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.

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.

Let my epitaph be, “Here lies Joseph, who failed in everything he undertook.”

Nobody, sir, dies willingly.

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.

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

Men have written in the most convincing manner to prove that death is no evil, and this opinion has been confirmed on a thousand celebrated occasions by the weakest of men as well as by heroes. Even so I doubt whether any sensible person has ever believed it, and the trouble men take to convince others as well as themselves that they do shows clearly that it is no easy undertaking. 

Is this dying? Is this all? Is this all that I feared when I prayed against a hard death? Oh, I can bear this! I can bear it!

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

I do not amuse myself by thinking of dead people.

Death keeps no calendar.

It is not my design to drink or sleep; my design is to make what haste I can to be gone.

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.