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.

Death keeps no calendar.

Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.

Under the wide and starry sky, / Dig the grave and let me lie.

In 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.

Epitaph, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.

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

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

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

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

Men 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. 

Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.

I imagined it was more difficult to die.