Stephen Jay Gould Quotes

I'm not afraid of death at all.

I think there is, in our society, there is a growing fear of death, a fear of the circumstances in which I might die, a fear I might be over-treated or under-treated. But fear is always a bad guide. Death is part of life.

Maybe I haven't been tested, but I have no fear of death at all. I was with Allen Ginsberg during the last year of his life, and he called all his friends and said, 'I'm on my way out, and it's kind of exciting.' I see it as kind of exciting, too.

I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn't given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die.

People speak of a will to live. They rarely speak of a will to die. Because people are afraid of death. Death is dark and unknown and frightening. But not for me. It is not the end.

He will live ill who does not know how to die well.

I think of dying every day... At a certain age, you should be prepared to go at any time.

I've learned to accept death better than most people.

I'm not frightened of death.

Obviously, death is ahead of me. I don't look forward to dying one little bit. But, you know, I simply don't worry about it because it's going to happen to me as it does to anybody.

I'm not afraid of death. How can you be afraid of something that's inevitable?

I'm not scared of death anymore.

There's no point thinking about dying, because it's going to happen anyway, isn't it? I don't waste my time worrying about that.

I don't believe dying's a sad thing.

I don't want to die, but I'm not afraid to.

I feel so much the continual death of everything and everybody, and have so learned to reconcile myself to it, that the final and official end loses most of its impressiveness.

In this society, we don't like to face the future and the dying process and all of it. Most of us really don't want to think about it, but it's facing me in the mirror every day.

I choose to live until death, not spend the time dying until death occurs.

If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, and hug it in mine arms.

Death is a part of all our lives. Whether we like it or not, it is bound to happen. Instead of avoiding thinking about it, it is better to understand its meaning. We all have the same body, the same human flesh, and therefore we will all die. There is a big difference, of course, between natural death and accidental death, but basically death will come sooner or later. If from the beginning your attitude is 'Yes, death is part of our lives,' then it may be easier to face.

To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere." "To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.

I think that, with age, people come to realize that death is inevitable. And we need to learn to face it with serenity, wisdom and resignation. Death often frees us from a lot of senseless sufferings.

To be content with death may be better than to desire it.

Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one's life!