#mortality

"The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that it cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit."

"Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its students."[Letter, November 1856]"

"Past humanity is not only implicit in each new man born but is contained in him. Humanity is an ever-widening spiral and life is the beam that plays briefly on each succeeding ring. All humanity from its beginning to its end is already present but the beam has not yet played beyond you."

"A life is not a waste of time"

"One thought I think every person eventually thinks is, “Holy shit, I’m going to die!” Sorry, I just turned thirty yesterday, so my mortality is on my mind."

"We are all butterflies. Earth is our chrysalis."

"Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud-Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"

"Pride and power fall when the person falls, but discoveries of truth form legacies that can be built upon for generations."

"The story of my recent life.' I like that phrase. It makes more sense than 'the story of my life', because we get so many lives between birth and death. A life to be a child. A life to come of age. A life to wander, to settle, to fall in love, to parent, to test our promise, to realize our mortality- and in some lucky cases, to do something after that realization."

"Time deals gently only with those who take it gently."

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

"The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides."

"I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you."

"Whenever you see flies or insects in a still life—a wilted petal, a black spot on the apple—the painter is giving you a secret message. He’s telling you that living things don’t last—it’s all temporary. Death in life. That’s why they’re called natures mortes. Maybe you don’t see it at first with all the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer—there it is."

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."

"My life is but a firefly’s flicker, so I’d better use my brief moment to light up the darkness that covers her path."

"The girl I used to love is no longer a girl, and this saddens me more than our separation. It puts my own mortality vividly on display, in contrast to my eternally youthful memories."

"No one can say that death found in me a willing comrade, or that I went easily."