At the moment of death there will appear to you, swifter than lightning, the luminous splendor of the colorless light of emptiness, and that will surround you on all sides. Terrified, you will flee from the radiance. Try to submerge it is an obstacle blocking the path of liberation. yourself in that light, giving up all belief in a separate self, all attachment to your illusory ego. Recognize that the boundless light of this true reality is your own true self, and you shall be saved!
—Buddhist Teaching
Dying is something we human beings do continuously, not just at the end of our physical lives on this earth.
—Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1926-2004) American Psychiatrist
All men think that all men are mortal but themselves.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me.
The Carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
—Dylan Thomas (1914–53) Welsh Poet, Author
All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey;
This Flecknoe found, who like Augustus young
Was call’d to empire, and had govern’d long:
In prose and verse, was own’d, without dispute
Through all the realms of nonsense, absolute.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
A wooden bed is better than a golden coffin.
—Russian Proverb
I balanced all, brought all to mind, the years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind, in balance with this life, this death.
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
Death teaches us to live; it gives us a boundary to map our living within. Death’s hammer breaks through the mirror separating us from light.
—David Seltzer (b.1940) American Screenwriter, Film Producer, Film Director
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
What do you think has become of the young and old men?.
What do you think has become of the women andchildren?.
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
All goes onward and outward… .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
It is difficult to accept death in this society because it is unfamiliar. In spite of the fact that it happens all the time, we never see it.
—Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1926-2004) American Psychiatrist
It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men all live in a city without walls.
—Epicurus (c.341–270 BCE) Greek Philosopher
Death twitches my ear. “Live,” he says, “I am coming.”
—Virgil (70–19 BCE) Roman Poet
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