“The man, who in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week.”

“A man who does not have something for which he is willing to die is not fit to live.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

“It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable.”

Franz Kafka book The Trial

“If you had started doing anything two weeks ago, by today you would have been two weeks better at it.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

“If he's 27 today, he would have been 26 last week, and he doesn't look 26. He didn't look 26 last week, and he looks older than 28 today.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

“I well believe, thou wouldst be great as he;
For every man's a fool to that degree:
All wish the dire prerogative to kill;
Ev'n they would have the power who want the will.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

“What had happened? As he asked himself the question, he knew the answer. That no one had thought fit to tell him! No one! It was a bitter pill for him to swallow. He had been forgotten. Yet he had always wished to be forgotten. He could not have it both ways.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

“Sharpe had been turbulent, ambitious, but one day, Hogan supposed, that restlessness would have found satisfaction. Then, curiously, Hogan found himself resenting Sharpe, resenting him because he had been killed and was thus denying his friendship to those who still lived.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

“[Footnote:] The head of a Pike, served at supper, is said to have caused the death from terror of Theodoric the Goth, who imagined the fish's features to be those of Symmachus, a man he had just killed. But for this story, we of today would have no idea what Symmachus looked like.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

“No man is born unto himself alone;
Who lives unto himself, he lives to none.”

Francis Quarles (1592–1644) English poet