“Is there life before death? — that is the question!”

Source: Shadow of the Hegemon

Source: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

“Epilogue”, from De-triumphant March (1960)

Quoted in "Djemal Pasha In Moscow" - New York Times - June 17, 1920.
Quotess

A vida é tão bela que a mesma idéia da morte precisa de vir primeiro a ela, antes de se ver cumprida.
Source: Dom Casmurro (1899), Ch. 133, p. 255

Sacrifice https://www.marxists.org/archive/guyau/1895/sacrifice.htm, Pages Choisies des Grands Écrivains (1895).
Context: We can judge ourselves and our ideal by posing this question: For what idea, for what person would I be ready to risk my life? He who cannot answer such a question has a vulgar and empty heart. He is incapable of feeling or doing anything grand in life, since he is unable to go beyond his individuality. He is impotent and sterile, dragging along his selfish ego like the tortoise its shell. On the contrary, he who has present in his spirit the idea of death for his ideal seeks to maintain this ideal at the height of this possible sacrifice. He draws from this supreme risk a constant tension and an indefatigable energy of the will. The only means of being great in life is having the consciousness that you will not retreat before death.

Section 2
The Einstein Intersection (1967)