Under the wide and starry sky, / Dig the grave and let me lie.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1887Quotes
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.
—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1714I don’t believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.
—Woody Allen, 1971I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1928Man 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.
—Jean Paul, 1795Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
—William James, 1902A 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. 77When a man dies, and his kin are glad of it, they say, “He is better off.”
—Edgar Watson Howe, 1911Nobody, sir, dies willingly.
—Antiphanes, c. 370 BCTo desire immortality for the individual is really the same as wanting to perpetuate an error forever.
—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1819I imagined it was more difficult to die.
—Louis XIV, 1715What is death? A scary mask. Take it off—see, it doesn’t bite.
—Epictetus, c. 110Epitaph, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906