“Deplorable practices adopted during the last century were repeatedly declared necessary if regrettable in order to win the war. Oddly enough, we've yet to win. You'd think somebody would have asked before this why the regrettable but necessary measures haven't actually produced the promised results.”
Regretful feeling
Regretful Quotes — page 149 of 169
“They build their own Hells.”
“Nowadays you can no longer let yourself be indoctrinated - the world is changing so fast! Even what you wanted twenty years ago is no longer relevant today; it's outdated.”
“The end of rebellion is liberation, while the end of revolution is the foundation of freedom.”
“This future man, whom the scientists tell us they will produce in no more than a hundred years, seems to be possessed by a rebellion against human existence as it has been given, a free gift from nowhere (secularly speaking), which he wishes to exchange, as it were, for something he has made himself.”
“Property isn't theft: it's nothing.”
“Let's develop theories, patiently and honestly thinking them out, in order to promptly act against them – acting and justifying our actions with new theories that condemn them. Let's cut a path in life and then go immediately against that path. Let's adopt all the poses and gestures of something we aren't and don't even wish to be, and don't even wish to taken for being.”
“If I had written King Lear, I would regret it all my life afterwards. Because that work is so big, that its defects show as huge, its monstrous defects, things even minimal in between some scenes and their possible perfection. It's not the sun with spots; it's a broken greek statue.”
“Disobedience is man's original virtue.”
“I don't like principles. I prefer prejudices.”
“The wit of man has devised cruel statutes, And nature oft permits what is by law forbid.”
“We take no pleasure in permitted joys, But what's forbidden is more keenly sought.”
“Grant me profits only, grant me the joy of profit made, and see to it that I enjoy cheating the buyer!”
“What does it mean to regret when you have no choice?”
“There was a dull pang of regret because it was not the kiss of love which had inflamed her, because it was not love which had held this cup of life to her lips.”
“You have been a very foolish boy, wasting your time dreaming of impossible things when you speak of Mr. Pontellier setting me free! I am no longer one of Mr. Pontelliere's possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose. If he were to say, 'Here Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,' I should laugh at you both.”
“My mistake was in ever opening the books.”
“There was a period when I just wanted to make what I wanted to make and I didn't care what lie I had to tell.”
“I did not want to be coming off the stage at the mercy of what somebody else told me I did.”
“Innovation doesn't care about anyone.”