Top 100 Should Have Done Quotes
#1. We fixate on sins of commission: Don't do this, don't do that - and you're OK. But that is holiness by subtraction. And it's more hypocrisy than holiness! It's the sins of omission - what you would have, could have, and should have done - that break the heart of your heavenly Father.
Mark Batterson
#2. Our failure to bag the man-eater up to that date was not due to our having done anything we should not have done, or left undone anything we should have done.It could only be attributed to sheer bad luck.
Jim Corbett
#3. Some of the regrets I've had about my own career are things I have not done that I should have done. More than some of the things that I've done.
Samuel Goldwyn Jr.
#4. And why, by the way, did it take Arabs to do what people here should have done a long time ago?
Ward Churchill
#5. Problems never just go away or take care of themselves, especially when God allows them in order to shape our character. God will patiently wait and allow the circumstances to compel us to do what we should have done at the beginning: surrender all control to God.
Wayne Stiles
#6. I used to routinely turn down things that might compound the impression that I was some kind of vacuous blonde. But now, when I look back, I think I should have done them because I would be very rich - being taken seriously isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Mariella Frostrup
#7. Throughout your life there may be times when you have gone places you never should have gone and done things you never should have done. If you will turn away from sin, you will be able one day to know the peace that comes from following the pathway of complete repentance.
Boyd K. Packer
#9. There are times that all you need is someone who will listen to you without judging you - not telling you what you should have done or should do, but simply, listening to you
Bernard Kelvin Clive
#10. See ... What I felt they should have done, for our first public works project, is build a giant wall ... across the entire border of Canada. Because that's where the cold air comes from.
Lewis Black
#11. I'm nothing, here. A lowly surveillance analyst. Being the hero could have meant something good for me. Could have changed my whole life.
I could have done it. I should have done it.
I sat there and I thought about you, instead.
Julio Alexi Genao
#12. For the first half of your life, people tell you what you should do; for the second half, they tell you what you should have done.
Richard J. Needham
#13. I think what we should have done is integrate the web site with the magazine much earlier in the process.
James Daly
#14. I never did heroin, because I thought that meant I was doing heavy drugs, which shows you the insanity of doing drugs. I probably should have done heroin, because I understand heroin actually makes you feel good. Cocaine just makes you stupid.
Tommy Shaw
#15. The more time you spend contemplating what you should have done ... you lose valuable time planning what you can and will do.
Lil' Wayne
#16. You never know in retrospect whether you did or didn't do exactly the right thing, stay-at-home mothers, gone-away mothers, all ofus worry whether we should have done something differently than we did.
Hillary Clinton
#17. When failure imprisons you for not doing what you should have done, you have no option than to bail yourself on the promise of trying again! Try again!
Israelmore Ayivor
#18. We all know what we should have done as we look backward. Yet looking backward further still, we may say that all goes as the Wild Magic wills. And we must look forward if we are to live long enough to look backward.
Mercedes Lackey
#19. Don't beat yourself up over what you could have or should have done. The past is gone. Move on to the future.
Richelle Mead
#20. It wasn't a glorious or grand act of misadventure but it was a start. It wasn't what I should have done but it was what I truly wanted to do.
S.A. Tawks
#21. One thing had amazed him, - this was that Jean Valjean should have done him a favor, and one thing petrified him, - that he, Javert, should have done Jean Valjean a favor.
Victor Hugo
#22. It was not an eventful day. I should have done extraordinary things. I should have sucked the marrow out of life. But on that day, I slept eighteen hours out of a possible twenty-four.
John Green
#23. Don't make someone burn, and then try to douse the flames with the things you should have done. Those regrets are gasoline not water.
Tarryn Fisher
#24. It depends on the situation. I mean, on one hand there's the argument that people should be left alone on the other hand, there's the argument to wade in a stop slaughters in places like Bosnia and Kosovo and what we probably should have done in Rwanda.
Jello Biafra
#25. I haven't achieved as much as I should have done in my career.
Jamie Redknapp
#26. She had been an absolutely special woman. Someone should have done something - anything - to save her.
Haruki Murakami
#27. The things you do today that you don't have to do will determine who, what, and where you will be when it is too late to do anything about the things you should have done.
Helen Keller
#28. One day work is hard, and another day it is easy; but if I had waited for inspiration I am afraid I should have done nothing. The miner does not sit at the top of the shaft waiting for the coal to come bubbling up to the surface. One must go deep down, and work out every vein carefully.
Sir Arthur Sullivan
#29. Concentrate on what you will do, not what you should have done.
Jim Butcher
#30. I'm sure there are a lot of things I should have done differently. But I don't think I've stepped on anyone along the way. If I have, I didn't mean to.
Patti Page
#31. You did what you should have done. Accept that sometimes the consequences are harsh and unforeseen. Accept that you cannot always allow for every result. There is nothing wrong in this.
Terry Brooks
#32. What the federal government should have done is accept the assistance of foreign countries, of entrepreneurial Americans who have had solution that they wanted presented ... The Dutch and the Norwegians, they are known for dikes and for cleaning up water and for dealing with spills.
Sarah Palin
#33. Of course, I should have done what doctors said and walked for miles every day and not eaten great amounts of butter. But then, life is life, and if we all did what they said we should do, it would be a different world.
Maeve Binchy
#34. As you grow older, Michael, you'll learn an important lesson - that most people spend their entire lives wishing for a second chance to do what they should have done right the first time.
Richard Paul Evans
#35. Writing is something I should have done more of, it's a form of coming home.
Amanda Harlech
#36. Everybody knows all the movements. General So and So should have done such and such. God knows we all try. We none of us lose battles on purpose. But now on this field what can we do that's undone?
Michael Shaara
#37. BOB ODENKIRK: I didn't like the fact that the first thing he became known for was that Chippendales thing, which I hated. Fucking lame, weak bullshit. I can't believe anyone liked it enough to put it on the show. Fuck that sketch. He never should have done it.
Tom Farley Jr.
#38. I suppose in the end it's almost too easy to look back and say what you should have done, how you might have changed things. What's harder - what's much, much harder - is to accept what you actually did do.
Peter Hook
#39. All mothers love their own children as best they can, according to their temperament and circumstances, and all mothers should have done better, in their children's eyes, when the going gets tough for the children.
Fay Weldon
#40. The unions and the auto companies have been unable to put a deal together that fundamentally restructures the industry. It needs to get done. The only way it's really going to get done is in bankruptcy court. They should have done it six months ago they should do it now.
Tim Pawlenty
#41. What we should have done was test the gift first. We should have probed for dangers. We were too bedazzled by it, though.
Frank Herbert
#42. I don't have many Hollywood friends anyway; I thought with my ability I didn't need to make those kind of relationships, but maybe I should have done. Might have made my life easier!
Mickey Rourke
#43. I have a journal of everything I've ever climbed since 2005. For the entry about free soloing Half Dome, I put a frowny face and added some little notes about what I should have done better, and then underlined it. Turns out that is one of my biggest climbing achievements.
Alex Honnold
#44. When I have a child, it will be probably become my whole life, so I don't want to have any regrets that I should have done more.
Sienna Miller
#45. You can't fling the hands up in a passionate gesture when you are driving a car at fifty miles an hour. Otherwise, I should have done so.
P.G. Wodehouse
#46. I should have done more. I did too little of everything.
Luise Rainer
#47. Rather than concentrating on what you should have done, concentrate on what you can do now.
Rachel Van Dyken
#48. It's always easier to wonder, to ask yourself what if, to think you could have done it differently, should have done it differently.
Kristen Kehoe
#49. I sleep till one, and I'm always surprised when someone in blue rinse on a talk show says, 'You're a genius, Mr. Newley, you do so many things.' Tony Newley never realized his potential, did the things he should have done.
Anthony Newley
#50. I have never really done any teaching and maybe I should have done. I am not power-mad enough.
David Hockney
#51. The day it comes out, there's already things that you start to go, 'Oh, I should have done that a little differently.' You start to make a list in your head. I actually write things down
what I'm going to do next time.
Howie Day
#52. Had I learned to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.
Samuel Johnson
#53. What we should have done a long time ago was stand up - players, ownership, everybody - and said: 'We made a mistake.'
Jason Giambi
#54. Critics get a little carried away with what someone should have done, rather than what he did.
Duke Ellington
#55. I think Winston Churchill is an appallingly bad politician, and always has been, that he hung onto power long after he should have done, and that his post-war administration was a disaster.
Malcolm Muggeridge
#56. I'm a grown man. You know, I've been in a lot of scrapes, but I never felt like I got so - there are probably a lot of things I should have done that I didn't do.
James Stockdale
#57. She tried, however, to compose herself to answer him with patience, when he should have done.
Jane Austen
#58. The last thing in the world I should have done was go into the theater because was inordinately shy as a young man. I couldn't open my mouth. At a party, I was the one stuck up against the wall. I was embarrassed about talking. I felt that I couldn't talk well.
Gale Gordon
#59. He should have done all things otherwise: poignant regrets, weary, incessant toiling of the mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what was now useless, to be the architect of the irrevocable past.
Robert Louis Stevenson
#60. I'd be lying if I didn't say there were days when I went back and said, 'I wish I'd done this. I should have done that. I handled this the wrong way.' But it's always in the motivation of getting better. I've never once looked in the mirror and said, 'Oh boy, can't do this one.'
Jeffrey R. Immelt
#61. My mother was a terrific force in my life. Wartime-generation woman, hadn't gone to university but should have done. Was very funny, very verbal, very clever, very witty.
Ian Hislop
#62. Don't regret tomorrow, the things you should have done today!
P.A.Davies
#63. Each empty seat in the auditorium, is the probability of what you should have done and not done.
Rehan Waris
#64. It's all well and good to look back after the fact and see what we should have done, but we rarely know what path is best when we take that first step.
Christine Feehan
#65. Oh no. I'm not gonna let you leave yet. I'm gonna show you the value of takin' your time to get to work. I probably should have done this a long time ago.
Zack Love
#66. Sometimes I think I should have stayed longer and I should have done more films.
Doris Day
#67. She should have done science, not spent all her time with her head in novels. Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and on and on.
Kate Atkinson
#68. I know I'm tired of thinking about what I should have done yesterday. I know I'm just tired. If I knew what to do with my life, how to fix it up, I would have done it a long time ago. You can't dig that? You think I want to live like I'm somebody's throwaway?
Walter Dean Myers
#69. I should have gone to college and gone into real estate and got myself an aquarium, that's what I should have done.
Jeffrey Dahmer
#70. Sometimes, until you do what you shouldn't have done, you least remember what you should have done
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
#71. To pretend I was sliding down the stair rail." He laughed again. " You should have done it. I would have caught you at the bottom.
Gail Carson Levine
#72. 25 years ago, when I started in New York, I had the pleasure to cook for Andy Warhol. At the time, I could have traded art for food - I should have done so, because I could get his work for nothing!
Daniel Boulud
#73. All the things you think you should have done that you didn't do, and all of the things that you shouldn't have done, accept them. You did (or did not) do them. That's Reality. That's happened. No changing the past.
Peter McWilliams
#74. Once, she'd cried, telling me that she thought she should have noticed, should have seen that I was in trouble, should have done something. I told her it was my problem and my job to solve it. "Just be my friend," I said. "That's what I need most.
Jennifer Weiner
#75. I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it.
Toni Morrison
#76. If she liked him so darn much, she should have done something about it. Taken some real action.
Emily Giffin
#77. Critics have their purposes, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did.
Duke Ellington
#78. My core belief is that if you're complaining about something for more than three minutes, two minutes ago you should have done something about it.
Caitlin Moran
#79. I think Ed Koch is the person most responsible for allowing AIDS to get out of control. It happened here first, on his watch. If he had done what any moral human being should have done in the beginning, and put out alarms, then a lot fewer people would have gotten sick.
Larry Kramer
#80. I am sorry I have wasted (and still waste) so much time; I am sorry to be as agonizingly shy at eighty as I was at twenty; I am sorry that I speak no languages but my mother tongue and that I have not traveled or experienced other cultures as widely as I should have done.
Oliver Sacks
#81. Everybody knows how complicated this country's relationship with France has been, in war and in peace. Certainly there have been times when the leaders of France could have done better by us. We should have done better by them on Sunday. Only you couldn't find us.
Kimberley Strassel
#82. I hate you.
If only I'd known.
If only I'd been enough .
I let you down.
I wish I could have done something.
I should have done something.
Was it my fault?
Why wasn't I enough?
Come back.
I love you.
I'm sorry.
Jennifer Niven
#83. I should have done it years ago. It's amazing I didn't even want cigarettes anymore.
Matt Damon
#84. What we should have done is kept the same team that played in the '95 World Series. Those trades (Eddie Murray & Carlos Baerga) caused a lot of chaos in the organization. I didn't feel like we were moving in the right direction.
Albert Belle
#85. All too often we learn what we should have done by doing the opposite. Then we reap naught but sorrow.
Susan Mayse
#86. Release blame. It does not help you to go over and over what you think you should have done or said. Stop blaming other people too. You don't need to make yourself or other people "wrong" in order to deal with your life in the moment.
Sheri Kaye Hoff
#87. If you're constantly ruminating about what you just did- or what you should have done- or what you would have done if you only had the chance, you will miss your life. Ok, you will fail to connect with it. You will fail to connect with other people.
Sam Harris
#88. I didn't do the engineering, and I didn't do the math, because I thought I
understood what was going on and I thought I made a good rig. But I was
wrong. I should have done it.
Jamie Hyneman
#90. Don't lie - when you are 105 years of age - on your deathbed, thinking, 'I should have done a few things!' I would like to think I tried as much as I could.
Imelda May
#91. I hate second-guessing other lawyers because I know that I've tried and lost cases, and somebody could sit there and say, 'Should have done it this way,' and they'd have been right.
Scott Turow
#92. Tim considered the school. "Maybe I want to walk down the hallway with you, hand in hand, like I should have done a long time ago." Ben's eyes softened. "You don't have to do this." "I want to.
Jay Bell
#93. You must master the habit of procrastination and eliminate it from your wake-up. This habit of putting off until tomorrow that which you should have done last week or last year or a score of years ago is gnawing at the very vitals of your being and you can accomplish nothing until you throw it off.
Napoleon Hill
#94. She deleted the messages he continued to leave on her phone and set her ringer to identify his calls - what she should have done a week ago. The minute Loser by Beck played, she'd know it was him.
Marie Harte
#95. Even if I had gone further than in all honesty I should have done, my lies, those lies born of pity, had made her happy; and to make a person happy could never be a crime.
Stefan Zweig
#96. I failed the test. He's right. It wasn't justice. Justice is dispassionate; it is fair. I am the leader. I passed the sentence. I should have done it. Instead, I gave license to vengeance and vendetta. The cancer will not be cut away; I made it worse.
Pierce Brown
#97. It has been said that sometimes the greatest hope in our lives is just a second chance to do what we should have done right in the first place.
Richard Paul Evans
#98. Sometimes a loss is the best thing that can happen. It teaches you what you should have done next time.
Snoop Dogg
#99. If you were watching CNN, they were saying the NSA is listening to your phone calls. It's reading your emails. When you call your grandma in Arkansas, the NSA knows. All total bulls - t. They made the public more concerned about the privacy issue than the legitimate facts should have done.
Michael Morell
#100. I regret the 1998 - 99 lockout. I regret that we didn't work harder to educate our players and our owners about what the damage would be. I never can quite come up with the answer on what else we should have done, but I always blame a part of the problem on us and some part on the players.
David Stern
