At the end of our lives, we mostly regret the risks we didn't take, the dreams we didn't do and the love we failed to give. If those things are going to be important to you at the end, make them important to you right now.

One of the saddest things in life is to get to the end and look back in regret, knowing that you could have been, done, and had so much more.

If we begin to die when we live, and long life be but a prolongation of death, our life is a sad composition; we live with death, and die not in a moment.

What could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it

Again, you may look upon life as an unprofitable episode, disturbing the blessed calm of non-existence. And, in any case, even though things have gone with you tolerably well, the longer you live the more clearly you will feel that, on the whole, life is a disappointment, nay, a cheat.

How do I know that the dead don’t regret the way they used to cling to life?

Living more meaningfully will reduce your anxiety about the possibility of future regret at not having lived meaningfully – which will, in turn, keep sapping death of its power to induce anxiety. As he puts it, there is a positive correlation between the fear of death and the sense of unlived life. Live a life suffused with the awareness of its own finitude, and you can hope to finish it in something like the fashion that Jean-Paul Sartre hoped to die: 'quietly . . . certain that the last burst of my heart would be inscribed on the last page of my work, and that death would be taking only a dead man'.

You're alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it?

Here’s the truth: Creating the life you want can be scary. But you know what’s scarier? Regret.

Grief is the stuff of life. A life without grief is no life at all. But regret is a prison. Some part of you which you deeply value lies forever impaled at a crossroads you can no longer find and never forget.

I think we should all live on the precipe of life, as fully and as dangerously as possible. Everyone should make the assumption that they're going through life only once. Tomorrow we die. Why not take chances, extend yourself? How awful it is when a person comes to the end of life full of regret.

"I don't regret anything I've ever done in life, any choice that I've made. But I'm consumed with regret for the things I didn't do, the choices I didn't make, the things I didn't say. We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have to answer to. "What if..." "If only...""I wonder what would have..." You will never, never know, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days."

And death has a cruel way of giving regrets more attention than they deserve.

This world’s brought me very little joy, very little satisfaction. It’s brought me nothing but tragedy from the time I was born. I regret every day I live. The human situation is not as unique as you think it is. We’re all the same. We all get kicked in the pants, we all have our moments of elation — though not much happiness. Happiness is a child’s word. There may be short periods of contentment, but very short. Life is mostly disappointment, tragedy, loss and failure.