Death and Mourning

Oh, if I had Orpheus’ voice and poetry with which to move the Dark Maid and her Lord, I’d call you back, dear love, from the world below. I’d go down there for you. Charon or the grim King’s dog could not prevent me then from carrying you up into the fields of light.

Light be the earth upon you, lightly rest.

A sweet thing, for whatever time, to revisit in dreams the dear dead we have lost.

Not to be born surpasses thought and speech. The second best is to have seen the light And then to go back quickly whence we came.

Death is not the worst; rather, in vain To wish for death, and not to compass it.

Let every man in mankind’s frailty Consider his last day; and let none Presume on his good fortune until he find Life, at his death, a memory without pain.

If you wish to live, you must first attend your own funeral.

One wants to tell a story, like Scheherazade, in order not to die. It’s one of the oldest urges of mankind. It’s a way of stalling death.

Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.

Not even old age knows how to love death.

When a man has lost all happiness, he's not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

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

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?

You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.

Your lost friends are not dead, but gone before, advanced a stage or two upon that road which you must travel in the steps they trod.

Death is softer by far than tyranny.

Epitaphs are cheap, and they do a poor chap a world of good after he is dead, especially if he had hard luck while he was alive. I wish they were used more.

It will take mind and memory months and possibly years to gather together the details, and thus learn and know the whole extent of the loss.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself.

When someone dies, it is like when your house burns down; it isn't for years that you realize the full extent of your loss.