"And I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world. It is all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses will burn or freeze together with the earthly globe."

Mortality, Wisdom, Values, Existence

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"And I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world. It is all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses will burn or freeze together with the earthly globe."

Exlpore more Mortality quotes

"Your life on earth is but for a few days and before you know it, you are no more."

Sunday Adelaja, Nigerian Author

Mortality, Life, Days, Fleeting

"Over the lives borne from under the shadow of death there seems to fall the shadow of madness."

Joseph Conrad, Polish Novelist

Mortality, Death, Madness, Life, Fear

"It was another country. It was a country for the young, a country where you died before you got old."

Maggie Stiefvater, American Author

Mortality, Country, Youth, Death, Aging

"The suicide! What would he have done if death did not exist?"

Marty Rubin, American Author

Mortality, Death, Existence, Question, Life

"Tombstones covered the dale, the smooth marble surfaces bright. She had spent days here as a teenager, though not out of any awareness of mortality. Like every adolescent, she intended to live forever."

Thomm Quackenbush, American Author

Mortality, Adolescence, Life, Awareness

"The very possibility of death focuses the mind wonderfully."

Jasper Fforde, British Novelist

Mortality, Focus, Clarity, Awareness

"Will be there any spinoff?A lesson?Person of Interest have a lessons... first we all die alone as a second when you start understanding the somebody... it comes a moment when the cards end up and he dies."

Deyth Banger, American Blogger

Mortality, Death, Truth, Life, Wisdom

"And then his noise falls completely silent-And he stops struggling-And looking right into my eyes-He dies.My Todd dies."

Patrick Ness, American Author

Mortality, Death, Loss, Observation, Emotion

"Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;This sensible warm motion to becomeA kneaded clod; and the delighted spiritTo bathe in fiery floods, or to resideIn thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,And blown with restless violence round aboutThe pendent world; or to be worse than worstOf those that lawless and incertain thoughtImagine howling: 'tis too horrible!The weariest and most loathed worldly lifeThat age, ache, penury and imprisonmentCan lay on nature is a paradiseTo what we fear of death."

William Shakespeare, English Dramatist

Mortality, Death, Fear, Life, Truth

"When we died, no one would know, and that fraction of a moment that was so important to who we were would be gone."

Kiera Cass, American Novelist

Mortality, Moment, Loss, Time

Explore more quotes by Anton Chekhov

"Anna Petrovna: I am beginning to think, doctor, that fate has cheated me. The majority of people, who maybe are no better than I am, are happy and pay nothing for that happiness. I have paid for everything, absolutely everything! And how dearly! Why have I paid such terrible interest?"

Reflection

"LUBOV. I'm quite sure there wasn't anything at all funny. You oughtn't to go and see plays, you ought to go and look at yourself. What a grey life you lead, what a lot you talk unnecessarily."

Self

"The Lie which elates us is dearer than a thousand sober truths."

Psychology

"You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don't want to understand you."

Morality

"Borkin: Ladies and gentlemen, why are you so glum? Sitting there like a jury after it's been sworn in! ... Let's think up something. What would you like? Forfeits, tug of war, catch, dancing, fireworks?"

Leisure

"A woman can become a man's friend only in the following stages - first an acquantaince, next a mistress, and only then a friend."

Relationship

"Science and art,... they seek the truth and the meaning of life, they seek God, [and] the soul, and when they are harnessed to passing needs and activities,... then they only complicate and encumber life."

Knowledge

"I have no will of my own. Never did. Limp and lily-livered, I always obey - is it possible that's attractive to women?"

Personality

"Ivanov: Once I worked hard and thought a lot but I never got tired; now I do nothing and think of nothing, but I'm tired in body and spirit. My conscience aches day and night, I feel deeply guilty but I don't understand where I am actually at fault. And add to that my wife's illness, my lack of money, the constant bickering, gossip, unnecessary conversations, that stupid Borkin... My home has become loathsome to me and I find living there worse than torture."

Conscience

"Going to see plays isn't what you people should do. Try looking at yourselves a little more often and see what gray lives you all lead. How much of what you say is unnecessary."

Self-Development