regret

While there is time Lord, May I use it well, 'Tis gone in a moment, One never can tell Which day is our last one, With so much to do, All must be in order, When summoned by You. While there is time, Lord, And life is my own, Let me bring gladness To someone alone. Renew a small hope, Rekindle a dream, For shadows are never As dark as they seem, While there is time, Lord Let me not waste The chances you give me, I cannot replace, Lend me your wisdom, That I may learn To give of myself, Nor ask a return. Let me be gentle, Keep my words kind, In spite of the worries, Crossing my mind. And when at long last, Life's sun starts to set, Let me have never A cause for regret.

Guard within yourself that treasure kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.

On coping with the march of time: It's like a fire. It goes through a journey, and each stage is interesting. I don't regret the passing of time. I try to live in the present, which should mean my life's full.

We have to repent of our blindness, our lukewarmness, and our disobedience, and turn back to the central truth of Christ as Lord and Saviour; an ethical system will not save us here, nor a timid sentimentalism, nor an excited emotional return, nor a dilettante mysticism. We have to find that deep contrition which is the condition of His abiding. Repentance is not a mere feeling of sorrow or contrition for an act of wrongdoing. The regret I feel when I act impatiently or speak crossly is not repentance. . . . Repentance is contrition for what we are in our fundamental beings, that we are wrong in our deepest roots because our internal government is by Self and not by God. And it is an activity of the whole person. Unless I will to be different, the mind will not follow. True repentance brings an urge to be different, because of the sense of the incessant movement of what I am, forming, forming, forming what I shall be in the years to come.

I often regret having come into this petty world; not that I hate the world. No . . . I love the world, I love high society and even the demimonde, since I'm a sort of demimondaine myself. But what have I come to do on this Earth, which is so earthly and so earthy? Do I have duties to perform here? have I come here to carry out a mission-a commission? Have I been sent here to amuse myself? to enjoy myself a little? . . . to forget the miseries of a beyond, which I no longer remember? Am I not unwelcome here? What should I say to all these questions? Thinking, almost from the moment of my arrival, that I was doing some good down here, I began to play a few musical airs which I myself had invented. . . . All my troubles stemmed from there.

Perfection is such a nuisance that I often regret having cured myself of using tobacco.

Our repentance is not so much regret for the evil we have done, as fear of its consequences to us.

I want to live my life so that my nights are not full of regrets.

When it is time to part, then it is time to part. There should be no regrets. The beauty of marriage is like the fleeting perfection of a snowflake.

Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so.