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. 420Quotes
I don’t believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.
—Woody Allen, 1971Anyone who’s never watched somebody die is suffering from a pretty bad case of virginity.
—John Osborne, 1956Death keeps no calendar.
—George Herbert, 1640It is not my design to drink or sleep; my design is to make what haste I can to be gone.
—Oliver Cromwell, 1658The life of the dead consists in the recollection cherished of them by the living.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 43 BCThe 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, 1879Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.
—Iris Murdoch, 1974Nobody, sir, dies willingly.
—Antiphanes, c. 370 BCThe call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.
—Hermann Hesse, 1950I was born without knowing why, I have lived without knowing why, and I am dying without either knowing why or how.
—Pierre Gassendi, 1655In 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 BCA 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. 77