Immortality

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave; Legions of angels can't confine me there."

"'Tis immortality, 'tis that alone, Amid life's pains, abasements, emptiness, The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill. That only, and that amply this performs."

"No, no! The energy of life may be Kept on after the grave, but not begun; And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife, From strength to strength advancing—only he His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life."

"On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending, And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb."

"Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond?"

"There is nothing strictly immortal, but immortality. Whatever hath no beginning may be confident of no end."

"If I stoop Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, It is but for a time; I press God's lamp Close to my breast; its splendor soon or late Will pierce the gloom; I shall emerge one day."

"I have been dying for twenty years, now I am going to live."

"A good man never dies."

"Immortality is the glorious discovery of Christianity."

"'Tis immortality to die aspiring, As if a man were taken quick to heaven."

"Nemo unquam sine magna spe immortalitatatis se pro patria offerret ad mortem."

"For I never have seen, and never shall see, that the cessation of the evidence of existence is necessarily evidence of the cessation of existence."

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

"Thus God's children are immortall whiles their Father hath anything for them to do on earth."

"Yet spirit immortal, the tomb cannot bind thee, But like thine own eagle that soars to the sun Thou springest from bondage and leavest behind thee A name which before thee no mortal hath won."

"'Tis true; 'tis certain; man though dead retains Part of himself; the immortal mind remains."

"Exegi monumentum ære perennius Regalique situ pyramidum altius, Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens Possit diruere aut innumerabilis Annorum series et fuga temporum. Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei Vitabit Libitinam."

"Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori; Cœlo Musa beat."

"But all lost things are in the angels' keeping, Love; No past is dead for us, but only sleeping, Love; The years of Heaven with all earth's little pain Make good, Together there we can begin again In babyhood."

"Men are immortal till their work is done."

"Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, She lives, whom we call dead."

"I came from God, and I'm going back to God, and I won't have any gaps of death in the middle of my life."

"Of such as he was, there be few on earth; Of such as he is, there are few in Heaven: And life is all the sweeter that he lived, And all he loved more sacred for his sake: And Death is all the brighter that he died, And Heaven is all the happier that he's there."

"When the good man yields his breath (For the good man never dies)."

"Immortality Alone could teach this mortal how to die."

"Tamque opus exegi quod nec Jovis ira necignes Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas. Cum volet illa dies quæ nil nisi corporis hujus Jus habet, incerti spatium mihi siniut ævi; Parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis Astra ferar, nomenque erit indelebile nostrum."

"Sunt aliquid Manes; letum non omnia finit. Luridaque evictos effugit umbra rogos."

"What a world were this, How unendurable its weight, if they Whom Death hath sundered did not meet again!"

"Thy lord shall never die, the whiles this verse Shall live, and surely it shall live for ever: For ever it shall live, and shall rehearse His worthy praise, and vertues dying never, Though death his soule do from his bodie sever: And thou thyselfe herein shalt also live; Such grace the heavens doe to my verses give."

"I am restless. I am athirst for faraway things. My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance. O Great Beyond, O the keen call of thy flute! I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings to fly, that I am bound in this spot evermore."

"Ah, Christ, that it were possible, For one short hour to see The souls we loved, that they might tell us What and where they be."

"It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew."

"But felt through all this fleshly dresse Bright shootes of everlastingnesse."

"Facte nova virtute, puer; sic itur ad astra."

"Happy he whose inward ear Angel comfortings can hear, O'er the rabble's laughter; And, while Hatred's fagots burn, Glimpses through the smoke discern Of the good hereafter."

"Man is immortal till his work is done."

"Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither."

"Immortality! We bow before the very term. Immortality! Before it reason staggers, calculation reclines her tired head, and imagination folds her weary pinions. Immortality! It throws open the portals of the vast forever; it puts the crown of deathless destiny upon every human brow; it cries to every uncrowned king of men, "Live forever, crowned for the empire of a deathless destiny!""

"Earthly providence is a travesty of justice on any other theory than that it is a preliminary stage, which is to be followed by rectifications. Either there must be a future, or consummate injustice sits upon the throne of the universe. This is the verdict of humanity in all the ages."

"Whence comes the powerful impression that is made upon us by the tomb? Are a few grains of dust deserving of our veneration? Certainly not; we respect the ashes of our ancestors for this reason only — because a secret voice whispers to us that all is not extinguished in them. It is this that confers a sacred character on the funeral ceremony among all the nations of the globe; all are alike persuaded that the sleep, even of the tomb, is not everlasting, and that death is but a glorious transfiguration."

"See truth, love, and mercy in triumph descending, And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom! On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending, And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb."

"Tell me why the caged bird nutters against its prison bars, and I will tell you why the soul sickens of earthliness. The bird has wings, and wings were made to cleave the air, and soar in freedom in the sun. The soul is immortal — it cannot feed upon husks."