Quotes About Mortality

Death hangs over thee, While thou still live, while thou may, do good.

You are a little soul carrying about a corpse.

Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.

The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.

You will quickly be reduced to ashes and skeleton. And it may be you will have a name left you, and it may be not. And what is a name? Nothing but sound and echo.

Death--a stopping of impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the cords of motion, and of the ways of thought, and of service to the flesh.

But look at how soon we're all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of all those applauding hands. The people who praise us - how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region in which it all takes place. The whole earth a point in space - and most of it uninhabited.

Death smiles at us all, but all a man can do is smile back.

Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small - small as the corner of the earth in which we live it. Small as the greatest renown, passed from mouth to mouth by short-lived stick figures, ignorant alike of themselves and those long dead.

He (God) remembers that we are but shadows and dust, therefore what we do in this life echoes in eternity.

He who has a vehement desire for posthumous fame does not consider that every one of those who remember him will himself also die very soon.

Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

The act of dying is also one of the acts of life.

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life.

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man—yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land but the fame that comes after is oblivion.

Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live death is nigh at hand while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.

Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.

Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.

Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternatives.

Do not expect good from another's death.