Death

Death, the state of non-existence in the physical world. See also Life, Saying Goodbye.

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Table of contents

1 The Meaning of Life 2 Living With Death 3 Looking Towards Death 4 Coming To Terms With Death 5 Death 6 Death and Relationships 7 Personal Notes 8 Others

The Meaning of Life

• "Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, 'Did you bring joy?' The second was, 'Did you find joy?'" --Leo Buscaglia

• "Every man dies. Not every man really lives." --William Wallace From the movie Braveheart

• "The meaning of life is helping other people. That, at least, is the strong conviction of other people. --Gerhard Kocher

• "I said to Life, I would hear Death speak. And Life raised her voice a little higher and said, You hear him now." --Kahlil Gibran

• "Never the spirit was born, the spirit shall cease to be never. Never was time it was not, end and beginning are dreams." --The Bhagavad Gita

• "Death and death alone gives meaning to life and this meaning is entirely negative." --Georges Poulet

• "The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone." --Harriet Beecher Stowe

Living With Death

• "Even at our birth, death does but stand aside a little. And every day he looks towards us and muses somewhat to himself whether that day or the next he will draw nigh." --Robert Bolt

• "If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call to make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? --Stephen Levine Poet, Author

• "To the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure." --Albus Dumbledore

• Every blade in the field,
  Every leaf in the forest,
  Lays down its life in its season,
  As beautifully as it was taken up.
  --Henry David Thoreau

Looking Towards Death

• "For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come." --Hamlet by William Shakespeare

• [Regarding the idea that death is nothing but a kind of sleep:]

"...the difference is that when you're dead and somebody yells, 'Everybody up, it's morning,' it's very hard to find your slippers." --Woody Allen, "My Apology"

• "Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight." --R.W. Raymond

• "Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other." --Francis Bacon

• "Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat we say we have had our day." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

• "Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." --Isaac Asimov

• [Mozart's letter to his dying father ]:

"I have formed during the last few years such close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that death's image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling, and I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity...of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness." --Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

• "It's not that I'm afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens." --Woody Allen

Coming To Terms With Death

• "Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come." --Rabindranath Tagore

• "...when we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings." --Sogyal Rinpoche

• "Death row is a state of mind." --Doris Ann Foster

Death

• "A samurai once asked Zen Master Hakuin where he would go after he died. Hakuin answered 'How am I supposed to know?'

'How do you know? You're a Zen master!' exclaimed the samurai.

'Yes, but not a dead one,' Hakuin answered." ~Zen mondo

• "Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist." ~Epicurus

• "When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. When you die, you rejoice, and the world cries." ~Tibetan Buddhist saying

Death and Relationships

(see also Saying Goodbye)

• "Death ends a life, not a relationship." --Jack Lemmon

• Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. --from a headstone in Ireland

Personal Notes

• "Empty-handed I entered the world
  Barefoot I leave it.
  My coming, my going --
  Two simple happenings
  That got entangled."
  --Kozan Ichikyo Zen teacher
  • Notes: written on the morning of his death

Others

• "The dead if not separated from the living, bring madness upon them." --Nykusa proverb
• Never knock on Death's door. Ring the bell and run like hell. He hates that!
• Whether you're a king or a little street sweeper, sooner or later, you dance with the reaper! --Popularised in the movie "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)"
• I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES. I TURN UP ONLY ONCE. -- (Death, in Terry Pratchett's novel Feet of Clay)