"The world recedes; it disappears; Heav'n opens on my eyes; my ears With sounds seraphic ring: Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O Grave! where is thy victory? O Death! where is thy sting?"

"Vital spark of heavenly flame! Quit, oh quit this mortal frame."

"By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd, By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd."

"A heap of dust remains of thee; 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!"

"Death's but a path that must be trod, If man would ever pass to God."

"I've said I'm not afraid of death, and that's true. Dying, though, is another matter. Dying slowly in great pain is something I actively try to avoid."

"I don't care when I die, when you die, you die. What I don't want is to die in my bed. To be killed in an accident or to be shot is my preferred way to die."

": Wherever you look there is nothing but the image of death."

"Quocunque adspicias, nihil est nisi mortis imago."

": Death is not grievous to me, for I shall lay aside my pains by death."

"Nec mihi mors gravis est posituro morte dolores."

": Man should ever look to his last day, and no one should be called happy before his funeral."

"Ultima semper Expectanda dies homini est, dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo et suprema funera debet."

": Thou fool, what is sleep but the image of death? Fate will give an eternal rest."

"Stulte, quid est somnus, gelidæ nisi mortis imago? Longa quiescendi tempora fata dabunt."

": We are all bound thither; we are hastening to the same common goal. Black death calls all things under the sway of its laws."

"Tendimus huc omnes; metam properamus ad unam. Omnia sub leges mors vocat atra suas."

"And die with decency."

"I don't know what God is. I don't know what death is.But I believe they have between them some fervent and necessary arrangement."

"As I'm sure you've noticed, death isn't the great equalizer it's made out to be. Layers of hierarchy remain, interlaced by the tangled webs of power and privilege. The dead, after all, are human, and what could be more human than an unnecessarily oppressive bureaucracy at the end all be all of existence?"

"All humans will, without exception, eventually die. After they die, the place they go is Mu (nothingness)."

"Everybody dies. The obstetrician slaps you on the ass with one hand and hands you a postdated death certificate with the other."

"The biggest part of my life I did not trust people who were not scared of dying, because when you get older, you think about death more and more times. I think if we could choose, no one wants to die. That's why we can come to the conclusion that everyone wants to have the eternal life, which seems to become possible in the future due to the developments in the medical science. But the question is not really if you want eternal life, it is more if you want to have eternal life at your children's expense. By the way: we would get big ecologic problems if we all remain alive."

"I do not think life will change for the better without an assault on the establishment, which goes on exploiting the wretched of the earth. This belief lies at the heart of the concept of revolutionary suicide. Thus it is better to oppose the forces that would drive me to self-murder than to endure them. Although I risk the likelihood of death, there is at least the possibility, if not the probability, of changing intolerable conditions."

"When you think of your own death, the fact that all the good things in life will come to an end is certainly a reason for regret. But that doesn’t seem to be the whole story. Most people want there to be more of what they enjoy in life, but for some people, the prospect of nonexistence is itself frightening, in a way that isn’t adequately explained by what has been said so far. The thought that the world will go on without you, that you will become nothing, is very hard to take in. It’s not clear why. We all accept the fact that there was a time before we were born, when we didn’t yet exist—so why should we be so disturbed at the prospect of nonexistence after our death? But somehow it doesn’t feel the same. The prospect of nonexistence is frightening, at least to many people, in a way that past nonexistence cannot be. The fear of death is very puzzling, in a way that regret about the end of life is not. It’s easy to understand that we might want to have more life, more of the things it contains, so that we see death as a negative evil. But how can the prospect of your own nonexistence be alarming in a positive way? If we really cease to exist at death, there’s nothing to look forward to, so how can there be anything to be afraid of? If one thinks about it logically, it seems as though death should be something to be afraid of only if we will survive it, and perhaps undergo some terrifying transformation. But that doesn’t prevent many people from thinking that annihilation is one of the worst things that could happen to them."

"Impermanent are compounded things, prone to rise and fall, Having risen, they are destroyed, their passing truest bliss."

"All beings in the world, all bodies must break up: Even the Teacher, peerless in the human world, The mighty Lord and perfect Buddha has passed away."

"Death is not the opposite of life; it exists as a part of them."

"Yes, death, — the hourly possibility of it, — death is the sublimity of life."

"There is rust upon locks and hinges, And mould and blight on the walls, And silence faints in the chambers, And darkness waits in the halls."

"At end of Love, at end of Life, At end of Hope, at end of Strife, At end of all we cling to so— The sun is setting—must we go? At dawn of Love, at dawn of Life, At dawn of Peace that follows Strife, At dawn of all we long for so— The sun is rising—let us go."

"A dreaded sunny day So I meet you at the cemetry gates Keats and Yeats are on your side While Wilde is on mine So we go inside and we gravely read the stones All those people, all those lives Where are they now? With loves, and hates And passions just like mine They were born And then they lived And then they died It seems so unfair I want to cry"

"How short is human life! the very breath Which frames my words accelerates my death."

"Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb In life's happy morning hath hid from our eyes, Ere sin threw a blight o'er the spirit's young bloom Or earth had profaned what was born for the skies."

"Thus star by star declines Till all are passed away, As morning high and higher shines To pure and perfect day: Nor sink those stars in empty night; They hide themselves in heaven's pure light."

"There's nothing terrible in death; 'Tis but to cast our robes away, And sleep at night, without a breath To break repose till dawn of day."

": Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations."

"La mort (dict on) nous acquitte de toutes nos obligations."

"Philosophy first commands us to have death ever before our eyes, to anticipate it and consider it beforehand, and then she gives us rules and caveats in order to forestall our being hurt by our reflections!"

": Rome can give no dispensation from death."

"On n'a point pour la mort de dispense de Rome."

": We are all mortal, and each one is for himself."

"Nous sommes tous mortels, et chacun est pour soi."

"And over them triumphant Death his dart Shook, but delay'd to strike, though oft invoked."

"How gladly would I meet Mortality my sentence, and be earth Insensible! how glad would lay me down As in my mother's lap!"

"Behind her Death Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet On his pale horse."

": These troublesome disguises which we wear."