“Fortunate those who, born before science, were privileged to die of their first disease!”

“the day you were born, you were born free. That is your privilege.”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

“Whoever complains about the death of anyone, is complaining that he was a man. Everyone is bound by the same terms: he who is privileged to be born, is destined to die.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

“A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.”

G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer

“The fortunate man is he who, born poor, or nobody, works gradually up to wealth and consideration, and, having got them, dies before he finds they were not worth so much trouble.”

Charles Reade book Christie Johnstone

“3330. Man begins to die before he is born.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

“The first thinker was, without a doubt, the first man obsessed by why. An unaccustomed mania, not at all contagious: rare indeed are those who suffer from it, who are a prey to questioning, and who can accept no given because they were born in consternation.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

“We are born with two incurable diseases, life, from which we die, and hope, which says maybe death isn't the end.”

Andrew M. Greeley (1928–2013) Irish-American Roman Catholic priest, sociologist, journalist and novelist

“Those men and women are fortunate who are born at a time when a great struggle for human freedom is in progress. It is an added good fortune to have parents who take a personal part in the great movements of their time. I am glad and thankful that this was my case.”

Emmeline Pankhurst book My Own Story

“The man who is born into existence deals first with language; this is a given. He is even caught in it before his birth.”

Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist