Mortality Quotes

“The earliest sensation at the onset of illness, often preceding the recognition of identifiable symptoms, is apprehension. Something has gone wrong, and a glimpse of mortality shifts somewhere deep in the mind. It is the most ancient of our fears.”

“Other than the promise of life after death, nothing consoles the poor better than the fact that rich people are also subject to death.”

“For some reason, the sight of snow descending on fire always makes me think of the ancient world – legionaries in sheepskin warming themselves at a brazier: mountain altars where offerings glow between wintry pillars; centaurs with torches cantering beside a frozen sea – scattered, unco-ordinated shapes from a fabulous past, infinitely removed from life; and yet bringing with them memories of things real and imagined. These classical projections, and something in the physical attitudes of the men themselves as they turned from the fire, suddenly suggested Poussin’s scene in which the Seasons, hand in hand and facing outward, tread in rhythm to the notes of the lyre that the winged and naked greybeard plays. The image of Time brought thoughts of mortality: of human beings, facing outwards like the Seasons, moving hand in hand in intricate measure: stepping slowly, methodically, sometimes a trifle awkwardly, in evolutions that take recognisable shape: or breaking into seeminly meaningless gyrations, while partners disappear only to reappear again, once more giving pattern to the spectacle: unable to control the melody, unable, perhaps, to control the steps of the dance.”

“The power of the Will in a man, is favoured by the Heavens. The man who sets his Heart and Word onto something, and says "I will" no matter what obstacle is placed in his way— joins the ranks of the demi-gods. All else remain in mortality and are soon forgotten.”

“We are spirit children of a loving Heavenly Father who placed us in mortality to see if we would choose - freely choose - to keep His commandments and come unto His Beloved Son. They do not compel us. They cannot, for that would interfere with the plan of happiness. And so there is in us a God-given desire to be responsible for our own choices.”

“I actually came out the year that AIDS hit the front pages. So there was this mixed feeling about it - excitement that life's finally begun, but it was completely tied up with mortality and danger and politics.”

“Contemporary consciousness is no longer equipped to deal with our mortality. Never in any other time, or any other civilization, have people thought so much or so contantly about aging. Each individual has a simple view of the future: a time will come when the sum of pleasures that life has left to offer is outweighed by the sum of pain (one can actually feel the meter ticking, and it ticks always in the same direction). This weighing up of pleasure and pain, which everyone is forced to make sooner or later, leads logically, at a certain age, to suicide.”

“There's a psychological mechanism, I've come to believe, that prevents most of us from imagining the moment of our own death. For if it were possible to imagine fully that instant of passing from consciousness to nonexistence, with all the attendant fear and humiliation of absolute helplessness, it would be very hard to live. It would be unbearably obvious that death is inscribed in everything that constitutes life, that any moment of your existence may be only a breath away from being the last. We would be continuously devastated by the magnitude of that inescapable fact. Still, as we mature into our mortality, we begin to gingerly dip our horror-tingling toes into the void, hoping that our mind will somehow ease itself into dying, that God or some other soothing opiate will remain available as we venture into the darkness of non-being.”

“It’s quite possible that mortality is simply the result of poor education.”

“Everybody going to be dead one day, just give them time.”

“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all m”

“Precious to the Lord are the death of His saints."DEATH IS NOT FINAL.God has set eternity in the hearts of men. Why would you want there to be nothing at the end of life?DEATH IS A MYSTERY.Death is not a secret but a mystery. Solomon asked so long ago if animals will be in heaven. And how do people get there.NO ONE KNOWS WHEN THEY WILL DIE. We should then live everyday to God's glory. So make haste to be right with God.DEATH IS THE ULTIMATE LEVELER. Mourning makes people think about mortality. It helps reveal what is important in life more than a party ever could. The king and the pawn go back in the same box. Rich or poor - are we ready to meet God? Do we have faith in Him and His son whose very name is love? Without Him, without love what else matters? We need to love others and love God. The importance of this can become clear in mourning. Are you ready?WE TAKE NOTHING WITH US.Except that done in love for the glory of Jesus. Though these things won't save us, it is His merit alone that can do that, these things give an abundant entry into eternity. Solomon in the end hated what he couldn't take with him. He was the richest man on earth leading a vast empire, surrounded by wives and servants. Jesus asks what good would it do to gain the whole world and lose ones own soul? Therefore store up treasures in heaven.AFTER DEATH COMES JUDGEMENT.It is uncomfortable to think on, but needed. Will we be with Christ on that day or lost in sin? Even if you are a follower of Jesus consider that if we do the things Jesus told us in secret and it comes out it will be nice, but the bad stuff we shouldn't do that we did anyway coming out would be unpleasant. Therefore walk in the light as He is in the light. Shine like the stars in the heavens. Love Him who first loved us."For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16 KJV(Refs: Eccl 2:18, Eccl 12:13, Ps 115, Eccl. 3:11, Eccl 3:21, Eccl 8:7,8, Eccl 7:2).”

“God has put within our lives meanings and possibilities that quite outrun the limits of mortality.”

“We can act to deal with the consequences of the earthquake and tsunami, but the disaster was only faintly political in the economics and indifference...the relief will be very political, in who gives how much (Bush offering 15 million, then 35 million under pressure, the cost of his inauguration and then 350 million under strong international pressure)...but the event itself transcends politics, the realm of things we cause and can work to prevent. We cannot wish that human beings were not subject to the forces of nature, including the mortality... we cannot wish for the seas to dry up, that the waves grow still, that the tectonic plates ceast to exist, that nature ceases to be beyond our abilities to predict and control... But the terms of that nature include such catastrophe and suffering, which leaves us with sorrow as not a problem to be solved but a fact. And it leaves us with compassion as the work we will never finish”

“When I think about the past and how blind I was in that life, I compare it to being a god and losing everything when being cast out. I had the unlimited power to destroy myself and everything around me. It’s like having been in a cave for years and I’m finally out of the cave. The sun burns my eyes and skin. I don’t recognize my surroundings. No one looks authentic, and now I’m on the hunt for people that have the pieces to my puzzle that will help me on my quest. I have no cave to hide in, and I’m just left with the sediment of a previous life and my own mortality.”

“As a writer, It’s an elation to see my own words in print, to float them out there for all the world to read and to learn that some of the world actually does read them. Of their own free will! It warms the heart. However, I have learnt that in spite of frequent and sound advice, the world has not become a noticeably more peaceful kingdom. Folly abounds, incompetence, wrath, crime, nonsense prevails, thieves multiply, power corrupts. And my bones creak in the morning. Still, spectacular things go on in the sky; forms and colors and movements, cloud shapes and sunscapes so awesome I ought to end everyday standing on a rooftop and clapping and calling for more. Slowly I learn bits of what there is to see, and then forget and learn again. And learn too that mortality is the stuff of life; learn how soon the young get old, how short a while is for ever. It’s sad to stand on the hill and, one by one, see the lights go out around you; sad to know the paper has begun turning yellow before the pencil gets to the bottom of the page, to realize there won’t be time enough to get it all done – the chores, the cooking, the sitting on the porch to watch the birds dart at dusk, the major work. But there’s something reassuring too in understanding that death is nature’s, life’s, God’s way of letting us know that we are never meant to save the world single-handedly, to keep the sun aloft and the old globe spinning. What we’re meant to do, I hope, is fill some small and temporary slot, to give off a little light for a little while and then lie down. I’m comfortable with that, with the notion of being a small voice yapping away in a small planet. One of many voices, neither the wisest, nor the best, but mine, and fairly close to as good as I can make it.”

“I have been thinking about existence lately. In fact, I have been so full of admiration for existence that I have hardly been able to enjoy it properly . . . I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can’t believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try.”

“Every soldier in the course of time exists only in the breath of written word.”

“I don't see how you mortals do it, these feelings you must endure. they will ruin you in the end.”

“It's the darkness of life. The light is here one day and gone the next. Only the fortunate get to take the light for granted. Only the sun is here today and tomorrow. Life and everything else is perishable. Sadness is nothing but a realizationof that impermanence. The expression of our fragility and mortality.-- Here Tomorrow”