I don’t believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

If a parricide is more wicked than anyone who commits homicide—because he kills not merely a man but a near relative—without doubt worse still is he who kills himself, because there is none nearer to a man than himself. 

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.

When a man dies, and his kin are glad of it, they say, “He is better off.”

To desire immortality for the individual is really the same as wanting to perpetuate an error forever.

Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.

Life is a farce, and should not end with a mourning scene.

I imagined it was more difficult to die. 

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

I was born without knowing why, I have lived without knowing why, and I am dying without either knowing why or how.

Nobody, sir, dies willingly.