Topics · Healing & Mental Health
Wisdom about death & mortality.
What people have learned about death & mortality the hard way, and what the classics said about it first.
Discussions
Community rules
- Speak from experience. Say what you lived and what you learned. Advice without a story is easy to ignore.
- Be kind to the person. Disagree with an idea as much as you like. Never with someone’s worth.
- Not a substitute for care. Nothing here is medical, legal or financial advice. In crisis, reach out to local services.
- No selling. No promotion, referral links or pitching your course.
From the library
The poetry of earth is never dead.
Because I could not stop for Death — He kindly stopped for me.
Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Men come forth and live; they enter (again) and die.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.
Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
Of every ten three are ministers of life (to themselves); and three are ministers of death.
Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
Thus it is that firmness and strength are the concomitants of death; softness and weakness, the concomitants of life.
The lips of the righteous feed many: but fools die for want of wisdom.
He who does not fail in the requirements of his position, continues long; he who dies and yet does not perish, has longevity.
The wrath of a king is as messengers of death: but a wise man will pacify it.
What other men (thus) teach, I also teach. The violent and strong do not die their natural death. I will make this the basis of my teaching.
The law of the wise is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.
There are also three in every ten whose aim is to live, but whose movements tend to the land (or place) of death. And for what reason? Because of their excessive endeavours to perpetuate life.
The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.
Man at his birth is supple and weak; at his death, firm and strong. (So it is with) all things. Trees and plants, in their early growth, are soft and brittle; at their death, dry and withered.
Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death.
There should be a neighbouring state within sight, and the voices of the fowls and dogs should be heard all the way from it to us, but I would make the people to old age, even to death, not have any intercourse with it.
A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish.
The people do not fear death; to what purpose is it to (try to) frighten them with death? If the people were always in awe of death, and I could always seize those who do wrong, and put them to death, who would dare to do wrong?
Treasures of wickedness profit nothing: but righteousness delivereth from death.
The valley spirit dies not, aye the same; The female mystery thus do we name. Its gate, from which at first they issued forth, Is called the root from which grew heaven and earth. Long and unbroken does its power remain, Used gently, and without the touch of pain.
In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.
The people make light of dying because of the greatness of their labours in seeking for the means of living. It is this which makes them think light of dying. Thus it is that to leave the subject of living altogether out of view is better than to set a high value on it.
The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death.
In a little state with a small population, I would so order it, that, though there were individuals with the abilities of ten or a hundred men, there should be no employment of them; I would make the people, while looking on death as a grievous thing, yet not remove elsewhere (to avoid it).
He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
There is always One who presides over the infliction of death. He who would inflict death in the room of him who so presides over it may be described as hewing wood instead of a great carpenter. Seldom is it that he who undertakes the hewing, instead of the great carpenter, does not cut his own hands!
But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.
Shrinking looked they like those who wade through a stream in winter; irresolute like those who are afraid of all around them; grave like a guest (in awe of his host); evanescent like ice that is melting away; unpretentious like wood that has not been fashioned into anything; vacant like a valley, and dull like muddy water.
As righteousness tendeth to life: so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death.
With that gentleness I can be bold; with that economy I can be liberal; shrinking from taking precedence of others, I can become a vessel of the highest honour. Now-a-days they give up gentleness and are all for being bold; economy, and are all for being liberal; the hindmost place, and seek only to be foremost;—(of all which the end is) death.
When the wicked rise, men hide themselves: but when they perish, the righteous increase.
He whose boldness appears in his daring (to do wrong, in defiance of the laws) is put to death; he whose boldness appears in his not daring (to do so) lives on. Of these two cases the one appears to be advantageous, and the other to be injurious. But When Heaven's anger smites a man, Who the cause shall truly scan? On this account the sage feels a difficulty (as to what to do in the former case).
But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.
The hope of the righteous shall be gladness: but the expectation of the wicked shall perish.
When a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish: and the hope of unjust men perisheth.
The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead.