mortality

Every soldier in the course of time exists only in the breath of written word.

He'd learned something. Life was booby-trapped and there was no easy passage through. You had to jump from colour to colour, from happiness to happiness. And all those possible explosions in between. It could be all over any time.

[A] right understanding that death is nothingto us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not because it adds to itan infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving forimmortality. For there is nothing terrible in life for the man who hastruly comprehended that there is nothing terrible in not living.

...A mirror can trick you day by day into thinking you remain looking and existing in one way forever. But a photograph presents you with the truth: it freezes you eternally, existing as a reminder that you can never, ever go back to any one moment again- that you are always changing, hour by hour, cell by cell, in tiny fragments that build skyscrapers overnight.

It is when we are faced with death that we turn most bookish.

And now let us love and take that which is given us, and be happy; for in the grave there is no love and no warmth, nor any touching of the lips. Nothing perchance, or perchance but bitter memories of what might have been.

The fundamental fact about all of us is that we__e alive for a while but will die before long. This fact is the real root cause of all our anger and pain and despair. And you can either run from this fact or, by way of love, you can embrace it.

Now every mortal has painand sweat is constant,but if there is anything dearer than being alive,it's dark to me.We humans seem disastrously in love with this thing(whatever it is) that glitters on the earth--we call it life. We know no other.The underworld's a blankand all the rest just fantasy.

The idea that all souls are mortal is the only notion surely terminating love and all its forms.

Let this change you. Let this take hold in the very center of your soul. Write it on the walls of your heart. Let this emanate through every part of you, and trickle into every aspect of your life. You were not designed to be merely a good person, but that through the experience of mortality you could embrace the divinity you were created with. I do not merely want you to get along with others, but for everyone to be one, and one in me. Not for my glory, but that the glory of godliness will exalt you to a higher plane of existence, beyond anything you've ever imagined. Throw out weakness and fear; rid yourself of those spoiled garments. Adorn yourself with new garments, spotless and pure. Be reborn. Set your hand to the plow and look not back. Take that first step onto the water; do not fear the wind or the waves, for it is I your Lord and Savior who beckon you. Listen o listen to my voice, which is the voice of the Good Sheppard who calls you; for why should ye parish for naught?_ Parker, the bar has been set, for you and for I, and all the rest of humanity should we chose to accept the invitation,_ Flavius concluded powerfully.

I love the quaint saying of a dying man, who exclaimed, "I have no fear of going home; I have sent all before me; God's finger is on the latch of my door, and I am ready for Him to enter.

At the approach of a certain dark hour, the light of Heaven fills those who are quitting the light of Earth.

What's a man worth without love ? $.89 worth of chemicals." Hawkeye Pierce

We suddenly feel fearful and apprehensive, naked in our perishable flesh, and for just a moment we wish we could go back to being stone__rumbling in death rather than rotting, trapped inside an immobile prison of stone rather than reduced to immaterial souls like those that now rattled within our skulls. The moment passes. There is no point in regretting irreversible decisions__ne has to live with them, and we try.

I am in a profession that has succeeded because of its ability to fix. If your problem is fixable, we know just what to do. But if it__ not? The fact that we have had no adequate answers to this question is troubling and has caused callousness, inhumanity, and extraordinary suffering.

Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean __ore people died_ don__ say __ortality rose.

You don__ have to spend much time with the elderly or those with terminal illness to see how often medicine fails the people it is supposed to help. The waning days of our lives are given over to treatments that addle our brains and sap our bodies for a sliver__ chance of benefit. They are spent in institutions__ursing homes and intensive care units__here regimented, anonymous routines cut us off from all the things that matter to us in life. Our reluctance to honestly examine the experience of aging and dying has increased the harm we inflict on people and denied them the basic comforts they most need.

There is only one true wealth in all the universe--living time.