Death keeps no calendar.
—George Herbert, 1640Quotes
If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706A 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. 77Whoever has died is freed from sin.
—St. Paul, c. 50The 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 BCEpitaph, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906Men have written in the most convincing manner to prove that death is no evil, and this opinion has been confirmed on a thousand celebrated occasions by the weakest of men as well as by heroes. Even so I doubt whether any sensible person has ever believed it, and the trouble men take to convince others as well as themselves that they do shows clearly that it is no easy undertaking.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1665Nobody, sir, dies willingly.
—Antiphanes, c. 370 BCI doubt that we have any right to pity the dead for their own sakes.
—Lord Byron, 1817I was born without knowing why, I have lived without knowing why, and I am dying without either knowing why or how.
—Pierre Gassendi, 1655A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.
—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BCAnyone who’s never watched somebody die is suffering from a pretty bad case of virginity.
—John Osborne, 1956In 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 BC