Quotes on Death

Why do we cling to life and why are we afraid of death? You may not have thought about it. The reason why we cling so much to life and why we are afraid of death is just inconceivable. We cling to life so much because we do not know how to live. We cling to life so much because really we are not alive. And time is passing and death is coming nearer and nearer. And we are afraid that death is coming near and we have not lived yet.

This is the fear: death will come and we have not lived yet. We are just preparing to live. Nothing is ready; life has not happened. We have not known the ecstasy which life is; we have not known the bliss life is; we have not known anything. We have just been breathing in and out. We have been just existing. Life has been just a hope and death is coming near. And if life has not yet happened and death happens before it, of course, obviously, we will be afraid because we would not like to die.

The greatest mystery in life is not life itself, but death. Death is the culmination of life, the ultimate blossoming of life. In death the whole life is summed up, in death you arrive. Life is a pilgrimage towards death. From the very beginning, death is coming. From the moment of birth, death has started coming towards you, you have started moving towards death.

The man who has lived his life totally, intensely, passionately, without any fear - without any fear that has been created in you by the priests for centuries and centuries - if a person lives his life without any fear, authentically, spontaneously, death will not create any fear in him, not at all. In fact, death will come as a great rest. Death will come as the ultimate flowering of life. He will be able to enjoy death too; he will be able to celebrate death too.

If you understand, if you see, if you can feel and experience that you are not separate from existence, that you are one with it, all fear of death disappears because there is nobody to die inside you. In the first place there is nobody at all, existence lives through you.

He who does not want to die should not want to live. For life is tendered to us with the proviso of death. Life is the way to this destination.

O death! We thank you for the light that you will shed upon our ignorance.

Birth in the physical is death in the spiritual. Death in the physical is the birth in the spiritual.

To bring into the world an unwanted human being is as antisocial an act as murder.

Ay, but to die and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstrution and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendant world.

O comfort-killing night, image of hell, Dim register and notary of shame, Black stage for tragedies and murders fell, Vast sin-concealing chaos, nurse of blame!

Biography is to give a man some kind of shape after his death.

The possibility of killing one's self is a safety valve. Having it, man has no right to say life is unbearable.

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

Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing should certain persons die before they sing.

To die will be an awfully big adventure.

He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread

Take care of your life and the Lord will take care of your death.

I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

We must conduct research and then accept the results. If they don't stand up to experimentation, Buddha`s own words must be rejected.