Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.

In dealing with the dead, if we treat them as if they were entirely dead, that would show a want of affection and should not be done; or, if we treat them as if they were entirely alive, that would show a want of wisdom and should not be done.

Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.

I think it makes small difference to the dead if they are buried in the tokens of luxury. All this is an empty glorification left for those who live.

Whoever has died is freed from sin.

Let my epitaph be, “Here lies Joseph, who failed in everything he undertook.”

I order that my funeral ceremonies be extremely modest, and that they take place at dawn or at the evening Ave Maria, without song or music.

A god cannot procure death for himself, even if he wished it, which, so numerous are the evils of life, has been granted to man as our chief good.

The only evidence, so far as I know, about another life is, first, that we have no evidence; and, secondly, that we are rather sorry that we have not, and wish we had.

It is not my design to drink or sleep; my design is to make what haste I can to be gone.

Is this dying? Is this all? Is this all that I feared when I prayed against a hard death? Oh, I can bear this! I can bear it!

Death renders all equal.

You are dust, and to dust you shall return.