Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was a French writer and botanist. He is best known for his 1788 novel Paul et Virginie, now largely forgotten, but in the 19th century a very popular children's book.
“La vie de l'homme, avec tous ses projets, s'élève comme une petite tour dont la mort est le couronnement.”
“Death, my son, is a good thing for all men; it is the night for this worried day that we call life. It is in the sleep of death that finds rest for eternity the sickness, pain, desperation, and the fears that agitate, without end, we unhappy living souls.”
“If life is a punishment, one should wish for an end; if life is a test, one should wish it to be short.”
“There is never but one pleasant side to this human life. Like the globe on which we turn, our own rapid rotation is but one day, and a part of this day cannot receive light, so that the other part will not be delivered into darkness.”