Pearl Bailey Quotes

I'm trying to learn the lessons of the past, but not to make speeches about the past.

I am not someone who is ashamed of my past. I'm actually really proud. I know I made a lot of mistakes, but they, in turn, were my life lessons.

The last thing I want to do is to make the mistakes of the past.

You can't undo the past... but you can certainly not repeat it.

I'm the last person to ask 'what do you remember' from a particular time period... I like to learn from the past... not 'live' in it.

The past is the past, but if you're overanalyzing or trying to repeat it, you're gonna get stuck. I just had a wonderful youth, and I loved everything about it, so I really try and hang on to it.

I don't really believe in regret. I think you can always learn from the past, but I wouldn't want a different life.

You can't start changing things in your past. Everyone has challenges and lessons to learn - we wouldn't be who we are without them. I certainly wouldn't be who I am.

It is not well to go into things long past, unless to learn something for our present guidance.

You cannot alter the past. You can only learn from it, and … history is the best teacher.

Our goal is to move forward, but we know that to avoid falling backward, we must be willing to look backward and to come to terms with what happened in the past.

It's important to learn and not repeat the same mistakes. What's done is done.

I remember some of the biggest mistakes I have made really, really well.

Your present is shaped by your yesterday, but you don't have to advertise it.

I think it's a very healthy thing to learn from what's happened in the past. But only if you look at what happened and think, 'How could I have dealt with that differently?' Then let it go.

I stopped thinking about it after trying to figure out what are the lessons learned, and there are so many. After I had basically sorted that out, I figured it's time to really look at the future and not at the past.

You hope in this life that you grow and don't always repeat your mistakes.

I don't harp on what I could change about the past, because I can't go back and change it. But definitely a lot of things I would change.

As seemingly impossible as it may seem of having zero regrets, when I look at my life now and all the mistakes I've made, all the bad decisions I've made, all the things I could have done differently or done more in, I don't think I would have changed anything.

I don't really regret anything in my life.

Obviously, as you grow up, no one's ever 100 percent proud of every decision that they've made, and that's OK. I think as long as you learn from your mistakes and don't make them over and over again, you're on the right path.

I don't want to repeat my mistakes.

We should face reality and our past mistakes in an honest, adult way. Boasting of glory does not make glory, and singing in the dark does not dispel fear.

I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now.

I try not to make the same mistakes today that I made yesterday.