Cessation of Existence/Quotes

Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night.

—Socrates

Death is nothing to us, since while we exist, death is not present, and whenever death is present, we do not exist.

—Epicurus

Sibrand: No, please. Don't do this.
Altair: You are afraid?
Sibrand: Of course I am afraid!
Altair: But you'll be safe now, held in the arms of your God.
Sibrand: Have my brothers taught you nothing? I know what waits for me, for all of us.
Altair: If not your God, then what?
Sibrand: Nothing. Nothing waits. And that is what I fear....
Altair: You do not believe?
Sibrand: How could I, given what I know, what I have seen? Our Treasure was the proof!
Altair: Of what?

Sibrand: That this life is all we have....

—Assassin's Creed

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state.

—Roger Ebert

Eternal nothingness is O.K. if you're dressed for it.

—Woody Allen

All memory of your existence will be wiped from reality. You will die, and no one will mourn.

—Memnarch, Magic: The Gathering

Human, have you ever been to Hell? I think not. I'd rather not exist than go back to that, and if everyone has to go down with me, so be it!

—Azrael, Dogma

Death's central horror is oblivion. The terrifying absolute dying of the light. Death has dominion because it is not only the start of nothing; it's the end of everything.

—Ronald Dworkin

Damned souls such as yourself can die in Hell, but are always back to normal the next morning. it's so they can be tortured to death repeatedly. The same is not true for demons, however. For us, death is permanent...and there is no afterlife for demons.

—Sakido, Slightly Damned

When you're five years old and scared of dying, knowing the best you can hope for is a burst of dopamine and some pleasant hallucinations before oblivion isn't very comforting.

—Hannelore, Questionable Content

It would be swell
To see some folk burn in hell.
But when they go
It's just as pleasant to know
That the dead only quickly decay.
They don't go about being born and reborn
And rising and falling like souffle.

The dead only quickly decay.

—The Gothic Archies, "The Dead Only Quickly"

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,

And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

—Philip Larkin, "Aubade"

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

—Mark Twain (attributed)

All the worry people expend over not existing after they die, yet nary a one ever seems to spare a moment to worry about not having existed before they were conceived.

—Miles Vorkosigan, "Cryoburn"