Quotes & Sayings About Life After Death

Foreword of my book: The Pawn
"It is being said that time and space could be tied to their creator's stance of what they are to him or her. It can possibly be perceived by those who become the receivers of this viewpoint as something different or the same." (Claire Manning Writer/Author 2016) — Claire Hamelin Manning

I knew we were not alone, but there was something in the air, something good and pure that reassured me. It's a beautiful energy, and has been with me ever since. — Caroline Mitchell

We are left with nothing but death, the irreducible fact of our own mortality. Death after a long illness we can accept with resignation. Even accidental death we can ascribe to fate. But for a man to die of no apparent cause, for a man to die simply because he is a man, brings us so close to the invisible boundary between life and death that we no longer know which side we are on. Life becomes death, and it is as if this death has owned this life all along. Death without warning. Which is to say: life stops. And it can stop at any moment. — Paul Auster

When we ponder the vastness of the universe and eternity, we are closer to understanding the role of death in the mysterious life we are all experiencing. Through these realizations, greater acceptance of the inevitability of death positions us to be happier in our lives. After my journey through these ideas I feel strongly that happiness and a deeper understanding of death are linked phenomena that offer a fuller existence. — Loren Mayshark

Great is life ... and real and mystical ... wherever and whoever, Great is death ... Sure as life holds all parts together, death holds all parts together; Sure as the stars return again after they merge on the light, death is as great as life. — Walt Whitman

So many people die with their dreams in their hands. — Alex Rogers

All Egypt is obsessed with death! And do you know why, Renisenb? Because we have eyes in our bodies, but none in our minds. We cannot conceive of a life other than this one - of a life after death. We can visualize only a continuation of what we know. We have no real belief in a God. — Agatha Christie

Intellectual knowledge exists in and of the brain.
Because the brain is part of the body, which must one day expire, this collection of facts, however large and impressive, will expire as well.
Insight, however, is a function of the spirit.
Because your spirit follows you through cycle after cycle of life, death, and rebirth, you have the opportunity of cultivating insight in an ongoing fashion.
Refined over time, insight becomes pure, constant, and unwavering.
This is the beginning of immortality. — Lao-Tzu

It's just as idiotic to say there is no life after death as it is to say there is one. — Jeanne Moreau

I am sorry,' said Frodo. But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum.'
You have not seen him,' Gandalf broke in.
'No, and I don't want to, said Frodo. 'I can't understand you. Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.'
'Deserves it!' I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all end. — J.R.R. Tolkien

ROMA 8.1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. ROMA 8.2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. ROMA 8.3. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: ROMA 8.4. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. — Anonymous

It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences. — Hunter S. Thompson

How long your closet held a whiff of you,
Long after hangers hung austere and bare.
I would walk in and suddenly the true
Sharp sweet sweat scent controlled the air
And life was in that small still living breath.
Where are you? since so much of you is here,
Your unique odour quite ignoring death.
My hands reach out to touch, to hold what's dear
And vital in my longing empty arms.
But other clothes fill up the space, your space,
And scent on scent send out strange false alarms.
Not of your odour there is not a trace.
But something unexpected still breaks through
The goneness to the presentness of you. — Madeleine L'Engle

Now come: that thou mayst able be to know
That minds and the light souls of all that live
Have mortal birth and death, I will go on
Verses to build meet for thy rule of life,
Sought after long, discovered with sweet toil. — Lucretius

Men are lonely and out of communication with one another because all their inventions speak only of death. Death is the automaton which rules the world of activity. Death is silent, because it has no mouth. Death has never expressed anything. Death is wonderful too
after life. — Henry Miller

All doctrines relating to the creation of the world, the government of man by superior beings, and his destiny after death, are conjectures which have been given out as facts, handed down with many adornments by tradition, and accepted by posterity as "revealed religion". They are theories more or less rational which uncivilised men have devised in order to explain the facts of life, and which civilised men believe that they believe. — William Winwood Reade

It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death
ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us. — James Baldwin

If a man can bridge the gap between life and death,if he can live after he's died, then maybe he was a great man. Immortality is the only true success. — James Dean

I start thinking about life after death. I've got to quit thinking about it because it's very deep. Very deep. Sometimes you start thinking about it, and you don't feel like you want to be alive, so I don't like to get all quiet. — David Ortiz

Charles de Foucauld, the found of the Little Brothers of Jesus, wrote a single sentence that's ahad a profound impact on my life. He said, "The one thing we owe absolutely to God is never to be afraid of anything." Never to be afraid of anything, even death, which, after all, is but that final breakthrough into the open, waiting, outstretched arms of Abba. — Brennan Manning

I didn't know yet how wanting to die could be a bloodsong in your body that lives with you your whole life. I didn't know then how deeply my mother's song had swum into my sister and into me. I didn't know that something like wanting to die could take form in one daughter as the ability to quietly surrender, and in the other as the ability to drive into death head-on. I didn't know we were our mother's daughters after all. — Lidia Yuknavitch

The primary question about life after death is not whether it is a fact, but even if it is, what problems that really solves. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

After night comes day. After death comes life. Even at your darkest time look around because you are never really alone. You are loved. — Anna McPartlin

Life is not easy for anyone here. Loss and fear, failure and disappointment, pain and ill-health, doubt and death-even those who have escaped from poverty have no escape from these. What makes life bearable is love-to love, to be loved, and-even after death or parting-to know that you have loved and been loved. — Vikram Seth

Consciousness is endless, from one incarnation to the next. It simply will and does manifest in other places and times, regardless of what becomes of the human race. — Zeena Schreck

If there's a place for me in Hell I hope it's next to someone like you — Stanley Victor Paskavich

O sleepers! what a thing is slumber! Sleep resembles death. Ah, why then dost thou not work in such wise as that after death thou mayst retain a resemblance to perfect life, when, during life, thou art in sleep so like to the hapless dead? — Leonardo Da Vinci

The way black women say "girl" can be magical. Frankly, I have no solid beliefs about the survival of consciousness after physical death. But if it's going to happen I know what I want to see after my trek toward the light. I want to see a black woman who will smile and say, "Girl ... — Abigail Padgett

Fear of dying must surely mean fear of how one dies. If one can be assured of a painless death, how can one fear it, unless one is a religious fanatic with a very guilty conscience? — Dimitris Mita

Sitting here, literally amongst the dead, reckoning up gains and losses, casting accounts, I have come to see gains that cannot be reckoned in terms of wealth, and losses that are more damaging than loss of a crop... I look at the River and I see the lifeblood of Egypt that has existed before we lived and that will exist after we die... Life and death, Renisenb, are not of such great account. — Agatha Christie

Ogden Nash wrote a line that I have always remembered: "The old men know when an old man dies." With the years, that line has become ever more poignant to me. After all, an old person to one who has known him for a long time is not an "old person" but is much more likely to be thought of as the younger person who inhabits our memory, vigorous and vibrant. When an old person dies who has been a part of your life, it is part of your youth that dies. And though you survive yourself, you must watch death take away the world of your youth, little by little. — Isaac Asimov

There is no conclusive evidence of life after death, but there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know, so why fret about it? — Robert A. Heinlein

What is my true substance?
What will remain of me after my death?
Our life is as short as a raging fire:
flames the passer-by soon forgets,
ashes the wind blows away.
A man's life. — Omar Khayyam

With reference to the elect we might distinguish between three classes. First, there are those who are satisfied with God's will, as it is, and do not murmur against God, but rather believe that they are elected. They do not want to be damned. Secondly, there are those who submit to God's will and are satisfied with it in their hearts. At least they desire to be satisfied, if God does not wish to save, but reject them. Thirdly, there are those who really are ready to be condemned if God should will this. These are cleansed most of all of their own will and carnal wisdom. And these experience the truth of Canticles 8:6: "Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death." Such love is always joined with cross and tribulation, for without it the soul becomes lax, and does not seek after God, nor thirst after God, who is the Fountain of Life. — Martin Luther

That is my essential reason for writing, not for fame, not to be celebrated after death, but to heighten and create life all around me. I also write because when I am writing I reach the high moment of fusion sought by the mystics, the poets, the lovers, a sense of communion with the universe. — Anais Nin

Day by day his sister grew
Paler with the wound
She could not see or touch or feel, as I dressed it
Each day with her blue Breton jacket.
- from Life After Death — Ted Hughes

Johnson's later life, from 1763, is among the best documented of all literary lives. James Boswell gave himself the enormous task, after Johnson's death in 1784, of producing what is now held to be a model of biography; rich in detail and anecdote, a complete picture of the man and his times, traced over a period of more than twenty years. Boswell's Life of Johnson, published in 1791, carries on Johnson's own contribution to the growing art of biography, and consolidates Johnson's position as a major literary figure, who, although a poet and a novelist, is remembered more for his academic and critical achievement than for his creative writings. — Ronald Carter

So finally I came up with a thing that felt really pure, and I'm Christian, so when I hear about death I have a lot of hope because I believe in Jesus and life after death, and John 3:16. — Victoria Jackson

(T)he cadet was too young to believe in death after life. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillation or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, their caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. — Atul Gawande

Whose are all these ghosts?" she said, smiling at a flustered-looking Geraldine.
"Oh," said Geraldine, "I think they might be mine ... ? — Diane Hall

In the chamber of death ... I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter-the Eternity they have entered-where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness ... One might doubt in seasons of cold reflection; but not then in the presence of her corpse. It asserted its own tranquility, which seemed a pledge of equal quiet to its former inhabitant. — Emily Bronte

Such is life, here today, gone tomorrow! Nothing goes with one, except one's merit and demerit; good and evil deeds follow one even after death. — Sarada Devi

Adam and Eve and all forms of life, both animal and plant, were created in immortality; that is, when first placed on this earth, all forms of life were in a state of immortality. There was no death in the world; death entered after the fall. — Bruce R. McConkie

Sometimes, stopping a purposeful journey can be very appealing, but that can also be as deadly as death. Pursue with tenacity, strive through the adversities, understand the vicissitudes of life and dare to be a conqueror no matter what, with fortitude and understanding! There is always a moment in a purposeful journey when giving up speaks clearly and convincingly, but when you fix your eyes on the end point, you shall surely see life after all the ups and downs! Don't kill your dreams! Awake! Arise and go! Never give up! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

In death - no! even in the grave all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Arousing from the most profound slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream. Yet in a second afterward, (so frail may that web have been) we remember not that we have dreamed. — Edgar Allan Poe

Everything of the body is a river. Everything of the soul is dream and vapour. Life is war and the abode of a stranger. The only fame after death is oblivion. — Marcus Aurelius

Do you ever think about it? About nothingness. I do, I think about it all the time. Because of course it's nothingness that awaits us. Of course it is. If it weren't why would our hearts keep pumping any longer than they had to? Why wouldn't we all emerge into the world pure and innocent, and then before we had a chance to get in any trouble, before we had a chance to take our first oily shit, just immediately shut down our systems and head straight to the hereafter? If there were a better life after death, why bother getting fitter for survival's sake? Why would evolution even be a thing? Why fight for something second best? If death was really awesome, in a life or death situation, our bodies wouldn't muscle up with epinephrine and cortisol. Our brains would hit us up instead with sloppy, sleepy happy love. Hannibal Lecter would be our Mickey Mouse. No, there's fuckall to look forward to. Our bodies understand this. The real problem is, it's unbearable to know this. So we cope. — Elizabeth Little

First, I have culled evidence that physical death is not the end of the road for any of us. I know this message is critical because I've seen people consumed by fear of death or suffering unbearable grief after losing a loved one. Some can draw into a shell, ceasing all efforts to reach their potential, or even give up on life. — Mark Ireland

It was like a dream you might have after death in which lost people came back to life, your friends loved you again no matter what you had done, and your failures were unaccountably forgiven. — Ann Brashares

He had recorded a message to be played upon his death. He had told no one - except Teela, his shopping companion and health care worker, who delivered the tape to his family. It was brief. But in it, the Reb answered the two questions he had most been asked in his life of faith. One was whether he believed in God. He said he did. The other was whether there is life after death. On this he said, "My answer here, too, is yes, there is something. But friends, I'm sorry. Now that I know, I can't even tell you." The whole place broke up laughing. — Mitch Albom

Everything science has taught me strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. I believe in an immortal soul. Science has proved that nothing disintegrates into nothingness. Life and soul, therefore, cannot disintegrate into nothingness, and so are immortal. — Werner Von Braun

Two weeks after the arrested I was on the phone with my wife and we said a prayer and I was crying and just so happy, I can't even explain it. It was euphoric. People said I went from freedom my whole life to prison, but in reality, I went from imprisonment and bondage of sin and death my whole life, to finding freedom in a prison cell. — Christian Hosoi

Better beware of the newly dead

Of the white-handed ghost

And the brightness of these lamps . . .

wrote Luc Berimont in 1940, in Reign of Darkness.

I've always felt the greatest reluctance to go anywhere near, to touch, a fresh corpse. For me, it's an unseemly thing. Useless. Hostile. Cunning. Dangerous. The 'presence' is much stronger, more perceptible one hour after death than one hour before. By my observation, this was not the case with Heisserer.

He was entirely absent from his head, his hands,his quivering body. He was gone instantly, unburdened of his absurd life, released. — Jacques Yonnet

My funeral," the Blue Man said. "Look at the mourners. Some did not even know me well, yet they came. Why? Did you ever wonder? Why people gather when others die? Why people feel they should?
"It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.
"You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.
"It is why we are drawn to babies ... " He turned to the mourners. "And to funerals. — Mitch Albom

It would be fair in terms of justice that those who believe in 'Life After Death' live much less than those who do not believe in such a thing! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Watching Limelight with my mother really brought home to me the brevity of life. I realized in a little while that I would die and leave everything behind. Unlike vain people, I had the ability to think this right through. I had no difficulty in picturing full theatres and cinemas long after myself was gone. Not everybody can do that. Many are so intoxicated with sensual impressions that they're not able to grasp that there is a world out there. And therefore they're not able to comprehend the opposite either - they don't understand that one day the world will end. We, however, are only a few missing heartbeats away from being divorced from humanity forever. — Jostein Gaarder

After all, how often do we get a second chance? — Jay Asher

Feel lucky for what you have when you have it. Isn't that the point? Happily ever after doesn't mean happy forever. The ever after, what precisely was that? Your dreams, your life, your death, your everything. Was it the blank space that went on without us? The forever after we were gone? — Alice Hoffman

When the years have all passed, there will gape the uncomfortable and unpredictable dark void of death, and into this I shall at last fall headlong, down and down and down, and the prospect of that fall, that uprooting, that rending apart of body and spirit, that taking off into so blank an unknown, drowns me in mortal fear and mortal grief. After all, life, for all its agonies of despair and loss and guilt, is exciting and beautiful, amusing and artful and endearing, full of liking and of love, at times a poem and a high adventure, at times noble and at times very gay; and whatever (if anything) is to come after it, we shall not have this life again. — Rose Macaulay

Your life feels different on you, once you greet death and understand your heart's position. You wear your life like a garment from the mission bundle sale ever after- lightly because you realize you never paid nothing for it, cherishing because you know you won't ever come by such a bargain again. — Louise Erdrich

In heaven there are few while in hell there are many. But those who are in heaven are the Champions of time who have conquered over sin and slothfulness."
"The fool slights the things in life and seeketh heaven after death.
"Verily, Verily I say unto you, he shall not find it. But the spirit of him that establishes a heaven on earth shall dwell in heaven everlasting. — Robert Athlyi Rogers

We are only chance visitants to this jungle of blind mutations. The natural world existed when we did not, and it will continue to exist long after we are gone. The supernatural crept into life only when the door of consciousness was opened in our heads. The moment we stepped through that door, we walked out on nature. Say what we will about it and deny it till we die
we are blighted by our knowing what is too much to know and too secret to tell one another if we are to stride along our streets, work at our jobs, and sleep in our beds. It is the knowledge of a race of beings that is only passing through this shoddy cosmos. — Thomas Ligotti

The Biblical vision is not so much concerned with life after death but about life after life after death. — N. T. Wright

Death is like giving birth. Birth can be painful. Sometimes women die from giving birth. However, when the baby is born, all that pain (that was endured) vanishes in an instant. Love for that tiny baby makes one forget the pain, the fear. And as I've said before, love between mother and child is the highest experience, the closest to divine love.
You might wonder about the parallel I'm making between birth and death. But I say to you, the fear and pain accompanying an awful death is over quickly. Beyond that portal one is suddenly in the light, in oneness and bliss ... Just as a woman heals rapidly after childbirth and then is able to fall in love with her baby, those who pass over also are able to fall in love with a new life."-Kuan Yin (From "Oracle of Compassion: the Living Word of Kuan Yin — Hope Bradford

The power of an idea is never to be underestimated. Many a thought has survived long after its host has ceased to be. It is the power of an idea that no shield can defend against, nor sword divide, nor poison infect. As such, we must aspire to create ideas, rather than preserve life. In a sense, this is how we achieve true immortality and live on past our time. — A.J. Darkholme

After I die if I am buried I will rot. If I am burnt I will become ash but if my body is donated I will live to give life and happiness to many."
"Live life after death - pledge to donate your body. — Amit Abraham

Just as apples when unripe are torn from trees, but when ripe and mellow drop down, so it is violence that takes life from young men, ripeness from old. This ripeness is so delightful to me that, as I approach nearer to death, I seem, as it were, to be sighting land, and to be coming to port at last after a long voyage. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Interested in a small, close circle around her - in the neighbors, in the family, in who is cheating on his wife, whose wife has fallen in love with the chauffeur. Her interest is local and human. She is not worried about reincarnation; neither is she concerned about life after death. The feminine concerns are more pragmatic, more concerned with the present, with the here and now. A man is never here and now, — Osho

ROM8.5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. ROM8.6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. ROM8.7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of — Anonymous

The whole life of Christ was a continual Passion; others die martyrs but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha even in Bethlehem, where he was born; for to his tenderness then the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after, and the manger as uneasy at first as his cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas day and his Good Friday are but the evening and morning of one and the same day. And as even his birth is his death, so every action and passage that manifests Christ to us is his birth, for Epiphany is manifestation. — John Donne

Soon after you're dead - we're not sure how long - but not long, you'll be united with the most ecstatic love you've ever known. As one of the best things in your life was human love, this will be love, but much more satisfying, and it will last forever. — Basil Hume

I told her that the pills will let her slip off and that when a person dies there comes a long clean sleep."
"That's all," Alexandria whispers, echoing after her, "a long clean sleep. — Annie Fisher

Make no mistake,' He says, 'if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect - until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less. — C.S. Lewis

And from all these evils they will be delivered, and their life will be blessed as the life of Olympic victors and yet more blessed. How so? The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a part only of the blessedness which is secured to our citizens, who have won a more glorious victory and have a more complete maintenance at the public cost. For the victory which they have won is the salvation of the whole State; and the crown with which they and their children are crowned is the fulness of all that life needs; they receive rewards from the hands of their country while living, and after death have an honourable burial. Yes, — Plato

I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,
I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me. — T. S. Eliot

[When asked what he wants for his tombstone epitaph]
Since I'm an atheist, and have no belief whatsoever in life after death, I couldn't care less
it's not like it'll have any impact on me, since by definition I will be completely extinguished. I guess if someone twisted my arm and forced me to provide an epitaph, it would be 'Don't forget.' Sound advice ... — Richard Bartle

Few people are interested in a religion that has nothing to say to the world and offers them only life after death, when what people are really wondering is whether there is life before death. — Shane Claiborne

When life is so burdensome death has become a sought after refuge. — Herodotus

Time goes on, and your life is still there, and you have to live it. After a while you remember the good things more often than the bad. Then, gradually, the empty silent parts of you fill up with sounds of talking and laughter again, and the jagged edges of sadness are softened by memories. — Lois Lowry

After all Death is a Symbol that there was Life. — Mario Benedetti

Then there are also the quiet deaths. How about the day you realized you weren't going to be an astronaut or the queen of Sheba? Feel the silent distance between yourself and how you felt as a child, between yourself and those feelings of wonder and splendor and trust. Feel the mature fondness for who you once were, and your current need to protect innocence wherever you make might find it. The silence that surrounds the loss of innocence is a most serious death, and yet it is necessary for the onset of maturity.

What about the day we began working not for ourselves, but rather with the hope that our kids have a better life? Or the day we realize that, on the whole, adult life is deeply repetitive? As our lives roll into the ordinary, when our ideals sputter and dissipate, as we wash the dishes after yet another meal, we are integrating death, a little part of us is dying so that another part can live. — Matthew Sanford

Why are you afraid of death? Is it perhaps because you do not know how to live? If you knew how to live fully, would you be afraid of death? If you loved the trees, the sunset, the birds, the falling leaf; if you were aware of men and women in tears, of poor people, and really felt love in your heart, would you be afraid of death? Would you? Don't be persuaded by me. Let us think about it together. You do not live with joy, you are not happy, you are not vitally sensitive to things; and is that why you ask what is going to happen when you die? Life for you is sorrow, and so you are much more interested in death. You feel that perhaps there will be happiness after death. But that is a tremendous problem, and I do not know if you want to go into it. After all, fear is at the bottom of all this - fear of dying, fear of living, fear of suffering. If you cannot understand what it is that causes fear and be free of it, then it does not matter very much whether yo u are living or dead. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

If I knew I was going to die tomorrow,
And Spring came the day after tomorrow,
I would die peacefully, because it came the day after tomorrow.
If that's its time, when else should it come?
I like it that everything is real and everything is right;
And I like that it would be like this even if I didn't like it.
And so, if I die now, I die peacefully
Because everything is real and everything is right. — Alberto Caeiro

Faith in an afterlife was important to Egyptians: they deliberately made their tombs the most permanent part of their built environment, and we find them in their literature very much concerned with what they could know about life after death, judgement and individual survival. Certainly they preserved their religion for most of the lifespan of their language, and they no more actively preached it abroad than they attempted to spread their language when they enlarged the boundaries of their power. But aspects of their faith did spread without the language none the less: their mother-goddess Isis became one of the most widely revered deities in the Roman empire, and has been seen as a root of the Christian cult of Mary as Mother of God. — Nicholas Ostler

It has taken me four years to figure this out.
If we live long enough, we all will experience this.
Don't ever predetermine how you think that you should feel on an anniversary of a tragic event in your life, such as a death of a loved one, or on a holiday after such an event.
Each year starts out with 365 days, and I will be damned if I am giving up even one of them to misery. — JohnA Passaro

Sometimes the serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail. That's an image of life. Life sheds one generation after another, to be born again. The serpent represents immortal energy and consciousness engaged in the field of time, constantly throwing off death and being born again. There is something tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that way. And so the serpent carries in itself the sense of both the fascination and the terror of life. — Joseph Campbell

Like the roller coaster of life ... novels aren't fun without ups and downs and even an occasional loop. — Carmen DeSousa

If life begins at conception, but you can be born again later, only to live on eternally after death, what's the big deal about anything? — Dana Gould

I believe in one thing: the human spirit is immortal and indestructible. In the beyond there could be anything, it is of no importance whatsoever. What we call death is not death. It's a rebirth. A caterpillar becomes a cocoon. I think there is a life after death and it is that that is unnerving. It would be so much simpler to conceive of oneself as a telephone cord that is unplugged. Then you could live any way that you wanted. God would have no importance of any kind. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Since the dawn of existence, you mortals have feared dying, feared the unknown and the pain of it, and yet, pain is a part of life, not death. And I - I am the first moment after pain ceases," he [Death] pronounced. "It is life that fights and struggles and rages; life, that tears at you in its last agonizing throes to hold on, even if but for one futile instant longer ... Whereas I, I come softly when it is all done. Pain and death are an ordered sequence, not a parallel pair. So easy to confuse the correlations, not realizing that one does not bring the other. — Vera Nazarian

The sensory misers will inherit the earth, but first they will make it not worth living on. When you consider something like death, after which we may well go out like a candle flame, then it probably won't matter if we try too hard, are awkward sometimes, care for one another too deeply, are excessively curious about nature, are too open to experience, enjoy a nonstop expense of the senses in an effort to know life intimately and lovingly. — Diane Ackerman

Anyone who is outside this Church ... is walking a path not to Heaven but to Hell. He is not getting closer to the home of eternal. life; on the contrary, he is hurrying to the torment of eternal death. And this is the case not only if he remains a pagan without Baptism, but even if he continue as a heretic after having been baptized. — Fulgentius Of Cartagena

He who walking on the sea could calm the bitter waves, who gives life to the dying seeds of the earth; he who was able to loose the mortal chains of death, and after three days darkness could bring again to the upper world the brother for his sister Martha: he, I believe, will make Damasus rise again from the dust. — Pope Damasus I

I cannot regret it. They tell us in the temple that true joy is found only in freedom from the Wheel that is death and rebirth, that we must come to despise earthly joy and suffering, and long only for the peace of the presence of the eternal. Yet I love this life on Earth, Morgan, and I love you with a love that is stronger than death, and if sin is the price of binding us together, life after life across the ages, then I will sin joyfully and without regret, so that it brings me back to you, my beloved! — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Until your our last breath, lots of surprises waiting for you each day, and at those points you can't do anything, just wait, watch and react according to the situation like helpless kid.
After the last breath also, you don't know, even more surprises are there for you like heaven or hell.. Hahaha, it's the true meaning of life ... — Nutan Bajracharya

There is a profound difference between fighting to avoid death and fighting in order to live. Men who fight to avoid death preserve their dignity and one and all - men, women and children - defend it jealously, tenaciously, fiercely ... When men fight to avoid death they cling with a tenacity born of desperation to all that constitutes the living and eternal part of human life, the essence, the noblest and purest element of life: dignity, pride, freedom of conscience. They fight to save their souls. But after the liberation men had to fight in order to live ... It is a humiliating, horrible thing, a shameful necessity, a fight for life. Only for life. Only to save one's skin. — Curzio Malaparte

Once a person has taken their life, in the inner realms, the suicide will repeat automatically the feelings of despair and fear which preceded his self murder, and go through the act and the death struggle time after time with ghastly persistence ... They remain conscious - often entangled in the final scene of the earth life for a very long time, unaware that they have lost the physical body. — Annie Besant

Every life is punctuated by deaths and departures, and each one causes great suffering that it is better to endure rather than forgo the pleasure of having known the person who has passed away. Somehow our world rebuilds itself after every death, and in any case we know that none of us will last forever. So you might say that life and death lead us by the hand, firmly but tenderly. — Marguerite Yourcenar

Despite the solace of hypocritical religiosity and its seductive promise of an after-life of heavenly bliss, most of us will do anything to thwart the inevitable victory of biological death. — Jack Kevorkian