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Mortality Quotes


"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing."


"Let an illness, a duel, a runaway horse make us see death face to face, and how richly we should have enjoyed the life of pleasure, the travels in unknown lands, which are about to be snatched from us! And no sooner is the danger past than we resume once more the same dull life in which none of those delights existed for us."


"Death would not surprise us as often as it does, if we let go of the misbelief that newborns are less mortal than the elderly."


"Life is short, death is long, days are narrow, and years are wide."


"Human mortality linked to the human ability consciously to choose how to act by exhibiting free will, humility, hard work, kindness, and compassion provide exemplary opportunities to learn and develop self-discipline."


"I'd love to tell you I had some deep revelation on my way down, that I came to terms with my own mortality, laughed in the face of death, et cetera.The truth? My only thought was: Aaaaggghhhhh!"


"You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last."


"Men die:and they are not happy."


"Are-you dying?" she asked."Just can't breathe. This air.""Poor, poor-good lord. I've forgotten your name.""Hell of a thing.""Barney!"He clutched her."No! Don't stop!" She arched her back. Her teeth chattered."I wasn't going to," he said. "Oooaugh!"He laughed."Don't please laugh at me.""Not meant unkindly."A long silence, then. Then, "Oof."


"Birth and death we all move between these two unknowns."


"I was desperate not to confront the fact that this really could be it-that "nineteen" didn't matter, that there really was a point at which even young bodies fail. I was not immortal."


"Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death."


"As for dying we can only assay that once, we are all apprentices when it comes to that."



"Death comes to us all, we can only choose how to face it when it comes."


"Death, I had discovered long ago, was available in varying flavors, and none of them particularly palatable."


"He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone - one mind less, one world less."


"Each leaf that brushed his face deepened his sadness and dread. Each leaf he passed he'd never pass again. They rode over his face like veils, already some yellow, their veins like slender bones where the sun shone through them. He had resolved himself to ride on for he could not turn back and the world that day was as lovely as any day that ever was and he was riding to his death."


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


"If no one knows when a person is going to die, how can we say he died prematurely?"


"You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man nor any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose... That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself?"


"Accepting that a person will die and shucking off any aversion to this blunt thought awakens the mind to realize what is possible in a human life."


"Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened,like winter, which even now is passing.For beneath the winter is a winter so endlessthat to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.Climb praising as you return to connection.Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.Be. And, at the same time, know what it is not to be.The emptiness inside you allows you to vibratein full resonance with your world. Use it for once.To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayablenumbers of beings abounding in Nature,add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost."


"Among the tortures and devastations of life is this then-our friends are not able to finish their stories."
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