It is noble to die before doing anything that deserves death.
—Anaxandrides, c. 376Quotes
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, 1900I imagined it was more difficult to die.
—Louis XIV, 1715I’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. 90Whoever has died is freed from sin.
—St. Paul, c. 50Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891I was born without knowing why, I have lived without knowing why, and I am dying without either knowing why or how.
—Pierre Gassendi, 1655Those 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 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 BCNobody, sir, dies willingly.
—Antiphanes, c. 370 BCWe and the dead ride quick at night.
—Gottfried August Bürger, 1773The 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 BCWhat is death? A scary mask. Take it off—see, it doesn’t bite.
—Epictetus, c. 110