“Fortunate those who, born before science, were privileged to die of their first disease!”
Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
“Fortunate those who, born before science, were privileged to die of their first disease!”
Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer
In Search of the Miraculous (1949)
“When I die, I will not see myself die, for the first time.”
Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet
Cuando yo muera, no me veré morir, por primera vez.
Voces (1943)
Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism
1850s, For Self-Examination (1851), It Is the Spirit Who Gives Life
“I die the king's faithful servant, but God's first.”
Thomas More (1478–1535) English Renaissance humanist
Words on the scaffold, attributed in The Essentials of Freedom : The Idea and Practice of Ordered Liberty in the Twentieth Century as explored at Kenyon College (1960) by Paul Gray Hoffman, p. 43
First reported in indirect speech in the Paris Newsletter (1535): « Apres les exhorta, et supplia tres instamment qu'ils priassent Dieu pour le Roy, affin qu'il luy voulsist donner bon conseil, protestant qu'il mouroit son bon serviteur et de Dieu premierement. » ("Afterward he exhorted them, and besought them very earnestly to pray to God for the King, that He should give him good counsel, protesting that he died his good servant, and God's first.")
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)
Context: Some people have insisted that this life is a kind of school for the production of self-denying men and women—that is, for the production of character. The statistics show that a large majority die under five years of age. What would we think of a schoolmaster who killed the most of his pupils the first day? If this doctrine is true, and if manhood cannot be produced in heaven, those who die in childhood are infinitely unfortunate.
“Animals hear about death for the first time when they die.”
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher