Quotes About Mortality

Oh build your ship of death, oh build it in time and build it lovingly, and put it between the hands of your soul.

Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises.

How beautiful, how grand and perfect death was, how good to look forward to. There one would wash off all the lies and ignominy and dirt that had been put upon one here, a perfect bath of cleanness and glad refreshment, and go unknown, unquestioned, unabased. After all, one was rich, if only in the promise of perfect death. It was a gladness above all, that this remained to look forward to, the pure inhuman otherness of death.

Só a juventude conhece o sabor da imortalidade.

When did one come to an end? In which direction was it finished? There was no end, no finish, only this roaring vast space. Did one never get old, never die? That was the clue.

For each time we lie down to sleep we have within us a body of death which dies with the day that is spent.

God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days." Why should you and I?

As Dr. Johnson said: "God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days." Why should you and I?

The Boston Transcript once printed this bit of significant doggerel:   Here lies the body of William Jay, Who died maintaining his right of way— He was right, dead right, as he sped along, But he's just as dead as if he were wrong.   You

She stooped for a stone and dropped it down. 'Fancy being where that is now,' she said, peering into the blackness; 'fancy going round and round like a mouse in a pail, clutching at the slimy sides, with the water filling your mouth, and looking up to the little patch of sky above.' 'You had better come in,' said Benson, very quietly. 'You are developing a taste for the morbid and horrible.' (The Well)

Have you noticed that only in time of illness or disaster or death are people real? I remember at the time of the wreck-- people were so kind and helpful and solid. Everyone pretended that our lives until that moment had been every bit as real as the moment itself and that the future must be real too, when the truth was that our reality had been purchased only by Lyell's death. In another hour or so we had all faded out again and gone our dim ways.

The name of the enemy is death, he said, grinning and shoving his hands in his pockets. Not the death of dying but the living death. The

In the middle of a sentence it will come over me: yes, beyond a doubt this is death.

Whenever I feel myself sinking into a deep sleep, something always recalls me: "Not so fast now. Suppose you should go to sleep and it should happen. What then?" Clearly nothing. Yet there I lie, wakeful and watchful as a sentry, ears tuned to the slightest noise.

A dying king, said Sir Thomas More, is apt to be wiser than a healthy king.

I don't begrudge the kids their hormones or their illusions of immortality.

Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough.

And as to you life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, / No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

And as to you death, and you bitter hug of mortality . . . . it is idle to try to alarm me

In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barleycorn less, And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them. And I know I am solid and sound, To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow, All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means. And I know I am deathless. I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass, I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.

It seems to me that everything in the light and air ought to be happy; / Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough.

Have you surpassed the rest? Are you the president? It doesn't matter. They will more than arrive there, every one, and still pass on.

Life is the little that is left over from dying.