Acceptance of the Past Quotes

I am not a regret type person. I don't believe in regrets. Lots of things you would do differently if you'd do it again, but you don't do it again, so you don't think about it. But that goes for life in general. You're only dealing with the knowledge you have at that time.

I don't look back with any bitterness, though there are a couple of judgment calls and some '80s hairdos that I'd like to do over.

Well. There was noting to be done for it. Things had happened as they did, time's arrow had yet to be reversed by humans, done was done. If a man spent his life looking over his shoulder at every possible branching of his path he could have taken, he would never accomplish anything. One must learn from history so as not to repeat it, but one must not waste one's energy or time worrying about what might have been. Sorry . . . but people die every day and the galaxy continues on quite well without them. Consider yourself lucky you are one of those as yet unselected by the Fates.

I myself am more and more inclined to agree with Omar and Satchel Paige as I grow older: Don't try to rewrite what the moving finger has writ, and don't ever look over your shoulder.

I don't believe in regrets. I don't think regrets actually exist. I think regrets are things people make up in their heads. So, I don't regret anything. Everything turned out exactly the way it was supposed to.

I have no regrets about my life. People ask, "If you had to do it all over again, would you do it differently?" No. That's speculation.

Progress is never accepted by everybody.

For the rest of my life there are two days that will never again trouble me. The first day is yesterday with all its blunders and tears, follies and defeats. Yesterday has passed away, beyond my control forever. The other day is tomorrow with all its pitfalls and threats, its dangers and mystery. Until the sun rises again I have no stake in tomorrow, for it is still unborn.

There is (as I now find) no remorse for time long past, even for what may have mortified us or made us ashamed of ourselves when it was happening: there is a pleasant panoramic sense of what it all was and how it all had to be. Why, if we are not vain or snobbish, need we desire that it should have been different? The better things we missed may yet be enjoyed or attained by someone else somewhere: why isn't that just as good? And there is no regret, either, in the sense of wishing the past to return, or missing it: it is quite real enough as it is, there at its own date and place.

They are living in the moment. They are not ashamed of the past; they are not worried about the future. Little children express what they feel, and they are not afraid to love.

I wouldn't change my past for anything, because I think it's made me who I am. I'm so enormously grateful for all that I have in my life.

I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think about today..." "No, that's giving up... I'm still hpoing that yesterday will get better.

He was no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring because yesterday has brought it.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

Things without all remedy should be without regard: what's done is done.

Nothing that had happened in the past could be taken away. This was an amazing gift. The past was done and over and settled; you couldn't get it back, but still, whatever good you had gotten from it, spiritually, emotionally, would be yours for your lifetime.

I don't think I'd change the path that's got me where I am today.

But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on.

Forgiveness is a process of giving up the old for something new. Old experiences and memories that we hold on to in anger, resentment, shame, or guilt cloud our spirit mind. The truth is, everything that has happened had to happen. It was a growth experience. There was something you needed to know or learn. If you stay angry, hurt, afraid, ashamed, or guilty, you miss the lesson. You will be stuck in a cloud of pain.

People say, oh it's a shame, you're not nostalgic about the '60s. Well actually, it's quite good, when you think of it. Wouldn't it be sad if I was sitting here wishing it back?

Most terrible memories are a lesson and don't want them to be forgotten.

Usually, to be sure, man considers only the stubble field of transitoriness and overlooks the full granaries of the past, wherein he had salvaged once and for all his deeds, his joys and also his sufferings. Nothing can be undone, and nothing can be done away with. I should say having been is the surest kind of being.

I have found things that I could have done better in 'The Woman Warrior.' But then I thought: Let the work of one's youth just stand.

You couldn't get hold of the things you'd done and turn them right again. Such a power might be given to the gods, but it was not given to women and men, and that was probably a good thing. Had it been otherwise, people would probably die of old age still trying to rewrite their teens.

There's a lot of things in my past that wouldn't have necessarily been my choices but at the same time, going back in time and changing something, I wouldn't want to do that because I like where I came out.