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

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

The only evidence, so far as I know, about another life is, first, that we have no evidence; and, secondly, that we are rather sorry that we have not, and wish we had.

The life of the dead consists in the recollection cherished of them by the living.

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

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.

Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.

I imagined it was more difficult to die. 

You are dust, and to dust you shall return.

In dealing with the dead, if we treat them as if they were entirely dead, that would show a want of affection and should not be done; or, if we treat them as if they were entirely alive, that would show a want of wisdom and should not be done.

Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.

I think it makes small difference to the dead if they are buried in the tokens of luxury. All this is an empty glorification left for those who live.

Those from whom we were born have long since departed, and those with whom we grew up exist only in memory. We, too, through the approach of death, become, as it were, trees growing on the sandy bank of a river.