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Quotes

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

—Epictetus, c. 110

Nobody, sir, dies willingly.

—Antiphanes, c. 370 BC

I order that my funeral ceremonies be extremely modest, and that they take place at dawn or at the evening Ave Maria, without song or music.

—Giuseppe Verdi, 1900

Whoever has died is freed from sin.

—St. Paul, c. 50

I’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. 90

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.

—Euripides, 415 BC

The play is the tragedy “Man,” And its hero the conqueror worm.

—Edgar Allan Poe, 1843

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

—Edgar Watson Howe, 1911

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.

—Confucius, c. 500 BC

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

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 43 BC

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

—Horace Walpole, 1784

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

—Thomas Hobbes, 1679

The 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 BC