"It has been commonly observed that blood, wounds, cries and groans, the preparations for painful operations, and everything which directs the senses towards things connected with suffering, are usually the first to make an impression on all men. The idea of destruction, a more complex matter, does not have so great an effect; the thought of death affects us later and less forcibly, for no one knows from his own experience what it is to die; you must have seen corpses to feel the agonies of the dying. But when once this idea is established in the mind, there is no spectacle more dreadful in our eyes, whether because of the idea of complete destruction which it arouses through our senses, or because we know that this moment must come for each one of us and we feel ourselves all the more keenly affected by a situation from which we know there is no escape."

"When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me; Plant thou no roses at my head, No shady cypress tree."

"I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man's place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own."

"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."

"These taught us how to live; and (oh, too high The price for knowledge!) taught us how to die."

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval."

"There is no music more for him: His lights are out, his feast is done; His bowl that sparkled to the brim Is drained, is broken, cannot hold."

"Yes [death has become a taboo]. Today people want to avoid the subject and hide the deaths that happen around them. It is as if the world were a hotel where the dead usually disappear at night, without any guest being able to notice their presence. While movies and television address death, they do not touch the fundamental point of finitude. The deaths are false, the good guys get shot and come back to life. It's another way of treating death as unreal."

"Sleep that no pain shall wake, Night that no morn shall break, Till joy shall overtake Her perfect peace."

": It is today, my dear, that I take a perilous leap."

"Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas."

"Death makes sad stories of us all."

"Those that he loved so long and sees no more, Loved and still loves—not dead, but gone before, He gathers round him."

"Day's lustrous eyes grow heavy in sweet death."

"We create the dualism, not realizing that death, like life, is a process. The moment I am born, I enter the realm of death. Life and death are together one process, and we are dying every moment."

": If you do not dare to die you will never win life."

"And so, you see, simplicity Requires that our lot Be that we exit, when we must, With only what we brought."

"The struggles, the disillusions, and the enmities of life are a part of daily experience. Either death should bring compensating oblivion, or it should throw the mantle of charity over our frailties."

"Every day His servants are dying modestly and peacefully — not a word of victory on their lips; but Christ's deep triumph in their hearts — watching the slow progress of their own decay, and yet so far emancipated from personal anxiety that they are still able to think and plan for others, not knowing that they are doing any great thing. They die, and the world hears nothing of them; and yet theirs was the completest victory. They came to the battle field, the field to which they had been looking forward all their lives, and the enemy was not to be found. There was no foe to fight with."

"Death is a human affirmation of a belief in “fate,” or level confusion. That is why the Bible says, “There is no death,” and why I demonstrated that death does not exist. I came to fulfill the law by reintepreting it. p. 10 When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know that you will last forever. Many think this is accomplished through death, but nothing is accomplished through death because death is nothing. Everything is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and IN the Mind. The body neither lives nor dies because it cannot contain you who are life. If we share the same mind, you can overcome death because I did. Death is an attempt to resolve conflict by not willing at all. Like any other impossible solution which the ego attempts, it will not work. p. 132 Sleep is no more a form of death than death is a form of unconsciousness. Unconsciousness is impossible. You can rest in peace only because you are awake. Healing is release from the fear of waking and the substitution of the will to wake. The will to wake is the will to love, since ALL healing involves replacing fear with love. p. 195"

"However dreary we may have felt life to be here, yet when that hour comes — the winding up of all things, the last grand rush of darkness on our spirits, the hour of that awful sudden wrench from all we have ever known or loved, the long farewell to sun, moon, stars, and light — brother man, I ask you this day, and I ask myself humbly and fearfully, "What will then be finished? When it is finished, what will it be? Will it be the butterfly existence of pleasure, the mere life of science, a life of uninterrupted sin and self-gratification, or will it be, 'Father, I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do?'""

"Some people think that we are stuck in physical reality like flies in flypaper or victims in quicksand, so that each motion we make only worsens our predicament and hastens our extinction. Others see the universe as a sort of theater into which we are thrust at birth and from which we depart forever at death. In the backs of their minds people with either attitude will see a built-in threat in each new day; even joy will be suspect because it, too, must end in the body's eventual death. I used to feel this way. When I fell in love with Rob, my joy served to double the underlying sense of tragedy I felt, as if death mocked me all the more by making life twice as precious. I saw each day bringing me closer to a total extinction that I could hardly imagine, but which I resented with growing vehemence."

"The imminence of death serves to sweep away the inessential preoccupations for those who do not flee from the thought of death into triviality."

"Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river, Like the bubble on the fountain, Thou art gone, and for ever!"

": The long sleep of death closes our scars, and the short sleep of life our wounds."

"Der lange Schlaf des Todes schliesst unsere Narben zu, und der kutze des Lebens unsere Wunden."

": The wave from which there is no return [the river Styx]."

"Quid est enim novi, hominem mori, cujus tota vita nihil aliud quam ad mortem iter est?"

"But death we are, and death have always been."

"Ultimum malorum est ex vivorum numero exire antequam moriaris."

"Fort Belle, Elle Dort."

"Quem mihi dabis qui aliquod pretium tempori ponat, qui diem aestimet, qui intellegat se cotidie mori?"

"Sorry about your Uncle Fred, but hey, sometimes you end up dead. Did somebody bonk him in the head? Did somebody pump him full of lead? What the...? Are they trying to be humorous? Betcha glad it wasn't you instead."

"On the contrary, death is the ultimate fairness; rich and poor, young and old, all are equal in death."

"Usque adeone mori miserum est?"

": They will not live, and do not know how to die."

"Hushed in the alabaster arms of Death, Our young Marcellus sleeps."

"O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawn together all the far stretchèd greatness, all the pride, cruelty and ambition of man, and covered it all over with those two narrow words, Hic jacet!"

": And greedy Acheron does not relinquish its prey."

": It is folly to die of the fear of death."

"Et l'avare Achéron ne lâche pas sa proie."

"Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly long'd for death."

": I am going to seek a great perhaps; draw the curtain, the farce is played."

": This day, which thou fearest as thy last, is the birthday of eternity."

"Je m'en vais chercher un grand peut-être; tirez le rideau, la farce est jouée."

": Sometimes death is a punishment; often a gift; it has been a favor to many."

"Withdrawn into the peace of this desert, along with some books, few but wise, I live in conversation with the deceased, and listen to the dead with my eyes."

"It is the lot of man but once to die."