I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.

Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows and, looking at each other with grief and despair, await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.

It is not my design to drink or sleep; my design is to make what haste I can to be gone.

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

Nobody, sir, dies willingly.

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

Death renders all equal.

I order that my funeral ceremonies be extremely modest, and that they take place at dawn or at the evening Ave Maria, without song or music.

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

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.

Whoever has died is freed from sin.

I doubt that we have any right to pity the dead for their own sakes.