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.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 175Quotes
If a parricide is more wicked than anyone who commits homicide—because he kills not merely a man but a near relative—without doubt worse still is he who kills himself, because there is none nearer to a man than himself.
—Saint Augustine, c. 420A 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.
—Pliny the Elder, c. 77Death keeps no calendar.
—George Herbert, 1640I do not amuse myself by thinking of dead people.
—Napoleon Bonaparte, 1807I was born without knowing why, I have lived without knowing why, and I am dying without either knowing why or how.
—Pierre Gassendi, 1655I 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, 1900Let my epitaph be, “Here lies Joseph, who failed in everything he undertook.”
—Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, 1790If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706When a man dies, and his kin are glad of it, they say, “He is better off.”
—Edgar Watson Howe, 1911Whoever has died is freed from sin.
—St. Paul, c. 50The play is the tragedy “Man,” And its hero the conqueror worm.
—Edgar Allan Poe, 1843The 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.
—Robert G. Ingersoll, 1879