Lost opportunities Quotes

“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.”

“I don't so much mind looking back on having lost the election, or having been denied a role in the play, or having had my novel repeatedly rejected, or having been turned down for a date, or recalling laughter at my expense when I attempted some silly challenge.  Those things simply prove that I lived life.  What I do mind, however, is looking back on the lost opportunities where imagined concerns kept me from even trying—lose or win.  I've learned that there is no regret in a brave attempt, only in cowering to fear.”

“Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at least that's where I imagine it - there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library.”

“Sometimes I have the feeling that what takes place is identical to what doesn't take place, what we dismiss or allow to slip by us identical to what we accept and seize, what we experience identical to what we never try, and yet we spend our lives in a process of choosing and rejecting and selecting, in drawing a line to separate these identical things and make of our story a unique story that we can remember and that can be recounted, either now or at the end of time, and this be erased or swept away, the annulment of everything we are and do. We pour all our intelligence and our feelings and our enthusiasm into the task of discriminating between things that will all be made equal, if they haven't already been, and that's why we're so full of regrets and lost opportunities, of confirmations and reaffirmations and opportunities grasped, when the truth is that nothing is affirmed and everything is constantly in the process of being lost.”

“There is an opportunity cost for everything we do. This is why we must have the awareness to ensure that what we are pursuing is really what we value, because the pursuit leaves countless lost opportunities in its wake. We choose one experience at the sacrifice of all other experiences.”

“Habitual procrastinators will readily testify to all the lost opportunities, missed deadlines, failed relationships and even monetary losses incurred just because of one nasty habit of putting things off until it is often too late.”

“Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins.”

“There are things that money can't buy, things like fresh youth to replace the one you've hardly been aware of, things like lost opportunities which might conceivably have led to nothing, but which on the other hand might have led to fulfillment and serenity and new lives and passionate involvement. (Along, of course, with disinheritance!) And human nature being what it is this is the version you'll unquestionably believe.”