Life and Death
What it is to be alive, and the meaning and fear of dying.
Works to read
- Holy Sonnet X: "Death, be not proud" by John Donne, written c. 1609-1610; published 1633
- The Sickness Unto Death by Soren Kierkegaard, 1849
- Because I could not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson, written c. 1862-1863; published 1890
- Reflections on War and Death by Sigmund Freud, 1915 (English 1918) · Great Books
- The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne, 1759-1767
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy, 1886
- The Life of John Sterling by Thomas Carlyle, 1851
- The Last Days of Socrates by Plato, c. 399–347 BCE · Great Books
- Faust, Part Two by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1832 · Great Books
- Beyond the Pleasure Principle by Sigmund Freud, 1920 (English 1922) · Great Books
- Confessions by Augustine of Hippo, c. 397–400 CE · Great Books
- Middlemarch by George Eliot, 1871–72 · Great Books
Passages
Boring myself to death
— Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler, The Master Builder and The Wild Duck
If you wish life, prepare for death
— Sigmund Freud, Reflections on War and Death
Was ever son so rued a father’s death
— William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3
The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch
— William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
the euthanasia (quiet death) of all morality
— Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics
O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her
— William Shakespeare, Cymbeline
Passages are verified quotations from the library that use one of these words: life, death, dying, mortal. Sentences under “From the texts” are copied word for word from the full texts in this library. Read each in its context on the work's page.