Looking Back Quotes

“I hurt myself deeply, though at the time I had no idea how deeply. I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centred, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“People will walk in and walk out of your life, but the one whose footstep made a long lasting impression is the one you should never allow to walk out.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“We’re so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks—we’re involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don’t get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing?”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“If I had done this, if I had said that, in the end you are always more tormented by what you didn't do than what you did, actions already performed can always be rationalized in time, the neglected deed might have changed the world.”
― Damon Galgut, In a Strange Room

“Remorse is a terrible thing to bear, Pam, one of the worst of all punishments in this life. To wish undone something you have done, to wish you could look back on kindness to someone you love, instead of on unkindness - that is a very terrible thing.”
― Enid Blyton, House at the Corner

“I don't know whether you can look at your past and find, woven like the hidden symbols on a treasure map, the path that will point to your final destination.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care

“بحثتُ عنكَ طويلاً...
تحت عجلات السيّارات؛
في الأزقَّة؛
فوق الأرصفة؛
في وجوه الغرباء؛
بينَ حقائب الراحلين؛
وألصقتُ صورتكَ في ظهري من الخلف:
(هذا الذي يدفعني إلى جنون مُميت دلُّوه إلى وجهي)”
― Nour Albawardi, النصف المضيء من الباب الموارب

“The past may or may not be a foreign country. It may morph or lie still, but its capital is always Regret, and what flushes through it is the grand canal of unfledged desires that feed into an archipelago of tiny might-have-beens that never really happened but aren't unreal for not happening and might still happen though we fear they never will. And I thought of Ole Brit holding back so much, as we all do when we look back to see that the roads we've left behind or not taken have all but vanished. Regret is how we hope to back into our real lives once we find the will, the blind drive and courage, to trade in the life we're given for the life that bears our name and ours only. Regret is how we look forward to things we've long lost yet never really had. Regret is hope without conviction, I said. We're torn between regret, which is the price to pay for things not done, and remorse, which is the cost for having done them. Between one and the other, time plays all its cozy little tricks.”
― André Aciman, Enigma Variations

“The trouble with ‘if only’ is that it doesn’t change anything. It keeps the person facing the wrong way – backward instead of forward. It wastes time. In the end, if you let it become a habit, it can become a real roadblock – an excuse for not trying anymore.”
― Arthur Gordon, A Touch of Wonder

“What if I can't turn my head? I can look in any direction by turning my wheelchair, and I choose to look back. Rodman to the contrary notwithstanding, that is the only direction we can learn from.”
― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

“Looking back, I have come to realize that the gang lifestyle back then—the fame, the respect, and the recognition—was stronger and powerful than any drug. We were serious with what we were dealing with. It was like a do or die situation. Shelton ‘Apples’ Burrows reform gang leader”
― Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father

“For so many lifetimes, he lived in a state of perpetual regret, returning obsessively and destructively to better times, to moments he wished he could change. Most of those lives he lived staring into the rearview mirror.”
― Blake Crouch, Recursion

“Wie verändert blickt sie mich jetzt an, diese vergangene Zeit!”
― Adelbert von Chamissoo

“A fraction of a moment could mean anything — death, love, success. You find meaning in moments as the next moment is not yet found. When it’s found, it could be everything or nothing at all.”
― Dominic Riccitello

“Some things are exactly how we leave them. Years go by and we long, passion builds, loss extends and we miss forbidden memories. Every once in awhile I long for what used to be instead of what is. I remember how I left it, last words said, how your voice echoes. It’s not sadness. It’s not quite happiness. It was bittersweet. Things were bittersweet. I still think of it quite often and wonder if the memories for you ever soften.”
― Dominic Riccitello

“As time moves, you realize every single relationship you’ve had, regardless of the length, is a bittersweet reality and a memory gained.”
― Dominic Riccitello

“I always cherish moments in the aftermath, never truly understanding their impact twined with my life experience in that very second. And to me, that is a beautiful realization.”
― Dominic Riccitello

“Regret is not an enemy but a compass.”
― Joshua Krook

“One day, you will reflect on your journey, and when you recall how bumpy the road you took was, you will smile and say to yourself, 'thank God I didn't give up.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, These Words Burn Like Fire

“Life meanders in crazy patterns but that's what makes the river of life meaningful especially when you look back while crossing over.”
― Ronnie J Baroi

“Your life is like a canvas, and when you die, you have to sign the bottom corner. Will you be happy with what the painting looks like?”
― Lizabeth Zindel, Girl of the Moment

“The Reaping by Stewart Stafford

Paint a nostalgic landscape today,
A harvest gifted once in this way,
Stranger's yields come to pass,
Only that season's memory lasts.

A fallow field to revisit in time,
Golden reaping of a private mind,
As gleaners, newcomers gather,
Reminiscence thickens to slather.

As the body grows old like the land,
With crop circles on backs of hands,
In solstice, your seed does replenish,
Past where scars of life can blemish.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“As they made their way forward, his grandfather reminded him to keep looking back. If he did not recognize where he had been, his grandfather said, he would never find his way out of those woods.”
― Randy Woodley, Journey to Eloheh: How Indigenous Values Lead Us to Harmony and Well-Being

“Looking back and wondering if it could have worked eventually hurts more than trying and failing.”
― Dominic Riccitello

“If looking back on life, you have no regrets, no disappointments, no mistakes, no dark days—things from which you have learned, grown, improved, and strengthened—then what good has life done you?”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Hope Evermore: Quotes, Verse, & Spiritual Inspiration for Every Day of the Year

“The only difference is now I understand what’s best for me and how to appreciate moments for what they are and what they were.”
― Dominic Riccitello

“Whether we like it or not, whether we logically choose to face it or not, the world is increasingly undergoing violent revolutionary upheavals. The world we knew as recently as yesterday is as dead as though it had died a century ago. We know that while certain forms and things of yesterday’s world still persist they are nothing but ghosts of the past that will of themselves soon fade into man’s memory and what we call history.

Many people nevertheless long for a return to what used to be. Even with all of its faults they long for it — after all, were familiar with it. Fear of looking squarely ahead and trying honestly to find out what we can of what lies before us is actually one of the most significant factors in creating the crisis. It is the mass fear of trying to pierce the darkness ahead that paralyzes us into indecision and wretchedness. Unless we face it, inquire into it as far as we can, we will not only be powerless to take a hand in the shaping of our own destiny but may be unable to recognize and exploit the new opportunities. Unless we constantly peer forward into the future we will not see the many opportunities the future holds, we will fail to grasp them, and the end will be tragedy. We will miss our greatest chance, our only chance, if we continue looking backward instead of forward. To pursue the past is to seek a mirage. The past is dead and men cannot continue as ghosts. It is only in the future that we can live. But we cannot see the light of the future if we deliberately close our eyes and turn our heads.”
― Saul D. Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals

“Looking back, she sees a stranger, no longer the troubled and unsettled girl she used to be.
She has a quiet heart; she is her own applause”
― Charmaine J Forde

“Where You look to look already to You

Waar Jij naar kijkt kijkt al naar Jou”
― Jan Jansen Easy Branches

“And Each Time You Halt and Look Back, You’ll Realise Everything in Life was Planned and Nothing Ever was Accidental, it was Never A Coincidence it was Always Him.
The Happiness, The Pain, The Lessons, The Blessings, The Lost Hopes and Forgotten Dreams, The Endings and Beginnings, Everything fell in your Lap as was His Design. And then You know, it was Never for Nothing, Everything meant Something that Probably will Make sense Someday.
Until Then, Keep the Faith, Walk the Path and Wear Your Grace as Your Most Ornate Armour and Know in Your Heart, Nothing was Ever Accidental and Everything was A Part of His Plan and Always Will Be, and the Most Funny and Reassuring Truth, Your Soul Chose It All, Long Before you Took This Human Shell, Long Before You Knew the Wound of Pain and the Balm of Healing, Long Before this Human Halt, Long Before this Winter of Life that stands only for a while before the Spring walks in to remind you How Nothing Stays forever, not even the Pain or the lingering Halt of it all.”
― Debatrayee Banerjee