Regret and Guilt

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

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lack’d anything.

I struck the board, and cried, No more: I will abroad. What? shall I ever sigh and pine? My lines and life are free; free as the road, Loose as the wind, as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me blood, and not restore What I have lost with cordial fruit? Sure there was wine Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn Before my tears did drown it; Is the year only lost to me? Have I no bays to crown it?

O! I am Fortune’s fool.

The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn’t commit when he had the opportunity.

You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.

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

When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily to his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us.

Hope of ill gain is the beginning of loss.

She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.

We regret the things we don't do more than the things we do.

To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.

Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.

To mourn a mischief that is past and gone Is the next way to draw new mischief on.

Alas! ’tis true I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view, Gor’d mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offenses of affections new.

And folly’s all they’ve taught me.

What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me.

Things said or done long years ago, Or things I did not do or say But thought that I might say or do, Weigh me down, and not a day But something is recalled, My conscience or my vanity appalled.

But I do nothing upon my self, and yet I am mine own Executioner.

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense,

What knows he of love who has not been obliged to despise just what he loved

Ignorant men don't know what good they hold in their hands until they've flung it away.