Regret and Guilt

What have you done, you there Weeping without cease, Tell me, yes you, what have you done With all your youth? 3

Misfortunes one can endure—they come from outside; they are accidents. But to suffer for one’s own faults—ah, there is the sting of life.

The worst part is not in making a mistake but in trying to justify it, instead of using it as a heaven-sent warning of our mindlessness or our ignorance.

A bad conscience is easier to cope with than a bad reputation.

Ah God! Had I but studied In the days of my foolish youth. 1

I have made it a rule of my 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.

If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.

The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months, The months will add themselves and make the years, The years will roll into the centuries, And mine will ever be a name of scorn.

 

Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.

Confess yourself to heaven; Repent what’s past; avoid what is to come.

My tongue swore, but my mind’s unsworn. Hippolytus lamenting his breaking of an oath

No memory of having starred

Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.

Unknowe, unkist, and lost, that is unsought.

And nothing to look backward to with pride,

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,

Four be the things I’d been better without:

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to be.

 

One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious, and the same may be said of guilt.

Therein lies the defect of revenge: it's all in the anticipation; the thing itself is a pain, not a pleasure; at least the pain is the biggest end of it.

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.

O! I am Fortune’s fool.