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

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

Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.

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.

Let my epitaph be, “Here lies Joseph, who failed in everything he undertook.”

The 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.

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.

Can we not live without pleasure, who cannot but with pleasure die?

When a man dies, and his kin are glad of it, they say, “He is better off.”

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

Man 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.

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.