Immortality

"They ask us who are we, vile earthworms, to pretend to immortality; in virtue of what? wherefore? by what right? "In virtue of what?" you ask; and I reply, In virtue of what do we now live? "Wherefore?"—and wherefore do we now exist? "By what right?"—and by what right are we? To exist is just as gratuitous as to go on existing for ever."

"A man really and practically looking onwards to an immortal life, on whatever grounds, exhibits to us the human soul in an enobled attitude."

"The anxiety about death is met in two ways. The reality of death is excluded from daily life to the highest possible degree. The dead are not allowed to show that they are dead; they are transformed into a mask of the living. The other and more important way of dealing with death is the belief in a continuation of life after death, called the immortality of the soul. This is not a Christian and hardly a Platonic doctrine. Christianity speaks of resurrection and eternal life, Platonism of a participation of the soul in the transtemporal sphere of essences. But the modern idea of immortality means a continuous participation in the productive process."

"Only the feeble resign themselves to final death and substitute some other desire for the longing for personal immortality. In the strong the zeal for perpetuity overrides the doubt of realizing it, and their superabundance of life overflows upon the other side of death."

"If it is necessary that each sentient being must have the possibility of achieving an overwhelming good, then it is clear that there must be some form of life after earthly death. Despite the many pointers to the existence of God, theism would be falsified if physical death was the end, for then there could be no justification for the existence of this world. However, if one supposes that every sentient being has an endless existence, which offers the prospect of supreme happiness, it is surely true that the sorrows and troubles of this life will seem very small by comparison. Immortality, for animals as well as humans, is a necessary condition of any acceptable theodicy; that necessity, together with all the other arguments for God, is one of the main reasons for believing in immortality."

"With that inner conviction (of immortality), we face death, and we know that we shall live again, that we come and we go, and that we persist because we are divine and the controllers of our own destiny... The spirit in man is undying; it forever endures, progressing from point to point, and stage to stage upon the Path of Evolution, unfolding steadily and sequentially the divine attributes and aspects... The immortality of the human soul, and the innate ability of the spiritual, inner man to work out his own salvation under the Law of Rebirth, in response to the Law of Cause and Effect, are the underlying factors governing all human conduct and all human aspiration."

"There is no death. There is... entrance into fuller life. There is freedom from the handicaps of the fleshly vehicle. The rending process so much dreaded does not exist, except in the cases of violent and of sudden death, and then the only true disagreeables are an instant and overwhelming sense of imminent peril and destruction, and something closely approaching an electric shock... For the average good citizen, death is a continuance of the living process in his consciousness and a carrying forward of the interests and tendencies of the life."

"Clov: Do you believe in the life to come? Hamm: Mine was always that."

"A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for."

"The doctrine of Metempsychosis has been abundantly ridiculed by men of science and rejected by theologians, yet if it had been properly understood in its application to the indestructibility of matter and the immortality of spirit, it would have been perceived that it is a sublime conception. Should we not first regard the subject from the stand-point of the ancients before venturing to disparage its teachers? The solution of the great problem of eternity belongs neither to religious superstition nor to gross materialism. The harmony and mathematical equiformity of the double evolution — spiritual and physical — are elucidated only in the universal numerals of Pythagoras, who built his system entirely upon the so-called "metrical speech" of the Hindu Vedas."

"Nothing is lasting but change; nothing perpetual but death."

"That which is the foundation of all our hopes and of all our fears; all our hopes and fears which are of any consideration: I mean a Future Life."

"I will have nothing to do with your immortality; we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculating upon another."

"All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, The sun himself must die, Before this mortal shall assume Its immortality."

"[E]nergy is conserved, or is indestructible. This form of speech might be applied to other cases of alternate immortality, where one of two things comes into existence on disappearance of the other."

"We want to live forever, and we're getting there."

"IMMORTAL is an ample word When what we need is by, but when it leaves us for a time, ’T is a necessity."

"With my assumption... life need never end. There is no decisive argument for deciding between [certain] assumptions. I prefer the one that allows the possibility of endless life. One may hope that some day the question will be decided by direct observation."

"Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon."

"Immortality is the privilege of the few, and, according to the Aryan conception, specifically the privilege of heroes. Continuing to live – not as a shadow, but as a demigod – is reserved to those which a special spiritual action has elevated from the one nature to the other."

"No young man believes he shall ever die."

"He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt."

"Why was I born if it wasn't forever?"

"No, no, I'm sure, My restless spirit never could endure To brood so long upon one luxury, Unless it did, though fearfully, espy A hope beyond the shadow of a dream."

"He ne'er is crowned with immortality Who fears to follow where airy voices lead."

"I long to believe in immortality. I shall never be able to bid you an entire farewell. If I am destined to be happy with you here — how short is the longest life. I wish to believe in immortality — I wish to live with you forever."

"Most men live in order to make a living; when they have that, they live in order to make a good living; when they have that, they die. … This comment can be developed into a demonstration of human immortality. This demonstration could be stated as follows: It is the destiny of every human being to make a good living. If he dies before he does that, he has not fulfilled his destiny. … But if he makes a good living, then he has achieved his destiny, but the destiny of making a good living cannot be that he is supposed to die, but, on the contrary, that he is supposed to live well on his good living—ergo, man is immortal."

"What is it that has given rise to this whole error about immortality? Is it that the placement of the issue has been shifted, that immortality has been turned into a question, that what is a task has been turned into a question, what is a task for action has been turned into a question for thought. Would not the most corrupt of all ages be one that managed to have “duty” completely changed into problem of thought? What is duty? Duty is what one ought to do. There ought not to be a question about duty, but there ought to be only the question about whether I am doing my duty. There ought not to be a question about immortality, but the question ought to be whether I am living in such a way as my immortality requires of me. There ought not to be a discussion about immortality, whether there is an immortality, but about what my immortality requires of me, about my enormous responsibility in my being immortal."

"Soren Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses 1848 Hong 1997 p. 205"

"Immortality is the only thing which doesn't tolerate being postponed."

"'Tis this which makes The best assurance of our promised heaven: This triumph intellect has over death— Our words yet live on others' lips; our thoughts Actuate others. Can that man be dead Whose spiritual influence is upon his kind?"

"And in the wreck of noble lives Something immortal still survives."

"The fame of the brave outlives him; his portion is immortality. What more flattering homage could we pay to the manes of Paul Jones, than to swear on his tomb to live or to die free? It is the vow, it is the watch-word of every Frenchman."

"For who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity, To perish rather, swallow'd up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night, Devoid of sense and motion?"

"They eat, they drink, and in communion sweet Quaff immortality and joy."

"For spirits that live throughout Vital in every part, not as frail man, In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins, Cannot but by annihilating die."

"Without a belief in personal immortality, religion surely is like an arch resting on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an abyss."

"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal."

"If what I assume is true, it is still excellent to be convinced of it, but if there is nothing after death, I will at least during the time before my death be less burdensome to my companions because of complaints, and furthermore this folly of mine will not last long—for that would indeed be an evil—but in a short time will vanish."

"Whatever is always in motion is immortal."

"“That’s the problem with immortality,” mused Jack. “You never live long enough to get there.”"

"Death must be an evil—and the gods agree; for why else would they live for ever?"

"Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death: 'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight tomorrow Thou must be made immortal."

"I hold it ever, Virtue and cunning were endowments greater Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs May the two latter darken and expend; But immortality attends the former, Making a man a god."

"It And her immortal part with angels lives."

"And now I think about it, I never really wanted to live forever. I just want to live well."

"All ends in one eclipse, Sunshine or snows, We gain a grave, and afterwards—God knows."

"There is no immortality that is not built on friendship and work done with care."

"The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but something of it remains which is eternal.... We feel and know by experience that we are eternal."

"Immortal, my arse. That’s just an error of parallax."