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

You have no way of knowing anything about your death, now or at the end of your so-called life. Unless knowledge, the continuity of knowledge, comes to an end, death cannot take place. You want to know something about death: you want to make that a part of your knowledge. But death is not something mysterious; the ending of that knowledge is death.

U G Krishnamurti

Mourning Family with Deceased Child

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

William Shakespeare

A Tiny Child

From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other – above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.

Albert Einstein

Unknown old lady

He dropped, – more sullenly than wearily, Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat, And none of us could kick him to his feet; -Just blinked at my revolver, blearily; -Didn’t appear to know a war was on, Or see the blasted trench at which he stared. ‘I’ll do ‘em in,’ he whined, ‘if this hand’s spared, I’ll murder them, I will.’ A low voice said, ‘It’s Blighty, p’raps, he sees; his pluck’s all gone, Dreaming of all the valiant, that aren’t dead: Bold uncles, smiling ministerially; Maybe his brave young wife, getting her fun In some new home, improved materially.

Wilfred Owen

Didn't appear to know a war was on

There’s no way around grief and loss: you can dodge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully come out the other side.  The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left.

Johnny Cash

Unrealized potential