The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.

A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.

In the brute physical world, and the one encompassed by medicine, there are all too many things that could kill you, don’t kill you, and then leave you considerably weaker.

Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.

When we talk about mortality, we are talking about our children.

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

Confront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing and challenging confrontation you will ever have.

If you look back at the history of the twentieth century, Germany alone had practically destroyed Russia several times.

One always dies too soon or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.

Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

All diseases run into one, old age.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

We all die, we all get sick, we all feel hunger and lust and pain, and therefore human life is consistent from one generation to the other. We all – most of us, anyway – want connections with other people and spend our lives looking for them.

Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.

Death wasn’t part of God’s original plan for humanity, and the Bible calls death an enemy – the last enemy to be destroyed.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force.

Herb is the healing of a nation, alcohol is the destruction.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

How young can you die of old age?

In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know you.

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

It’s not morbid to talk about death. Most people don’t worry about death, they worry about a bad death.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

Wars based on principle are far more destructive… the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

Death to me means nothing as long as I can die fast.

Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.

Death is one moment, and life is so many of them.

If anyone thinks they’d rather be in a different part of history, they’re probably not a very good student of history. Life sucked in the old days. People knew very little, and you were likely to die at a young age of some horrible disease. You’d probably have no teeth by now. It would be particularly awful if you were a woman.

The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.

We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we’ve chosen to do with our life.

As a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family.

Death is a fearful thing.

Whether you like it or not, you’re forced to come to the realisation that death is out there. But I don’t fear death, I’m a fatalist. I believe when it’s your time, that’s it. It’s the hand you’re dealt.

The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.

I’m not resigned, but I’m realistic too. The statistics in my case are very poor. Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long. And the other wager is, the part of the wager, it’s a certainty you’ll have a terrible time and you may wish you were dying because it’s an awful process.

Civilisations have been destroyed many times, and this civilisation is no different. It can be destroyed. We can think of time in terms of millions of years and life will resume little by little. The cosmos operates for us very urgently, but geological time is different.

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

Millions of people die every day. Everyone’s got to go sometime. I’ve came by this particular tumor honestly. If you smoke, which I did for many years very heavily with occasional interruption, and if you use alcohol, you make yourself a candidate for it in your sixties.

On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down .

Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.

My gold, my money couldn’t stop cancer from appearing on my body. If they can’t save me, then I don’t need them.

Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything.

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

Man the individual consoles himself for his passing with the thought of the offspring or the works which he leaves behind.