Life and Existence

Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul

Conscience: the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.

We live, not as we wish to, but as we can.

Whom the gods love dies young.

Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.

I [Death] was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

Religion is … the opium of the people.

I count religion but a childish toy,

O lente lente currite noctis equi .

O lente lente currite noctis equi .

Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,

Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,

A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.

A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.

Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order.

We come out of the dark and go into the dark again, and in between lie the experiences of our life.

We come out of the dark and go into the dark again, and in between lie the experiences of our life.

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.

True reconciliation does not consist in merely forgetting the past.

L’art est un anti-destin.

La chair est triste, hélas! et j’ai lu tous les livres.

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Let me die a youngman’s death

Let me die a youngman’s death