Mortality

"To go from mortal to Buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings."

"Again, bhikkhus, as though he were to see a corpse thrown aside in a charnel ground, one, two, or three days dead, bloated, livid, and oozing matter, a bhikkhu compares this same body with it thus: 'This body too is of the same nature, it will be like that, it is not exempt from that fate.'"

"He still had that marvelous swing, and what a follow-through, just beautiful, like a great golfer. But he was forty years old. He couldn’t run, he could hardly bend down for a ball, and of course he couldn’t hit the way he used to. One of the saddest things of all is when an athlete begins to lose it … and to see it happening to Babe Ruth, to see Babe Ruth struggling on a ball field, well, then you realize we’re all mortal and nothing lasts forever."

"To smell to a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body; no less are thoughts of mortality cordial to the soul."

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapor, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this."

"It's our mortality that defines us, Soran. It's part of the truth of our existence."

"You mortals are so obtuse! Why do you persist in believing that life and death are such static and rigid concepts? Why I can take your life and give it back to you again with the snap of a finger!"

"You must drink quickly as from a rapid stream that will not always flow."

"The ungodly ... reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,..."

"At thirty, man suspects himself a fool, Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty, chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve, In all the magnanimity of thought; Resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same. And why? because he thinks himself immortal, All men think all men mortal but themselves."

"Memento mori."

"Mortality is man's invention; not in the logic of life."

"O Charidas, what of the underworld?" "Great darkness." "And what of the resurrection?" "A lie." "And Pluto?" "A fable; we perish utterly."

"That flesh is but the glasse, which holds the dust That measures all our time; which also shall Be crumbled into dust."

"Consider The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief:— We are as they; Like them we fade away As doth a leaf."

"Hier ist die Stelle wo ich sterblich bin."

"The immortal could we cease to contemplate, The mortal part suggests its every trait. God laid His fingers on the ivories Of her pure members as on smoothèd keys, And there out-breathed her spirit's harmonies."

"I wrote my name upon the sand, And trusted it would stand for aye; But, soon, alas! the refluent sea Had washed my feeble lines away."

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

"Don't strew me with roses after I'm dead. When Death claims the light of my brow, No flowers of life will cheer me: instead You may give me my roses now!"

"Faded the flower and all its budded charms, Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes, Faded the shape of beauty from my arms, Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise! Vanish'd unseasonably …"

"So fleet the works of men, back to their earth again; Ancient and holy things fade like a dream."

"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away". How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride!—how consoling in the depth of affliction!"

"Above all, Hubert was a man with a good heart. And on this sad day it would be good for us to recall Shakespeare's words:"

"Philip, remember that thou art mortal."