死亡是一段
精神與塵土間的對話
—艾蜜莉．狄金生〈死亡是一段對話〉
Death is a Dialogue between
The Spirit and the Dust
—Emily Dickinson 1830-1886 : ’Death is a Dialogue’

你無法藉由逃避生命尋得平靜。
—吳爾芙
You cannot find peace by avoiding life.
—Virginia Woolf 1882-1941

不要活得好似有萬年時光可虛擲。死亡近在咫尺。只要你活著、而且還能掌握事態，隨時準備好應對任何事。
—奧里略《沉思錄》
Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.
—Marcus Aurelius 121-180 : Meditations

至於畏懼死亡，我的朋友啊，那只是我們在自作聰明，因為那是我們自以為懂得了我們並不了解的事物。沒人知道死亡是否是能發生在人類身上最美善的一件事。
—柏拉圖《申辯篇》
For to fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man.
—Plato 427-347 BC : Apology

我們畏懼死亡，我們因生命無常而顫抖，我們為眼見花凋葉落次次復次次而哀傷，我們深知己壽同樣短暫無常，轉瞬即逝。藝術家創造圖像、思想家探求思想的原理與公式，都是為了從死亡宏大的舞姿底下挽救某些事物，讓它們持存得比我們更長久。
—赫塞《知識與愛情》
We fear death, we shudder at life’s instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something last longer than we do.
—Hermann Hesse 1877-1962 : Narcissus and Goldmund

在失去一個人的所有方式中，死亡是最仁慈的。
—愛默生
Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882

我並不怕死；只是當它發生時我不想在場。
—伍迪．艾倫《死亡》
I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
—Woody Allen 1935- : Death

毋庸等待最後的審判。它每天都在降臨。
—卡繆《墮落》
Do not wait for the last judgment. It comes every day.
—Albert Camus 1913-1960 : The Fall