Echoes

Happy is the man who hath the hour of his death always before his eyes, and daily prepareth himself to die.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.

Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you're alive and able—be good.

Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.

He realized now that to be afraid of this death he was staring at with animal terror meant to be afraid of life. Fear of dying justified a limitless attachment to what is alive in man. And all those who had not made the gestures necessary to live their lives, all those who feared and exalted impotence — they were afraid of death because of the sanction it gave to a life in which they had not been involved. They had not lived enough, never having lived at all.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

Thou oughtest in every deed and thought so to order thyself, as if thou wert to die this day.

The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live. And often this living nobly means that you cannot live long.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

Yes, you can--if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable.

Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death.

Do not, my soul, seek immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible.

Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to have a sufficient length of life. Is it possible you can imagine never to arrive at the place towards which you are continually going? and yet there is no journey but hath its end. And, if company will make it more pleasant or more easy to you, does not all the world go the self-same way?

Our bodies are perishable, wealth is not at all permanent and death is always nearby. Therefore we must immediately engage in acts of merit.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;The valiant never taste of death but once.

Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die.

It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organised dust — ready to fly abroad the moment the spring snaps, or the spark goes out which kept it together. Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable, and life is more than a dream.

Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult.

Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.

When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.