James Branch Cabell Quotes

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

He hath shook hands with time.

I looked more widely around me, I studied the lives of the masses of humanity, and I saw that, not two or three, or ten, but hundreds, thousands, millions, had so understood the meaning of life that they were able both to live and to die. All these people were well acquainted with the meaning of life and death, quietly labored, endured privation and suffering, lived and died, and saw in all this, not a vain, but a good thing.

Death is part of who we are. It guides us. It shapes us. It drives us to madness. Can you still be human if you have no mortal end

We have no choice, we must all die. How we live, however, is entirely of our choosing.

My dear fellow,' Burlingame said, 'we sit here on a blind rock careening through space; we are all of us rushing headlong to the grave. Think you the worms will care, when anon they make a meal of you, whether you spent your moment sighing wigless in your chamber, or sacked the golden towns of Montezuma? Lookee, the day's nigh spent; 'tis gone careening into time forever. Not a tale's length past we lined our bowels with dinner, and already they growl for more. We are dying men, Ebenezer: i'faith, there's time for naught but bold resolves!

From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.

Humans will always endure suffering - even accepting the fact that we're going to die will cause us suffering, and from that stems a little pessimism and negativity that all of us are susceptible to.

... one doesn't want to read badly any more than live badly, since time will not relent. I don't know that we owe God or nature a death, but nature will collect anyway, and we certainly owe mediocrity nothing, whatever collectivity it purports to advance or at least represent.

Despite the staunchest, most venerable defenses, we can never completely subdue death anxiety: it is always there, lurking in some hidden ravine of the mind.

Death is there to keep us honest and constantly remind us we are free.

Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.

Everybody ages. Everybody dies. There is no turning back the clock. So the question in life becomes: What are you going to do while you're here

Death then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live if we cannot bear to die.

Unjustly men hate death, which is the greatest defence against their many ills.

Everybody dies … The thing is, to have a life before we die.

Death means nothing to men like me. It's the event that proves them right.

I learned early to keep death in my line of sight, keep it under surveillance, keep it on cleared ground and away from any brush where it might coil unnoticed.

If a man doesn't know death, he doesn't know life.

Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime

Give life long enough and it will solve all your problems, including the one of being alive.

To philosophize is to learn to die.

Since every man who lives is born to die, And none can boast sincere felicity, With equal mind, what happens, let us bear, Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care. Like pilgrims to the' appointed place we tend; The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.

The hour which gives us life begins to take it away.