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Quote by Henry James

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The Portrait of a Lady

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Henry James

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“Every single moment of life stands open in several directions, it is as if it had three or seven doors, as in a fairy tail, into rooms that all contain different futures. These hypothetical offshoots of time cease to exist whenever we make a choice, and have never existed in themselves, a little like the unknown faces we see in dreams. While the past is lost forever, everything that didn't happen in it is doubly lost. This creates a particular kind of feeling of loss, the melancholy of an unrealised past. The feeling sounds overwrought and unnecessary, something to fill our idle and sheltered souls, but it is founded on a fundamentally human insight and longing: everything could have been different.”

Regret
Book:Om vinteren
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“Never regret not being able to realize certain things in your life. You are who you are now, partly because of these things, and if you are satisfied with your existence now, there is no need to feel sad about past. Maybe even a small difference in the past could make you feel displeased now. The same is true with regard to the future. You are going to be someone, partly because you cannot achieve all of your goals now, and nobody can know if these achievement can make us happy or cause suffering in the future.”

HappinessSufferingRegret
Author:Elmar Hussein
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“What sort of person does things like this?" "I don't know," he said wearily. "All my decades, and I don't know. My brothers and I used to go rabbiting. We killed roos, to, when times were really tough. We ate the meat and sold the skins. I won't lie to you - we enjoyed the hunt, being one with the bush, so we knew where each animal was. I fought in World War II too, and, yes, I killed men then, even though I was a doctor and mostly, if we were lucky, saved them." "But you never enjoyed the killing," she stated. "No, Fish love. Every time I pressed the trigger there was the moment of regret. I killed for necessity, and never without regret.”

DeathRegretWorld War IiWorld War 2Jackie FrenchMatilda SagaJoey Mcalpine
Book:The Last Dingo Summer
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