Quotes About Mortality

O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible.

Creatures of a day, what is any one? What is he not? Man is but a dream of a shadow. Yet when there comes as a gift of heaven a gleam of sunshine, there rest upon men a radiant light and, aye, a gentle life.

Creatures of a day. What is someone? What is no one? Man is the dream of a shadow.

Creatures of a day! What is man?

It is a common saying, and in everybody's mouth, that life is but a sojourn.

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.

Will you not allow that I have as much of the spirit of prophecy in me as the swans? For they, when they perceive that they must die, having sung all their life long, do then sing more lustily than ever, rejoicing in the thought that they are going to the god they serve.

Know one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

Death is not the worst than can happen to men.

Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death

He whom the gods love dies young, while he is in health, has his senses and his judgments sound.

No mortal man, moreover is wise at all moments.

It is best not to be born or to die as soon as possible.

There were some so afraid of death that they prayed for death.

Deus est mortali iuvare mortalem.

Wherever it lies, under earth or over earth, the body will always rot.

An old doting fool, with one foot already in the grave.

I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal has hitherto raised.

They died,but not as lavish as their blood, Or thinking death itself was simply good; Their wishes neither were to live nor die, But to do both alike commendably.

For humans it is not at all possible to have the best thing of all or to have any share of the best nature—since the best thing for all men and women is not to be born. But the second best thing after this and the first available to mortals, is to die as soon as possible after being born." It is clear that he said this because the way that exists in death is better than the one in life.

And he used to say that sleep and sexual intercourse, more than any thing else, made him conscious that he was mortal, implying that both weariness and pleasure arise from one and the same natural weakness.

The biggest mistake we make is to think we have all the time in the world.

Most people come to fear not death itself, but the many terrible ways of dying.

To be mortal means to die, and both Eve and Pandora bring death into the world. This is a curious rerversal of the fact that women bring life into the world, but it says something about the meaning of 'woman' within a religion dominated by male gods.