Tom Stoppard Quotes

Humans will die like all living things do, but we have the added burden of knowing that we will.

I knew the facts of death before I knew the facts of life. There never was a time when I didn't see the skull beneath the skin.

We are born knowing death.

Humans may be the only creatures on Earth who spend significant time thinking about the fact that someday their lives will end.

The older I get, the more I feel that's all we are: a big bunch of feelings and instincts all wrapped up in some brief encounter with intellect.

At the age of 31, I realized, 'Oh my God, I may die like everyone else.'

What makes us really human is it's in the presence of death that we start valuing life.

I still see life entirely through its Darwinian prism. I keep trying to shake off the aftereffects of writing 'The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead', and I find I can't.

The difference between kitties and humans is that we are aware of our mortal condition, and the burden of consciousness is to evoke and embody and explore the coordinates of our condition.

We cannot truly face life until we face the fact that it will be taken away from us.

Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life. This is what makes us human. But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality. Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die.

All people know that they will die, but they don't actually believe it.

Remember that I too am mortal.

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

Man is the only living being who has a developed self-awareness and death-awareness.

It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death. He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real.

We must take human nature as we find it, perfection falls not to the share of mortals.

Have we forgotten that we're all born the same way: naked, wet, and hungry? Then things get worse!

Men! Dead or alive, they could be exactly the same.

Man is unique in that, unlike animals, he knows he is going to die, and unlike animals he can do something about it.

Without madness what is man But a wholesome beast, Postponed corpse that begets?

Truth is man's proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.

Ultimately we've only got humanity to work with. It's only clay we've got.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help make the big choices in life. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

We all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels.