Epicurus
Epicurus Quotes about Death
Where I am death is not, where death is I am not.
Why are you afraid of death? Where you are, death is not. Where death is, you are not. What is it that you fear.
Men are so thoughtless, nay, so mad, that some, through fear of death, force themselves to die.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
If death causes you no pain when you're dead, it is foolish to allow the fear of it to cause you pain now.
Death is nothing to us: for that which is dissolved is without sensation; and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us.
Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.
Whatsoever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer.
There is nothing terrible in life for the man who realizes there is nothing terrible in death.
What men fear is not that death is annihilation but that it is not.
The wise man neither rejects life nor fears death... just as he does not necessarily choose the largest amount of food, but, rather, the pleasantest food, so he prefers not the longest time, but the most pleasant.
Don't fear god, Don't worry about death; What is good is easy to get, and What is terrible is easy to endure.
Death is meaningless to the living because they are living, and meaningless to the dead… because they are dead.
There is nothing to fear from gods, There is nothing to feel in death, Good can be attained, Evil can be endured.
So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more.
Death is nothing to us: for after our bodies have been dissolved by death they are without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us. And therefore a right understanding of death makes mortality enjoyable, not because it adds to an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality.
Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?
Against other things it is possible to obtain security, but when it comes to death we human beings all live in an unwalled city.
Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live.
Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.
It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.