Quotes on Death

If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.

Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.

Some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.

That last day does not bring extinction to us, but change of place.

What madness it is for a man to starve himself to enrich his heir, and so turn a friend into an enemy! For his joy at your death will be proportioned to what you leave him.

Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardship of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die.

The Westerly Wind asserting his sway from the south-west quarter is often like a monarch gone mad, driving forth with wild imprecations the most faithful of his courtiers to shipwreck, disaster, and death.

Nor has his death the world deceiv'd than his wondrous life surprise d; if he like a madman liv'd least he like a wise one dy'd.

By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death will seize the doctor too.

A beautiful vacuum filled with wealthy monogamists, all powerful and members of the best families all drinking themselves to death.

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night.

All trials are trials for one's life, just as all sentences are sentences of death.

I believe this thought, of the possibility of death - if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong.

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!_x000D_ _x000D_ O grave! where is thy victory?_x000D_ _x000D_ O death! where is thy sting?

Through winter-time we call on spring,_x000D_ _x000D_ And through the spring on summer call,_x000D_ _x000D_ And when the abounding hedges ring_x000D_ _x000D_ Declare that winter's best of all:_x000D_ _x000D_ And after that there's nothing good_x000D_ _x000D_ Because the spring time has not come-_x000D_ _x000D_ Not know that what disturbs our blood_x000D_ _x000D_ Is but its longing for the tomb.

People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has a man invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the commoner diseases? 'Natural' death, almost by defintion, means something slow, smelly and painful.

What happens after death is so unspeakably glorious that our imagination and our feelings do not suffice to form even an approximate conception of it. The dissolution of our time-bound form in eternity brings no loss of meaning.

There is in India a story of a dying youth who, hearing the sobs of grief around him, cried: Insult me not with your cries of sympathy. When I soar to the land of eternal light and love; it is I who should feel for you. For me, disease, shattering of bones, sorrow, excruciating heartaches no more. I dream joy, I glide in joy, I breathe in joy evermore.

Death is not a blotting-out of existence, a final escape from life; nor is death the door to immortality. He who has fled his Self in earthly joys will not recapture It amidst the gossamer charms of an astral world. There he merely accumulates finer perceptions and more sensitive responses to the beautiful and the good, which are one. It is on the anvil of this gross earth that struggling man must hammer out the imperishable gold of spiritual identity.

The first thing I would like to tell you about death is that there is no bigger lie than death. And yet, death appears to be true. It not only appears to be true but also seems like the cardinal truth of life - it appears as if the whole of life is surrounded by death. Whether we forget about it, or become oblivious to it, everywhere death remains close to us. Death is even closer to us than our own shadow.

Laughter. Yes, laughter is the Zen attitude towards death and towards life too, because life and death are not separate. Whatsoever is your attitude towards life will be your attitude towards death, because death comes as the ultimate flowering of life. Life exists for death. Life exists through death. Without death there will be no life at all. Death is not the end but the culmination, the crescendo. Death is not the enemy it is the friend. It makes life possible.