Mortality Quotes

"The trouble is, you think you have time."

Jack Kornfield

"Time goes, you say? Ah no! Alas, Time stays, we go."

Henry Austin Dobson

"Time, which seems a mere measure, is in truth a saw that cuts away the days of life."

Thiruvalluvar

"Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them."

Dion Boucicault

"Seeing the gardener come, the buds cry out: the blossoms he has plucked today; tomorrow it will be our turn."

Kabir

"But at my back I always hear Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near."

Andrew Marvell

"Do not be proud, says Kabir; Time holds you by the hair. Who knows where it will strike – at home or in a foreign land."

Kabir

"Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think."

Randy Pausch

"Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to live. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good."

"All who have come must go – king, pauper or wandering fakir."

Kabir

"Time did not pass; it is we who passed. We did not enjoy pleasures; it is we who were consumed."

Bhartrihari

“Do every act of your life as if it were your last.”

“Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.”

“Near is thy forgetfulness of all things; and near the forgetfulness of thee by all.”

“Nothing in life is promised except death.”

“You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.”

“This, my friends, is blood, and not ichor such as flows from the veins of the blessed gods.”

"Being mortal is about the struggle to cope with the constraints of our biology, with the limits set by genes and cells and flesh and bone."

Atul Gawande

"Words have a longevity I do not."

Paul Kalanithi

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

Thomas Gray

“Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me.”

Emily Dickinson

“Pale death knocks with impartial foot at poor men's hovels and kings' towers.”

Horace

“Everyone knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it.”

Mitch Albom

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there.”

Steve Jobs

“Death is a black camel which kneels at every man's gate.”

Arabic Proverb