Under the wide and starry sky, / Dig the grave and let me lie.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Nobody, sir, dies willingly.

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

I imagined it was more difficult to die. 

What is death? A scary mask. Take it off—see, it doesn’t bite.

Epitaph, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.