Quotes About Mortality

O what auailes it of immortall seed To beene ybred and neuer borne to die? Farre better I it deeme to die with speed, Then waste in woe and wailefull miserie. Who dyes the vtmost dolour doth abye, But who that liues, is left to waile his losse: So life is losse, and death felicitie. Sad life worse then glad death: and greater crosse To see friends graue, then dead the graue selfe to engrosse.

O why doe wretched men so much desire, To draw their dayes vnto the vtmost date, And doe not rather wish them soone expire, Knowing the miserie of their estate, And thousand perills which them still awate, Tossing them like a boate amid the mayne, That euery houre they knocke at deathes gate? And he that happie seemes and least in payne, Yet is as nigh his end, as he that most doth playne.

I could certainly subscribe to the notion that life ends in old age, sickness, and death—but later, later.

At my age (seventy-eight), I realize that everyone, or almost everyone except Hitler, will be forgotten from this period; if a writer can shore up an eroding coastline for a decade or two, that's the only "immortality" we'll ever know on this dying planet.

He looked out over the shirtless, muscled, tanned men and realised that right here, on this disco floor, there was such a concentration of fashion, slimming, money, bleaching, plastic surgery, psychotherapy – and all for naught. In a few years they'd all be old walruses, and in a few more, dead.

Silage making is more practical than saving hay. When you watch an animal die you think how sad it must be to see a human die. My best days I have seen out.

her untimely death. Death for her meant death for us both.

You're in a straight line, buddy-boy, and it doesn't lead anywhere.....except maybe the grave.

All of my plays are about people missing the boat, closing down too young, coming to the end of their lives with regret at things not done, as opposed to things done. I find most people spend too much time living as if they're never going to die.

History repeats itself only in that, from afar, we all seem to lead exactly the same life. We are all born; we all spend time here on earth; we all die. But, up close, we have each walked down our own separate paths. We have stood at our own lonely crossroads. We have touched the lives of others at crucial points, for better or for worse. In the end, each of us has lived a unique life story, astounding and complicated, a story taht could never be repeated.

I think I'll get cremated here myself,' said Patrick. 'No need to rush,' said Johnny. 'I was going to wait until I died.' 'Good thinking.

There could be no real dialogue between those who still thought that time was on their side and those who realized that they were dangling from its jaws, like Saturn's children, already half-devoured.

I know' said Patrick. 'It was a terrible shock to me when I realized I was getting too old to die young anymore.

No one cares about their reputation or their bank account when they find themselves in the shadow of death.

My mother used to say that we'll all have three death: the one when our breath leaves our bodies to rejoin the air, the one when we are out back in the earth, and the one that will erase us completely and no one will remember us at all.

We're all carrying our coffins with us every day." Or "We are all constantly cheating death.

Maybe we're all dying, one breath at a time.

We are all bodies, but the dying body starts decaying right before our eyes. And those narratives that tell us what it's like to live, and die, inside those bodies are helpful to all of us, because no matter how old we are, our bodies never stop being mysterious to us.

Each death is as singular as the individual who is dying, and in the end we will get no definitive answers.

This is life. It's not a dress rehearsal. If we don't do this now, we may as well start planning our own funerals.

Consider the world as an abode where in you have dropped down for an hour, then you have got to leave it and go ahead; or (suppose it is) like the wealth which you lay hands upon in a dream and become over-joyed and glad. Then you wake up to find yourself empty handed.

Yes, it is a truth that for a good man, honored, beloved, useful, with all around him that God ever gives to His children here; nay, with all that God could give him of earth, it would be " gain " to die. Heaven is a better, a happier, a more desirable world than this is or can be.

Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter.

It's no use reminding yourself daily that you are mortal: it will be brought home to you soon enough.