I don’t believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.
—Woody Allen, 1971Quotes
If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
—William James, 1902The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better, only the god knows.
—Socrates, 399 BCThose 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.
—Bhartrihari, c. 400I’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.
—Nicharchus, c. 90I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.
—Thomas Hobbes, 1679I looked and there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him.
—Book of Revelations, c. 90Under the wide and starry sky, / Dig the grave and let me lie.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1887The life of the dead consists in the recollection cherished of them by the living.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 43 BCYou are dust, and to dust you shall return.
—Book of Genesis, c. 800 BCThe play is the tragedy “Man,” And its hero the conqueror worm.
—Edgar Allan Poe, 1843I was born without knowing why, I have lived without knowing why, and I am dying without either knowing why or how.
—Pierre Gassendi, 1655