Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows and, looking at each other with grief and despair, await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.

Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.

We and the dead ride quick at night. 

I’m doomed to die, right? Why should I care if I go to Hades either with gout in my leg or a runner’s grace? Plenty of people will carry me there.

I imagined it was more difficult to die. 

Man has here two and a half minutes—one to smile, one to sigh, and half a one to love; for in the midst of this minute he dies.

I looked and there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him.

If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.

There never is absolute birth nor complete death, in the strict sense, consisting in the separation of the soul from the body. What we call births are developments and growths, while what we call deaths are envelopments and diminutions.

There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen.

Whoever has died is freed from sin.

A god cannot procure death for himself, even if he wished it, which, so numerous are the evils of life, has been granted to man as our chief good.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better, only the god knows.