Those Who Fear Death Quotes & Sayings

I had come to believe that the fear of death is always greatest in those who feel that they have not lived their life fully. A good working formula is: the more unlived life, or unrealized potential, the greater one's death anxiety. My — Irvin D. Yalom

We came to fear something more complicated than death, an annihilation less final but more complete, and we got out. Becausewe all knew that if you stayed too long you became one of those poor bastards who had to have a war on all the time, and where was that? — Michael Herr

However hard he tried, he could never manage to make himself visible to human eyes and not because he can't, since for him nothing is impossible, it's simply that he wouldn't know what face to wear when introducing himself to the beings he supposedly created and who probably wouldn't recognize him anyway. There are those who say we're very fortunate that god chooses not to appear before us, because compared with the shock we would get were such a thing to happen, our fear of death would be mere child's play. Besides, all the many things that have been said about god and about death are nothing but stories, and this is just another one. — Jose Saramago

For those who fear to die, death walks behind them like an ominous shadow. But for those who embrace it, death casts a gentle eye upon that person. — Charles Lee

Come to believe that the fear of death is always greatest in those who feel that they have not lived their life fully. A good working formula is: the more unlived life, or unrealized potential, the greater one's death anxiety. — Irvin D. Yalom

I don't fear death; I fear remaining silent in the face of injustice. I am young and I want to live. But I say to those who would eliminate my voice: I am ready, wherever and whenever you might strike. You can cut down the flower, but nothing can stop the coming of the spring. — Malalai Joya

Tonight, I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me." — George W. Bush

We are Darkness. We are Shadow.
We are the Ruler of the Night.
We, alone, stand between mankind and those who would see mankind destroyed. We are the Guardian
The Soulless Keepers. Our souls were cast out so that we would not forewarn the Daimons we pursue. By the time they see us coming, it's too late.
The Daimons and Apollites know us. They fear us. We are death to all those who prey upon the humans. Neither Human, nor Apollite, we exist beyond the realm of the Living, beyond the realm of the Dead
We are the Dark-Hunters.
And we are Eternal — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The fool says 'I never intended to kill. I meant only to wound.' But I tell you that if you prick a finger with a poisoned thorn you may not claim innocence when the heart dies. Do not plant a weed and pretend surprise when it grows to strangle your garden. For, I tell you that hate is to kill, for from hatred grows death as surely as life grows from love. Therefore do not nurture hatred, but love, even for those who hate you in return. Hatred wins many battles, and yet love will triumph. — Michael Grant

Specialness as a primary mode of death transcendence takes a number of other maladaptive forms. The drive for power is not uncommonly motivated by this dynamic. One's own fear and sense of limitation is avoided by enlarging oneself and one's sphere of control. There is some evidence, for example, that those who enter the death-related professions (soldiers, doctors, priests, and morticians) may in part be motivated by a need to obtain control over death anxiety. — Irvin D. Yalom

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. And death was a kind of gesture, forever withholding water from the traveler vainly seeking to slake his thirst. But for the others, it was the fatal and tender gesture that erases and denies, smiling at gratitude as at rebellion. — Albert Camus

The saddest thing about these imagined deathbed conversions is that, even if they were real, they could hardly be seen as victories for Christ. They are stories in which the final pain of a fatal disease, or the fear of imminent death and eternal punishment, is identified as the factor necessary for otherwise rational people to believe in the supernatural.

If mental torture is required to effect a conversion, what does that say about the reliability of the fundamental premises of Christianity to begin with? Evangelicals would be better advised to concentrate on converting the living. Converting the deceased suggests only that they can't convince those who can argue back. They should let the dead rest in peace. — Lawrence M. Krauss

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

{Letter to his brother, 1861}

... I remain an utter disbeliever in almost all that you consider the most sacred truths... But whether there be a God and whatever be His nature; whether we have an immortal soul or not, or whatever may be our state after death, I can have no fear of having to suffer for the study of nature and the search for truth, or believe that those will be better off in a future state who have lived in the belief of doctrines inculcated from childhood, and which are to them rather a matter of blind faith than intelligent conviction. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Jesus has borne the death penalty on our behalf. Behold the wonder! There He hangs upon the cross! This is the greatest sight you will ever see. Son of God and Son of Man, there He hangs, bearing pains unutterable, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. Oh, the glory of that sight! The innocent punished! The Holy One condemned! The Ever-blessed made a curse! The infinitely glorious put to a shameful death! The more I look at the sufferings of the Son of God, the more sure I am that they must meet my case. Why did He suffer, if not to turn aside the penalty from us? If, then, He turned it aside by His death, it is turned aside, and those who believe in Him need not fear it. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The real damage is done by those millions who want to 'survive.' The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don't like to make waves - or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. If you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn. — Sophie Scholl

We enjoy lovely music, beautiful paintings, a thousand intellectual delicacies, but we have no idea of their cost, to those who invented them, in sleepless nights, tears, spasmodic laughter, rashes, asthmas, epilepsies, and the fear of death, which is worse than all the rest. — Marcel Proust

Those who learned to know death, rather than to fear and fight it, become our teachers about life. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Death walks at night in the aisles of a sick ward, searching for those whose defenses are lowered, who may stray unwittingly into its path through loneliness and fear. — Diana Gabaldon

Impending war was evidenced by the faraway expression in the older villagers' eyes, the shadows on their faces, not of fear but of sorrow. Because they knew; they had lived through the last war and they remembered the generation of young men who had marched off so willingly and never come back. Those too, like Daddy, who had made it home, but left in France a part of themselves that they could never recover. Who surrendered to moments, periodically, in which their eyes filmed and their lips whitened, and their minds gave over to sights and sounds they wouldn't share but couldn't shake. — Kate Morton

Those who hate to go to bed fear death; those who hate to get up fear life. — W. H. Auden

Only those who live in the wilderness can recognize the central truth of existence, which is that death lives right beside us at all times, as close and as relevant as life itself, and that this reality is nothing to fear but is a sacred truth to be praised. — Elizabeth Gilbert

How easy it is to recommend joy to those who cannot be joyful! How can one haunted by madness be joyful? Do all those who are so eager to promote joy realize what it means to feel and fear madness closing in, to live all your life with the tormenting presentiment of madness, to which is added the even more persistent and certain consciousness of death? Joy may very well be a state of bliss, but it can only be reached naturally. [ ... ] Since we cannot be joyful, there only remains the road of agony, of mad exaltation. Let us live the agony fully; let us live our inner tragedy absolutely and frenetically to the very end! All we have left is paroxysm, and when it subsides, there will be just one wisp of smoke ... our inner fire will ravish all. — Emil Cioran

The emptiness engendered by fear must be replaced by forgiveness. That is what the Bible means by "There is no death," and why I could demonstrate that death does not exist. I came to fulfill the law by reinterpreting it. The law itself, if properly understood, offers only protection. It is those who have not yet changed their minds who brought the "hell-fire" concept into it. I assure you that I will witness for anyone who lets me, and to whatever extent he permits it. Your witnessing demonstrates your belief, and thus strengthens it. Those who witness for me are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned the belief in deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned belongs to them. — Foundation For Inner Peace

Being killed for Allan's cause is a great honor achieved by only those who are the elite of the nation. We love this kind of death for Allah's cause as much as you like to live. We have nothing to fear for. It is something we wish for. — Osama Bin Laden

Death is most terrifying to those who have yet to live. — Dan Pearce

I hereby pledge to serve the Dagger Society, to strike fear into the hearts of those who rule Kenettra, to take by death what belong to us, and to make the power of our Elites known to every man, woman, and child. Should I break my vow, let the dagger take from me what I took from the dagger. — Marie Lu

Why does death engender fear? Because death meant change, a change greater then we have ever known, and because death was indeed a mirror that made us see ourselves as never before. A mirror that we should cover, as people in olden days covered mirrors when someone died, for fear of an evil. For with all our care and pain for those who had gone, it was ourselves too we felt the agony for. Perhaps ourselves above all. — David Clement-Davies

From both my personal and my professional experience, I had come to believe that the fear of death is always greatest in those who feel that they have not lived their life fully. — Irvin D. Yalom

Those who have known death from inside lose all fear of death. — Rajneesh

If you live long enough, you learn time is an illusion created by men who fear death. The clocks and watches worshipped by those who deny the inevitable. There is power in acknowledging we are not the ones in control. — Amber Kizer

Though sometimes when he wakes in the night all he can think about is death. His own death, of course, but also the death of those around him,the fact that one day in the not-too-distant future every person he knows, every single one, will be dead and gone, along with all the people he doesn't know,to be replaced by a crop of strangers who will take over the structures left behind. — A.S.A Harrison

I hear a lot of people say that the fear of death and the fear of public speaking are two of the main fears in my generation, but I disagree. I think it's the fear of silence. We refuse to turn off our computers, turn off our phones, log off Facebook, and just sit in silence, because in those moments we might actually have to face up to who we really are. We fear silence like it's an invisible monster, gnawing at us, ripping us open, and showing us our dissatisfaction. Silence is terrifying. — Jefferson Bethke

All that we fear from all the kinds of adversity, severally, is collected together in the life of a soldier on active service. Like sickness, it threatens pain and death. Like poverty, it threatens ill lodging, cold, heat, thirst, and hunger. Like slavery, it threatens toil, humiliation, injustice, and arbitrary rule. Like exile, it separates you from all you love. Like the gallies, it imprisons you at close quarters with uncongenial companions. It threatens every temporal evil - every evil except dishonour and final perdition, and those who bear it like it no better than you would like it. — C.S. Lewis

We are fast moving into something, we are fast flung into something like asteroids cast into space by the death of a planet, we the people of earth are cast into space like burning asteroids and if we wish not to disintegrate into nothingness we must begin to now hold onto only the things that matter while letting go of all that doesn't. For when all of our dust and ice deteriorates into the cosmos we will be left only with ourselves and nothing else. So if you want to be there in the end, today is the day to start holding onto your children, holding onto your loved ones; onto those who share your soul. Harbor and anchor into your heart justice, truth, courage, bravery, belief, a firm vision, a steadfast and sound mind. Be the person of meaningful and valuable thoughts. Don't look to the left, don't look to the right; we simply don't have the time. Never be afraid of fear. — C. JoyBell C.

About the New Life Meher Baba wrote:
This New Life is endless, and even after my physical death it will be kept alive by those who live the life of complete renunciation of falsehood, lies, hatred, anger, greed and lust; and who, to accomplish all this, do no lustful actions, do no harm to anyone, do no backbiting, do not seek material possessions or power, who accept no homage, neither covet honor nor shun disgrace, and fear no one and nothing; by those who rely wholly and solely on God, and who love God purely for the sake of loving; who believe in the lovers of God and in the reality of Manifestation, and yet do not expect any spiritual or material reward; who do not let go the hand of Truth, and who, without being upset by calamities, bravely and wholeheartedly face all hardships with one hundred percent cheerfulness, and give no importance to caste, creed and religious ceremonies. This New Life will live by itself eternally, even if there is no one to live it. — Meher Baba

When a man fighteth against his sin only with arguments from the issue or the punishment due unto it, this is a sign that sin hath taken great possession of the will, and that in the heart there is a superfluity of naughtiness. Such a man as opposes nothing to the seduction of sin and lust in his heart but fear of shame among men or hell from God, is sufficiently resolved to do the sin if there were no punishment attending it; which, what it differs from living in the practice of sin, I know not. Those who are Christ's, and are acted in their obedience upon gospel principles, have the death of Christ, the love of God, the detestable nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, a deep-grounded abhorrency of sin as sin, to oppose to any seduction of sin, to all the workings, strivings, fightings of lust in their hearts. So did Joseph. "How shall I do this great evil," saith he, "and sin against the Lord ?" my good and gracious God. — John Owen

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped. We are all absolutely free. If everybody could go into dhyana at will, nobody could be controlled - by fear of prison, by fear of whips or electroshock, by fear of death, even. All existing society is based on keeping those fears alive, to control the masses. Ten people who know would be more dangerous than a million armed anarchists. — Robert Anton Wilson

Why are we so afraid when we think about death? Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it. Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God's Word. Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves. Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in Him. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Only those few who are able to surpass their fear of death completely can fully experience the highest forms of life; not the mundane life of the mortal, but the godly life of the resurrected. — Zeena Schreck

HELPED are those who lose their fear of death; theirs is the power to envision the future in a blade of grass. — Alice Walker

We have reached a stage in evolution which is not the final stage. We must pass through it quickly, for if we do not, most of us will perish by the wa y, and the others
will be lost in a forest of doubt and fear. Envy therefore, evil as it is, and terrible as are its effects, is not wholly of the devil. It is in part the expression of a heroic pain, the pain of those who walk through the night blindly, p erhaps to a better resting-place, perhaps only to death and destruction. To find the right road out of this despair civ ilised man must enlarge his heart as he has enlarged his mind. He must learn to tran scend self, and in so doing to acquire the freedom of the Universe. — Bertrand Russell

Those of us with the courage to open ourselves to that much love and not fear it - who can give joy to a dying child until the very end without withdrawing to save ourselves - those are our saints. It is not the martyrs. It is never the martyrs. — Derek Miller

If the people never fear death,
what is the purpose of threatening to kill them?
If the people ever fear death,
and I were to capture and kill those who are devious,
who would dare to be so?
If the people must be ever fearful of death,
then there will always be an executioner.
Now,
To kill in place of the executioner
Is like
Hewing wood in place of the master carpenter;
Few indeed will escape cutting their own hands! — Lao-Tzu

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

There was no fear of sandpaper earth, no sense of danger from a bare-skinned spill, for the boy was a child - a six-foot, one-inch growing child who knew nothing of accident, injury, dismemberment, death - who would study those lessons tomorrow, thank you, but not today. Today, it would be sufficient to be wild and free. — Tony Taylor

Forward now. Forward to battle slaughter. Beware the man who loves battle. Ravn had told me that only one man in three or perhaps one man in four is a real warrior and the rest are reluctant fighters, but I was to learn that only one man in twenty is a lover of battle. Such men were the most dangerous, the most skillful, the ones who reaped the souls, and the ones to fear. I was such a one, and that day, beside the river where the blood flowed into the rising tide, and beside the burning boats, I let Serpent-Breath sing her song of death. I remember little except a rage, an exultation, a massacre. This was the moment the skalds celebrate, the heart of the battle that leads to victory, and the courage had gone from those Danes in a heartbeat. — Bernard Cornwell

Why do you hunger for length of days? The point of life is to follow reason and the divine spirit and to accept whatever nature sends you. To live in this way is not to fear death, but to hold it in contempt. Death is only a thing of terror for those unable to live in the present. Pass on your way, then, with a smiling face, under the smile of him who bids you go — Marcus Aurelius

I don't think victory over death ... is anything so superficial as a person fulfilling their normal span of life. It can be twofold; a victory over death by the man who faces it for himself without fear, and a victory by those who, loving him, know that death is but a little thing compared with the fact that he lived and was the kind of person he was. — Vera Brittain

An army cannot be built without reprisals. Masses of men cannot be led to death unless the army command has the death-penalty in its arsenal. So long as those malicious tailless apes that are so proud of their technical achievements - the animals that we call men - will build armies and wage wars, the command will always be obliged to place the soldiers between the possible death in the front and the inevitable one in the rear. And yet armies are not built on fear. The Tsar's army fell to pieces not because of any lack of reprisals. In his attempt to save it by restoring the death-penalty, Kerensky only finished it. Upon the ashes of the great war, the Bolsheviks created a new army. These facts demand no explanation for any one who has even the slightest knowledge of the language of history. The strongest cement in the new army was the ideas of the October revolution, and the train supplied the front with this cement. — Leon Trotsky

I don't fear death; I welcome it with open arms and a smirk. But until that wondrous day, I will continue to savor and celebrate all those who have graduated before me. — Nikki Sixx

Life will be wonderful when men no longer fear dying. When the last superstitions are thrown out and we meet death with the same equanimity as life. No longer will children's minds be twisted by evil gods whose fantastic origin is in those barbaric tribes who feared death and lightning, who feared life. That's it: life is the villain to to those who preach reward in death, through grace and eternal bliss, or through dark revenge. — Gore Vidal

But why?" Gabriel asks. "Why do they wish to cause such pain to another human?"
"Why does the Spanish Inquisition do what it does?" I ask. "Why does our own Church burn witches at the stake? Why did our own crusaders punish the Moors so exquisitely?"
Gabriel thinks about this. He knows I don't beg answers for these questions.
"Of course it's easy to say that we mete out punishment to those who are an abomination in God's eyes," I say. "But it's more than that, isn't it? I think we don't just allow torturers but condone them as a way to excise the fear we all have of death. To torture someone is to take control of death, to be the master of it, even for a short time. — Joseph Boyden

Those who advocate euthanasia have capitalized on people's confusion, ambivalence and even fear about the use of modern life-prolonging technologies. Being able to choose the time and manner of one's death, without regard to what is chosen is presented as the ultimate freedom. — Pope John Paul II

But the eyes of the Lord are watching over those who fear him, who rely upon his steady love. "He will keep them from death. . . ." Psalm 33:18 — Francine Rivers

This striking result suggests that our quest for safety, and our resulting fear of difference, has fostered a justice system that discriminates against black defendants. Put simply, under some circumstances a black man who looks "more black" is 33 percent more likely to receive the death penalty than is a black man who commits the same crime but looks less stereotypically black. Inequalities like these illuminate the sad truth that our hidden, unconscious attitudes toward minorities evolve far more slowly than our overt spoken attitudes. Many of those ugly views are so well hidden that we're not even aware that we hold them. In — Adam Alter

Each drop of my blood will be an immortal flame in your conscience and will uphold the sacred will to resist. To hatred I reply with pardon, and to those who think they have defeated me, I reply with my victory. I was a slave to the Brazilian people, and today I am freeing myself for eternal life. But this people, whose slave I was, will no longer be slave to anyone. My sacrifice will remain forever in their souls and my blood will be the price for their ransom. I fought against the exploitation of Brazil. I fought against the exploitation of her people. I have fought with my whole heart. Hatred, infamy and slander have not conquered my spirit.I have given you my life. Now I offer you my death. I fear nothing. Serenely I take my first step towards eternity and leave life to enter history. — Getulio Vargas

The chief problem about death, incidentally, is the fear that there may be no afterlife - a depressing thought, particularly for those who bothered to shave. Also, there is the fear that there is an afterlife but no one will know where it's being held. On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as easily laying down. — Woody Allen

Through every generation of the human race there has been a constant war, a war with fear. Those who have the courage to conquer it are made free and those who are conquered by it are made to suffer until they have the courage to defeat it, or death takes them. — Alexander The Great

Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die; and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. Both life and death are parts of the same Great Adventure. — Theodore Roosevelt

Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, 19 that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine. — Anonymous

FEARLESS' is not the absense of fear.
It's not being completely unafraid.
FEARLESS is having fears.
FEARLESS is having doubts. Lots of them.
FEARLESS is living in spite of those things that scare you to death.
FEARLESS is falling madly in love again, even though you've been hurt before.
FEARLESS is getting back up and fighting for what you want all over again ... even though every time you've tried before, you've lost.
It's FEARLESS to have faith that someday things will change.
FEARLESS is having the courage to say goodbye to someone who only hurts you, even if you can't breathe without them.
It's FEARLESS to say "you're NOT sorry," and walk away.
I think loving someone despite what people think is FEARLESS. — Taylor Swift

May be the power lies in the hands of the one who holds the gun ... so he just presses the trigger whenever the slightest streak of anger passes his mind ... and after a few haunting days he roams freely in the country without fear ..
and what about the one who faces the wrath and bears the bullets?
He leaves a movement behind ... but haven't such movements always been ephemeral?
Is death the price you need to pay to open the eyes of those who care but just for a couple of days? — Sanhita Baruah

I lent only half an ear to those well-intentioned folk who say that happiness is enervating, liberty too relaxing, and that kindness is a corruption for those upon whom it is practiced. That may be; but in the world as it is, such reasoning amounts to a refusal to nourish a starving man decently, for fear that in a few years he may suffer from overfeeding. When useless servitude has been alleviated as far as possible, and unnecessary misfortune avoided, there will remain as a test of man's fortitude that long series of veritable ills, death, old age, and incurable sickness, love unrequited and friendship rejected or betrayed, the mediocrity of a life less vast than our projects and duller than our dreams; in short, all the woes caused by the divine nature of things. — Marguerite Yourcenar

Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it. Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God's Word. Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves. Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in him. Death is mild, death is sweet and gentle; it beckons to us with heavenly power, if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting kingdom of peace.
How do we know that dying is so dreadful? Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world? Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death. — Eric Metaxas

Life is beautiful because it is insecure. Life is beautiful because there is death. Life is beautiful because it can be missed. If you cannot miss it, everything is forced upon you, then even life becomes an imprisonment. You will not be able to enjoy it. Even if you are ordered to be blissful, commanded to be free, then bliss and freedom both are gone. "Will existence protect me when I allow myself to let go?" Try! Only one thing I can say to you. ... I am not talking to your fear, remember. Only one thing I can say to you - all those who have tried have found that it protects. But I am not talking to your fear. I am simply encouraging your adventure, that's all. I am persuading, seducing you toward adventure. I am not talking to your fear. All those who have tried have found that infinite is the protection. — Osho

14Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise h partook of the same things, that i through death he might j destroy k the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15and deliver all those who l through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he m helps the offspring of Abraham. 17Therefore he had n to be made like his brothers in every respect, o so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest p in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18For because he himself has suffered q when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. — Anonymous

Tony's concern disintegrated. He could not understand C.J.'s determination to court death on a daily basis. Or maybe he did understand, and this was what caused his frustration. So many found the same solution his brother had. Selling death to their own people. The money was a difficult lure to resist. Additionally, the fear elicited from their hard core posturing proved nearly as addictive. They demanded to be heard, even though it didn't seem they had much to say. Perhaps the futility and smallness that characterized their lives was too overwhelming to articulate in any manner other than a primitive, incoherent scream. Maybe it was inevitable that those who felt they had no stake in society would opt to destroy it. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

I did not know why, maybe because he had suffered and gained experience in his distress; because his rebellion had freed him from established ways of thinking that bind us, and he had no prejudices; because he had purged himself of fear and taken a path that led nowhere; because he was already condemned and was only delaying his death heroically. Such people know a lot, more than those of us who stagger from learned rules to fear of sin, from habits to worries of possible guilt. And although I would never have taken the path of a renegade, not even in my thoughts, I would gladly have listened to his truth. But what was his truth? — Mesa Selimovic

Those who fear death most are those who enjoy life least. — Edward Abbey

In these dangerous times, where it seems that the world is ripping apart at the seams, we all can learn how to survive from those who stare death squarely in the face every day and [we] should reach out to each other and bond as a community, rather than hide from the terrors of life at the end of the millennium. — Jonathan Larson