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.

If a parricide is more wicked than anyone who commits homicide—because he kills not merely a man but a near relative—without doubt worse still is he who kills himself, because there is none nearer to a man than himself. 

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 keeps no calendar.

I do not amuse myself by thinking of dead people.

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

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.

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

If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.

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

Whoever has died is freed from sin.

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

The only evidence, so far as I know, about another life is, first, that we have no evidence; and, secondly, that we are rather sorry that we have not, and wish we had.