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

I don’t expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.

We fear that this moment will end, that we won’t get what we need, that we will lose what we love, or that we will not be safe. Often, our biggest fear is the knowledge that one day our bodies will cease functioning. So even when we are surrounded by all the conditions for happiness, our joy is not complete.

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

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.

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

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

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.

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.

No one can outrun death. It will catch up to all of us eventually.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

Some day science may have the existence of mankind in power, and the human race can commit suicide by blowing up the world.

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

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.

You’re going to die. You’re going to be dead. It could be 20 years, it could be tomorrow, anytime. So am I. I mean, we’re just going to be gone. The world’s going to go on without us. All right now. You do your job in the face of that, and how seriously you take yourself you decide for yourself.

Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you’re gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It’s yours. Seize your space.

Without health life is not life; it is only a state of langour and suffering – an image of death.

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

My personal telephone book is a book of the dead now. I’m so old. Almost all of my friends have died, and I don’t have the guts to take their names out of the book.

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

Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.

Life is wasted on the living.

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

Shall I, that have destroyed my Preservers, return home?

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.

Even today we raise our hand against our brother… We have perfected our weapons, our conscience has fallen asleep, and we have sharpened our ideas to justify ourselves as if it were normal we continue to sow destruction, pain, death. Violence and war lead only to death.

All diseases run into one, old age.

Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.

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.

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.

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.

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.

Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old.

This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.

Colleges are like old-age homes, except for the fact that more people die in colleges.

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.

If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.

Age doesn’t bother me. So many of my heroes were older guys. It’s the lack of years left that weighs far heavier on me than the age that I am.

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

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

Each life makes its own immitation of immortality.

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know – and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.

Death is a fearful thing.

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.

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

I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. ‚Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won’t? How do I know there’s anything there except what I’m conscious of?‘

Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.

Which death is preferably to every other? ‚The unexpected‘.

One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.

Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.

I think when you see an aircraft fire, these angry, black puffs of smoke, knowing that one of them could kill you that you – you – you understand the seriousness of the mission. And you understand your own mortality.

I’ve looked that old scoundrel death in the eye many times but this time I think he has me on the ropes.

We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I’m going to be alive, I want to be challenged – to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn’t an easy way, but it’s a rewarding way.

Death obsesses me, yes it does. I can’t really understand why it doesn’t obsess everyone – I think it does really, I’m just a little more out about it.

The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever.

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

Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.

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