Ein unnütz Leben ist ein früher Tod...
Act I, sc. ii
Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787)
Ein unnütz Leben ist ein früher Tod…
Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787)
“If I can rejoice for a moment,
Death at an early age would still be a long life.”
"Miscellaneous Poems" III, quoted in Albert Davis (ed.), The Penguin Book of Chinese Verse (1962), p. 67
Section 8 : Suffering and Consolation
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: It is written that the last enemy to be vanquished is death. We should begin early in life to vanquish this enemy by obliterating every trace of the fear of death from our minds. Then can we turn to life and fill the whole horizon of our souls with it, turn with added zest toall the serious tasks which it imposes and to the pure delights which here and there it affords.
Part 4, Chapter 2, III
Variant: Man is a useless passion.
Source: Being and Nothingness (1943)
“A mans fame and hayre grow most after death, and are both equally uselesse.”
Source: Commonplace book, P. 268
As quoted in "Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'" by Ian Sample, in The Guardian (15 May 2011) http://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/may/15/stephen-hawking-interview-there-is-no-heaven
Context: I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first... I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
