„Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.“

CMU Graduation speech (2008)
Kontext: It is not the things we do in life that we regret on our death bed. It is the things we do not. I assure you I've done a lot of really stupid things, and none of them bother me. All the mistakes, and all the dopey things, and all the times I was embarrassed — they don't matter. What matters is that I can kind of look back and say: Pretty much any time I got chance to do something cool I tried to grab for it — and that's where my solace comes from.

Quelle: Firefly Lane

Quelle: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 16 “From the Depths to the Heights” (watercolor) (p. 283)

"The Historians Call Up Pain", first collected in Once Bitten, Twice Bitten (1961); cited from Edward Lucie-Smith and Philip Hobsbaum (eds.) A Group Anthology (London: Oxford University Press, 1963) p. 83.

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Quelle: Tuesdays with Morrie

A comment to a personal friend, about Joseph McCarthy's attacks upon his loyalty (which went so far as to call him a "traitor"), as quoted by Alistair Cooke, in Letter from America : General Marshall (16 October 1959), published in Memories of the Great and the Good (1999)

Quelle: Black Heart

Quelle: Missing You

Deliberately provocative remark, as quoted in "Coultergeist" by George Gurley at The Observer (25 August 2002) http://www.observer.com/node/37827, the interviewer then told her that she should be careful, and she agreed: "You’re right, after 9/11 I shouldn’t say that." Later, in "An Interview With Ann Coulter" by John Hawkins (26 June 2003) http://rightwingnews.com/interviews/anncoulter.php, she also stated:
: McVeigh quote. Of course I regret it. I should have added, "after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters."
2002

The grand old man of American psychiatry on what he has learnt about life (and death) in his still-flourishing career, The Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/irvin-d-yalom-interview-the-grand-old-man-of-american-psychiatry-on-what-he-has-learnt-about-life-10134092.html

Variante: I'd rather regret the things that I have done than the things that I have not.

Ibid., p. 111
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Ah, não há saudades mais dolorosas do que as das coisas que nunca foram!

Variante: 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.
Quelle: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Quelle: Sugar Daddy

Quelle: Cash

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

On reactions to his spray painting the fountain at the free concert he gave in San Francisco, in a Press conference (November 1987) http://www.u2source.com/2007/08/19/bono-press-conference-regarding-graffiti/
Kontext: It is fair to say that we overreacted a bit. … Its not really worth defending my action, I did it in the spirit of the concert, and I thought I did it in the spirit of the artist's work, and he agreed — but, in fact he didn't own his work anymore, as most artists are prone to, he'd sold it, and the City of San Francisco owned it, and they didn't like what I did at all. … Its a really wild thing, you know, you're in Rock n Roll band — you know, I happen to sell millions of records — people therefore think that makes you a responsible citizen — this is not true. … I think this is one of the more mild actions of tour-madness. … It's the music that is magical with U2. … I don't mind being arrested for putting on a free concert, but I don't want to be arrested for being a vandal. I am a vandal and I do regret what I did. I really do regret it. It was dumb.