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

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

I have a strong feeling that I shall be glad when I am dead and done for – scrapped at last to make room for somebody better, cleverer, more perfect than myself.

By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

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

The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction.

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.

Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?

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

All diseases run into one, old age.

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

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.

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.

War is a way of shattering to pieces… materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and… too intelligent.

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

When I was very young I was sort of floored by the fact that my mother and my father and everyone I knew was going to die one day, and myself too. I had a sort of a philosophical crisis. I couldn’t believe that we were mortal.

Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.

Israel is following policies which maximise its security threats… policies which choose expansion over security… policies which lead to their moral degradation, their isolation, their delegitimation, as they call it now, and very likely ultimate destruction. That’s not impossible.

When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you… Then, when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion, and you know it can happen to you.

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

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

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.

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

My father had died, and very swiftly, too, of cancer of the esophagus. He was 79. I am 61. In whatever kind of a ‚race‘ life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

How young can you die of old age?

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

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.

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.

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

Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?

At first when I heard about climate change, I was a climate denier. I didn’t think it was happening. Because if there really was an existential crisis like that, that would threaten our civilisation, we wouldn’t be focusing on anything else. That would be our first priority. So I didn’t understand how that added up.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

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

Dying is a wild night and a new road.

Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.

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.

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

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

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about dying, but I like to think that I’ve – if it did occur – that I would die peacefully and not make too much of a fuss about it.

I joyfully hasten to meet death. If it come before I have had opportunity to develop all my artistic faculties, it will come, my hard fate notwithstanding, too soon, and I should probably wish it later – yet even then I shall be happy, for will it not deliver me from a state of endless suffering?

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.

Every time I think that I’m getting old, and gradually going to the grave, something else happens.

Because I believe in God and have faith in God, it doesn’t mean I am immortal. It doesn’t mean I am immune, as has been claimed. I am as scared as anyone of getting hurt, especially driving a Formula One car.

I’ve reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can’t do anything to change events anyway.

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.

Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.

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

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

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.

From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo sapiens. From the same material he has made every other creature, however noxious and insignificant to us. They are earth-born companions and our fellow mortals.

Each life makes its own immitation of immortality.

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

Once the automobile appeared you could have predicted that it would destroy as many people as it did.

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

I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.