Quotes about Mortality

As inscribed on John Keats' tombstone: This Grave contains all that was Mortal, of a YOUNG ENGLISH POET, Who on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his Heart, at the Malicious Power of his Enemies Desired these Words to be engraven on his Tomb Stone: Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water. Feb 24 1821

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact'ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain … When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

Your faith is very important. I have done the math, and you are going to be dead a whole lot longer that you will be alive.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Henceforth I flie not Death, nor would prolong   Life much, bent rather how I may be quit   Fairest and easiest of this combrous charge,   Which I must keep till my appointed day   Of rendring up. MICHAEL to him repli'd.     Nor love thy Life, nor hate; but what thou livst   Live well, how long or short permit to Heav'n:

All of me then shall die: let this appease The doubt, since human reach no further knows.

Amid the Garden by the Tree of Life,   Remember what I warne thee, shun to taste,   And shun the bitter consequence: for know,   The day thou eat'st thereof, my sole command   Transgrest, inevitably thou shalt dye;   From that day mortal, and this happie State   Shalt loose, expell'd from hence into a World   Of woe and sorrow. Sternly

But of the tree whose operation brings Knowledge of good and ill, which I have set The pledge of thy obedience and thy faith, Amid the garden by the tree of life, Remember what I warn thee. Shun to taste. And shun the bitter consequence. For know, The day thou eatest thereof, my sole command Transgressed, inevitably thou shalt die, From that day mortal; and this happy state Shalt lose, expelled from hence into a world Of woe and sorrow.

I am still in the land of the dying; I shall be in the land of the living soon. (his last words)

Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am weak; remember, Lord, how short my time is; remember that I am but flesh, a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again. My days are as grass, as a flower of the field; for the wind goeth over me, and I am gone, and my place shall know me no more.

Never is a man more ready to accept the Lord than when he faces his own mortality.