John Woolman Quotes

If I cried me a river of all my confessions, would I drown in my shallow regret?

It's hard to watch something you've done many years ago.

It brings me no joy and not enough comfort to dwell too much on things I've said or written or made or worn in the past.

What I dislike least in my former self are the moments of prayer.

He thought about himself and to the young that always brings sadness.

The years I have squandered in puerile excitement, in going hither and thither, in seeking to force nature and time, I ought to have spent in solitude and meditation, in endeavoring to make myself worthy of being loved.

Do you not weep? Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out. The element of water moistens the earth, But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.

Digory never spoke on the way back, and the others were shy of speaking to him. He was very sad and he wasn't even sure all the time that he had done the right thing; but whenever he remembered the shining tears in Aslan's eyes he became sure.

The urging of that word, judgment, hath bred a kind of remorse in me.

It gave me a strange feeling, and the rest of that night I didn’t say much, but merely sat there and drank, trying to decide if I was getting older and wiser, or just plain old.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought.

In vain would I seek to discover Why sad and mournful am I, My thoughts without ceasing brood over A tale of the time gone by.

I do not think I responded immediately, for it took me a moment or two to fully digest these words of Miss Kenton. Moreover, as you might appreciate, their implications were such as to provoke a certain degree of sorrow within me. Indeed- why should I not admit it? - at that moment, my heart was breaking.

Repentant tears wash out the stain of guilt.

I'm not sure whether I've been happy. After my last book tour, I sat on my balcony with a cup of tea. I thought: 'You can't rewind the movie. I've spent more than half my life in the Middle East. There have been great moments of horror and depression and loneliness.'

I think you always have regrets.

I took it all for granted, I'm sorry to say.

I think it's natural as you get to the end of your twenties to start thinking about what you could have done differently - whether they went well or whether they went terribly.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.

Looking back, I wince at the careless way I tossed out my opinions.

I always knew looking back on my tears would bring me laughter, but I never knew looking back on my laughter would make me cry.

Decree of Self-Reproach

When it was all over, and I was left alone in my office, I put my face in my hands and wept. I could do nothing less.

I must have been an annoying child.