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

The dead are often just as living to us as the living are, only we cannot get them to believe it. They can come to us, but till we die we cannot go to them. To be dead is to be unable to understand that one is alive. 

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

You are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Whoever has died is freed from sin.

If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.

A 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.

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.

I was born without knowing why, I have lived without knowing why, and I am dying without either knowing why or how.

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

Is this dying? Is this all? Is this all that I feared when I prayed against a hard death? Oh, I can bear this! I can bear it!

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

To desire immortality for the individual is really the same as wanting to perpetuate an error forever.