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

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

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

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.

Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.

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!

Anyone who’s never watched somebody die is suffering from a pretty bad case of virginity.

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.

Death renders all equal.

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.

Nobody, sir, dies willingly.

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.

We and the dead ride quick at night.