Mortality Quotes

Again, somehow, one saw life, a pure bead. I lifted the pencil again, useless though I knew it to be. But even as I did so, the unmistakable tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and instantly grew stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now knew death. As I looked at the dead moth, this minute wayside triumph of so great a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange.

I am long on ideas, but short on time. I expect to live to be only about a hundred.

No one is so old that he does not think he could live another year.

In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.

This entire most beautiful order of good things is going to pass away after its measure has been exhausted; for both morning and evening were made in them.

I see no comfort in outliving one's friends, and remaining a mere monument of the times which are past.

If this was the last day of your life, would you spend it the way you're spending today?

Teach me your mood, O patient stars. Who climb each night, the ancient sky. leaving on space no shade, no scars, no trace of age, no fear to die.

Men die and they are not happy.

The planet isn't going anywhere. We are.

O momentary grace of mortal men,Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!

Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.

We are not immortal ourselves, my friend; how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have no rose without its thorn; no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of our existence; and we must acquiesce.

Death, like the quintessence of otherness, is for others.

Minutes, hours, days, months, and years,Pass'd over to the end they were created,Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.Ah, what a life were this!

He knows what it's like to strut and fret his hour upon the stage and then be heard no more.

All substances the cunning chemist TimeMelts down into that liquor of my life.

Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.

Remember that all worlds draw to an end and that noble death is a treasure which no one is too poor to buy.

When we see the many grave-stones which have fallen in, which have been defaced by the footsteps of the congregation, which lie buried under the ruins of the churches, that have themselves crumbled together over them; we may fancy the life after death to be as a second life, into which man enters in the figure, or the picture or the inscription, and lives longer there than when he was really alive. But this figure also, this second existence, dies out too, sooner or later. Time will not allow himself to be cheated of his rights with the monuments of men or with themselves.

I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.

Books, like men their authors, have no more than one wayofcoming intothe world, but there areten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.

The gloomy shade of death.

Each man is master of his own death, and all that we can do when the time comes is to help him die without fear of pain.

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say. Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day; The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.

I know simply that the sky will last longer than I.

I intend to live forever, or die trying.

I don't like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible get a pillar between me and the train. I don't like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second's action would end everything. A few drops of desperation.

For a man can lose neither the past nor the future; for how can one take from him that which is not his? So remember these two points: first, that each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle, and that it signifies not whether a man shall look upon the same things for a hundred years or two hundred, or for an infinity of time; second, that the longest lived and the shortest lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.

Nature does require her time of preservation, which perforce, I her frail son amongst my brethren mortal, must give my attendance to.

O time, swift robber of all created things, how many kings, how many nations hast thou undone, and how many changes of states and of various events have happened since the wondrous forms of this fish perished here in this cavernous and winding recess. Now destroyed by time thou liest patiently in this confined space with bones stripped and bare; serving as a support and prop for the superimposed mountain.

Enough! we're tired, my heart and I. We sit beside the headstone thus, And wish that name were carved for us. The moss reprints more tenderly The hard types of the mason's knife, As Heaven's sweet life renews earth's life With which we're tired, my heart and I .... In this abundant earth no doubt Is little room for things worn out: Disdain them, break them, throw them by! And if before the days grew rough We once were loved, used, - well enough, I think, we've fared, my heart and I.

I cheerfully quit from life as if it were an inn, not a home; for Nature has given us a hostelry in which to sojourn, not to abide.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help make the big choices in life. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

Man must endure his going hence.

Before death takes away what you are given, give away what there is to give.

Alas, how right the ancient saying is: We, who are old, are nothing else but noise And shape. Like mimicries of dreams we go, And have no wits, although we think us wise.

Consider when thou art much vexed or grieved, that man's life is only a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead.

Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live as on a mountain.

Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. Evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

The last suit that you wear, you don't need any pockets.

Each person is born to one possession which outvalues all his others-his last breath.

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.

A person who chooses to die or to risk death demonstrates that there are values, principles, maxims, that are more valuable to him than is life itself. In short, he places his immortal self above his mortal self. Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

You are too young to know how the world changes everyday,' said Mrs Creakle, 'and how the people in it pass away. But we all have to learn it, David; some of us when we are young, some of us when we are old, some of us at all times in our lives.

Everyone desires long life, not one old age.

Account no man happy till he dies.

Life is a near-death experience.

My tunes and numbers are here. They have filled my years, the years when I refused to die. And in order to do that I wrote, I wrote, I wrote, at noon or 3:00 A.M. So as not to be dead.

Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses.

Life's a short trip. You'll find out.

I used to be, like, "Sleep when I die."

Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal; a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all.

No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.

If thou art rich, thou art poor; for, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey, and death unloads thee.

In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident.

and realized that death was not only a permanent probability, as he had always believed, but an immediate reality.

But we do need a breather. We do need knowledge. And perhaps in a thousand years we might pick smaller cliffs to jump off. The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They’re Caesar’s praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, ‘Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.’ Most of us can’t rush around, talk to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven’t time, money or that many friends. The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book.

Remember that I too am mortal.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!