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.

Men have written in the most convincing manner to prove that death is no evil, and this opinion has been confirmed on a thousand celebrated occasions by the weakest of men as well as by heroes. Even so I doubt whether any sensible person has ever believed it, and the trouble men take to convince others as well as themselves that they do shows clearly that it is no easy undertaking. 

If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.

To desire immortality for the individual is really the same as wanting to perpetuate an error forever.

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.

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!

I was born without knowing why, I have lived without knowing why, and I am dying without either knowing why or how.

The play is the tragedy “Man,” And its hero the conqueror worm.

Life is a farce, and should not end with a mourning scene.

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better, only the god knows.

Death keeps no calendar.

I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.