Death may be the greatest of all human blessings. To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?
Socrates
Family gathered around deceased baby
The living are soft and yielding;
the dead are rigid and stiff.
Living plants are flexible and tender;
the dead are brittle and dry.
Those who are stiff and rigid
are the disciple of death.
Those who are soft and yielding
are the disciples of life.
The rigid and stiff will be broken.
The soft and yielding will overcome.
Lao Tzu
Executed: Criminals or Rebels?
Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe, For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee. From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee doe goe, Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie. Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well, And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?
John Donne
Middle Aged Gentleman Surrounded with Flowers
the true history of the world is the history of things dying. what we learn from studying it is that all things die. there are many ways to pretend that this is not the case by making things seem more important than they actually are. it is the job of historians to enjoy doing this. all day long, dedicated historians find ways to cancel out the intrusion of death into all the circumstances that collectively constitute the great extended histories that they look to for clues with which to understand the future. because the future is a product of life and history is a recollection of death, they find nothing useful. but, it keeps them busy until they die.
philip jason
Another Deceased Child
Death -awareness is the universal spiritual practice. What we have sought in books, and magazines, in teachers and teachings, in ancient cultures and foreign lands, has been breathing down our neck the entire time. It’s not just another mood-making spiritual technique that you dabble with for a few weeks and blame yourself when it doesn’t deliver. Death always delivers. Death is your only true friend, the only friend that will never abandon you and that no one can take away. It slices through every lie, ridicules every belief, mocks every vanity and reduces ego to absurdity. He’s sitting with you right now. If you want to know something, ask him. Death doesn’t lie.
Jed McKenna
Black Gentleman in his Coffin
