Life was a sorrowful throb of this Matter teaching it anguish, Teaching it hope and desire trod out too soon in the mire, Life the frail joy that regrets its briefness, life the long sorrow.
Every historian loves the past or should do. If not, he has mistaken his vocation; but it is a short step from loving the past to regretting that it has ever changed. Conservatism is our greatest trade-risk; and we run psychoanalysts close in the belief that the only "normal" people are those who cause no trouble either to themselves or anybody else.
I regret that we weren't able to reform Social Security. The fact that we weren't able to when we had majorities in the House and the Senate I think reflected poorly on our political party.
The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret.
I hope we shall see more ande more women combining marriage and a career. Prejudice against this dual role is not confined to men. I regret to say, it comes from our own sex.
We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.
Fading, with the Night, the memory of a dead love, and the withered leaves of a blighted hope, and the sickly repinings and moody regrets that numb the best energies of the soul: and rising, broadening, rolling upward like a living flood, the manly resolve, and the dauntless will, and the heavenward gaze of faith-the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen!
The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.