Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat, we say we have had our day.
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well. Treason has done his worst. Nor steel nor poison, malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing can touch him further.
I have heard that death takes us away from ill things, not from good. I have heard that when we pronounce the name of man we pronounce the belief of immortality.
Tis on the living Envy feeds. She silent grows
When, after death, man's honor is his guard.
So I, when on the pyre consumed I lie,
Shall live, for all that's noblest will survive.
Man should ever look to his last day, and no one should be called happy before his funeral.
[Lat., Ultima semper
Expectanda dies homini est, dicique beatus
Ante obitum nemo et suprema funera debet.]
When death strikes down the innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature comes.