James Thomson Quotes

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

The nature of life is that we do not control it.

We do not ask to be born; and we do not ask to die. But born we are and die we must. We come into existence and we pass out of existence. And in neither case does high-handed fate await our ratification of its decree.

All rivers, even the most dazzling, those that catch the sun in their course, all rivers go down to the ocean and drown. And life awaits man as the sea awaits the river.

The goal of all life is death.

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.

One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one's death, one dies one's life.

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

Death can come at any time to anyone. Everybody is equal before death.

To live is nothing more than to come here to die, to be what we were before being born, but with apprenticeship, experience, knowledge of cause, and perhaps with will.

As you were, I was. As I am, you will be.

It's not the end of the world at all," he said. "It's only the end for us. The world will go on just the same, only we shan't be in it. I dare say it will get along all right without us.

I wonder what day I shall die on - one passes year by year over one's death day, as one might pass over one's grave.

All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.

Time is the king of all men, he is their parent and their grave, and gives them what he will and not what they crave.

Among all the vicissitudes of life, which vary in each individual's experience, there is one event which sooner or later comes to everyone - Death!

Birth was the death of him.

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

As much as we'd like to think life is sacred, there's not a lot of evidence for that. The universe is maddeningly casual, giving and taking it.

To live is to die.

First our pleasures die - and then our hopes, and then our fears - and when these are dead, the debt is due dust claims dust - and we die too.

You can't be scared of death. When that time comes, it comes.

Fate, or some mysterious force, can put the finger on you or me, for no good reason at all.

Why should I ask the wise men: Whence is my beginning? I am busy with the thought: Where will be my end?

As I get older, the present and the past shift and become the past and the future... A lot of it is a new awareness of time and life and the wheel of fortune crushing you and lifting you and crushing you and lifting you.