#mortality

Strangest problems of life seem clearing; but clouds sweep between--Is my journey’s end coming? ↗

— Herman Melville

#human-condition #humanity #life #mortality #death

Phoebe asked me, "Tell me, what do you think of the afterlife?" I was a bit nonplussed. I had no idea what she thought, but I knew that the question must be of greater interest to someone of her age than to me. But our conversation had been completely honest, and before I could speak, honesty and tact had joined hands in my answer. "I have no faith at all," I said, "but sometimes I have hope." I rather think," she replied, "that total annihilation is the most comfortable position." I was shaken. The horse clopped on. The children laughed behind us. When I die," she said, "I don't expect to see any of my loved ones again. I'll just become a part of all this." She waved her hand at the surrounding countryside. "That's all right with me. ↗

— Sena Jeter Naslund

#life #mortality #nature #age

The doctrine of original sin is the doctrine according to which divine forgiveness makes known the accidental nature of human mortality, thus permitting an entirely new anthropological understanding. ↗

— James Alison

#mortality #original-sin #forgiveness

There is no immortality that is not built on friendship and work done with care. All the secrets in the world worth knowing are hiding in plain sight. ↗

— Robin Sloan

#secrets #friendship

A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend. ↗

— Emily Dickinson

#immortality #letter-writing #letters #the-mind #friendship

If you can't sublimate your fear of mortality into sex with your best friend, what's it there for? ↗

— Justin Taylor

#friendship #mortality #sex #friendship

Have you ever sensed that our soul is immortal and never dies? ↗

— Plato

#philosophy-of-life #soul #life

Yet human intelligence has another force, too: the sense of urgency that gives human smarts their drive. Perhaps our intelligence is not just ended by our mortality; to a great degree, it is our mortality. ↗

— Adam Gopnik

#humans #ingenuity #intelligence #mortality #smarts

‎And when this intoxication has worn away... when every desire is fulfilled and every language learned- when there are no more distant cities to explore; no classics to be studied; not another coin to be stuffed in to one's coffers- what then? One can have all the comforts of the world, but what use are they if there is no comfort in them? ↗

— Seth Grahame-Smith

#life #life

Many a man lives a burden to the Earth, but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. ↗

— John Milton

#immortality #life #literature #life