The light of her earthly existence is now extinguished forever. – Elizabeth J. Eames, “An Autumn Reverie,” October 1840
Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live. – Norman Cousins
Death is a debt we all must pay. – Euripides
They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice… that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person. – Arthur Schopenhauer
People living deeply have no fear of death. – Anaïs Nin, Diary, 1967
I knew a man who once said, “death smiles at us all; all a man can do is smile back.” – Gladiator, written by David Franzoni, John Logan, and William Nicholson, 2000
Our birth is nothing but our death begun. – Edward Young, Night Thoughts
I want a priest, a rabbi, and a Protestant clergyman. I want to hedge my bets. – Wilson Mizner
No one knows whether death is really the greatest blessing a man can have, but they fear it is the greatest curse, as if they knew well. – Plato
Life and death are balanced on the edge of a razor. – Homer, Iliad
We need more courage to die alone. Everybody wants to die with the regiment. – Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
Death is the surest calculation that can be made. – Ludwig Büchner, Force and Matter
Suicide is… the sincerest form of criticism life gets. – Wilfred Sheed, The Good Word, 1978
You will never find that life for which you are looking. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping. – The Epic of Gilgamesh
[W]e all lie down in our bed of earth as sure to wake as ever we can be to shut our eyes. – Joseph Hall (1574–1656), Bishop of Norwich, The Breathings of the Devout S
Every word affords me pain. Yet how sweet it would be if I could hear what the flowers have to say about death! – E.M. Cioran
In any man who dies there dies with him, his first snow and kiss and fight. Not people die but worlds die in them. – Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Death is a release from the impressions of sense, and from impulses that make us their puppets, from the vagaries of the mind, and the hard service of the flesh. – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
