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hindsight

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Foresight is better than hindsight.

cliché It is better to anticipate and prevent future problems than to realize how they could have been avoided after the fact. If I were you, I would pay the extra $50 for full insurance coverage while you're traveling. You never know what might happen, and foresight is better than hindsight.

See also: better

hindsight is (always) 20/20

It is easier to clearly reevaluate past actions or decisions than when they are being made or done; things are clearer or more obvious when they are reflected upon. A reference to the visual acuity of normal eyesight (20/20 vision). I can see now that having my brother as my legal counsel was unwise, but I guess hindsight is always 20/20. A: "I can't believe I was ever interested in such a self-absorbed jerk." B: "Don't blame yourself. Hindsight is 20/20, after all."

See also: 20, hindsight

in retrospect

 and in hindsight

reconsidering the past with the knowledge one now has. In retrospect, I would have gone to a better college. David realized, in hindsight, that he should have finished school.

in retrospect

looking back on something that happened I think that, in retrospect, we were wrong to insist that she move to an apartment.

in retrospect

Looking backward, reflecting on the past. For example, In retrospect, he regarded his move as the best thing he'd ever done. This idiom employs retrospect in the sense of "a view of the past." [Second half of 1600s]

twenty-twenty hindsight

Knowledge after the fact, as in With twenty-twenty hindsight, I wouldn't have bought these tickets. This idiom uses twenty-twenty in the optometrist's sense, that is, "indicating normal vision," and hindsight in the sense of "looking back" or "reconsidering." [First half of 1900s]

See also: hindsight

twenty-twenty hindsight

and 20/20 hindsight

n. an ability to figure out what one should have done after it is too late to do it. Everybody has twenty-twenty hindsight!

See also: hindsight

20/20 hindsight

verb

See twenty-twenty hindsight

See also: 20, hindsight

in retrospect

In looking back on or reviewing the past.