Lucille Ball

The power of the present moment is so immense it is capable – when lived in fully – of destroying forever every past mistake and regret.
Vernon Howard

I am the author of my life. Unfortunately, I am writing in pen and can’t erase my mistakes.
Bill Kaulitz

To avoid mistakes and regrets, always consult your wife before engaging in a flirtation.
E. W. Howe

A sense of acquiring more mistakes and regrets the older you get, but also deeper growth in learning from these things. The value of experience.
Brooke Waggoner

Motivational regrets quotes

Whether it’s a missed opportunity or a poor decision, regrets can be difficult to navigate. But with these ten motivational regrets quotes can help us find comfort and guidance during times of struggle.

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

Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.
George Halas

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

It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.
Jackie Joyner–Kersee

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.
Sean Covey

When your only regret is if anyone thinks you regret anything – that is the definition of conviction.
Criss Jami

I have no regrets because I know I did my best – all I could do.
Midori Ito

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.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

I have no regrets. I wouldn’t have lived my life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say.
Ingrid Bergman

Live with no excuses and love with no regrets.
Montel Williams

Final thought

These regrets quotes can offer insight and wisdom on how to navigate this complex human emotion. They can provide comfort and guidance to those struggling with feelings of sadness, disappointment, and guilt. Many of them inspire us to live in the present and appreciate the time we have, reminding us that life is too short to waste on regrets.

Hope that our collection of regrets quotes has provided you with inspiration, guidance, and comfort as you navigate yout journey of life. Did any these quotes resonate with you? If so, share this article with others who may benefit from its wisdom.

At the end, while regrets can be a difficult and uncomfortable emotion to experience, it’s important to remember that they can also serve as powerful catalysts for personal growth and resilience. By acknowledging and learning from our past mistakes and missteps, we can gain valuable insights and wisdom that can inform our future choices.

Remember that everyone makes mistakes and experiences regret at some point in their lives. It’s a natural part of the human experience. So, rather than dwelling on past regrets, we can use them as a springboard for personal development and positive change. Don’t let regrets hold you back; instead, embrace them as a means for growth and personal empowerment.

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