Life’s fleeting nature has inspired countless reflections on mortality throughout history. Whether seeking comfort, motivation, or a deeper understanding of our time on earth, inspirational quotes about mortality can offer profound insights. In this collection, you’ll find 58 carefully selected quotes that explore the meaning, beauty, and urgency of life’s impermanence—encouraging you to live fully and embrace each moment.
1. “You have to give up! you have to give up!You have to realize that someday you will die,Until you know that, you are useless!” - Chuck Palahniuk
2. “If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.” - Ernest Hemingway
3. “Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.” - Albert Camus
4. “I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man's place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own.” - Bertrand Russell
5. “Everybody going to be dead one day, just give them time.” - Neil Gaiman
6. “I know that I am mortal by nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies I no longer touch the earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia” - Ptolemy
7. “A drop of water is not immortal; it can be resolved into oxygen and hydrogen. If, therefore, a drop of water were to maintain that it had a quality of aqueousness which would survive its dissolution we should be inclined to be skeptical. In like manner we know that the brain is not immortal...” - Bertrand Russell
8. “The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.” - Carl Sagan
9. “All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.” - Herman Melville
10. “Love was generous precisely because it could never be immortal.” - Peter S. Beagle
11. “Phoebe asked me, "Tell me, what do you think of the afterlife?"I was a bit nonplussed. I had no idea what she thought, but I knew that the question must be of greater interest to someone of her age than to me. But our conversation had been completely honest, and before I could speak, honesty and tact had joined hands in my answer. "I have no faith at all," I said, "but sometimes I have hope."I rather think," she replied, "that total annihilation is the most comfortable position."I was shaken. The horse clopped on. The children laughed behind us.When I die," she said, "I don't expect to see any of my loved ones again. I'll just become a part of all this." She waved her hand at the surrounding countryside. "That's all right with me.” - Sena Jeter Naslund
12. “It is when we are faced with death that we turn most bookish.” - Jules Renard
13. “This is to be mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality.” - Lord Byron
14. “As we live our precarious lives on the brink of the void, constantly coming closer to a state of nonbeing, we are all too often aware of our fragitlity.” - Iris Murdoch
15. “Puis il réfléchit: la réalité ne coïncide habituellement pas avec les prévisions; avec une logique perverse, il en déduisit que prévoir un détail circonstanciel, c'est empêcher que celui-ci se réalise. Fidèle à cette faible magie, il inventait, pour les empêcher de se réaliser, des péripéties atroces; naturellement, il finit par craindre que ces péripéties ne fussent prophétiques. Misérable dans la nuit, il essayait de s'affirmer en quelque sorte dans la substance fugitive du temps. Il savait que celui-ci se précipitait vers l'aube du 29; il raisonnait à haute voix; je suis maintenant dans la nuit du 22; tant que durera cette nuit (et six nuits de plus) je suis invulnérable, immortel. Il pensait que les nuits de sommeil étaient des piscines profondes et sombres dans lesquels il pouvait se plonger. Il souhaitait parfois avec impatience la décharge définitive qui le libérerait tant bien que mal de son vain travail d'imagination.” - Jorge Luis Borges
16. “Yet human intelligence has another force, too: the sense of urgency that gives human smarts their drive. Perhaps our intelligence is not just ended by our mortality; to a great degree, it is our mortality.” - Adam Gopnik
17. “Then I could not help wondering what the watching gods thought of us, with our clever masks and our jokes. What we think of crickets, perhaps, whose singing we hear with pleasure, though some of us smash them with our heels when they venture into sight.” - Gene Wolfe
18. “Even if their supplies of love are finite, they've figured out that life is, too, and they're no longer rationing.” - Julianna Baggott
19. “Yet at the last Beren was slain by the Wolf that came from the gates of Angband, and he died in the arms of Tinúviel. But she chose mortality, and to die from the world, so that she might follow him; and it is sung that they met again beyond the Sundering Seas, and after a brief time walking alive once more in the green woods, together they passed, long ago, beyond the confines of this world. So it is that Lúthien Tinúviel alone of the Elf-kindred has died indeed and left the world, and they have lost her whom they most loved.” - J.R.R. Tolkien
20. “But there was little heart to our lust,only the confusion of not knowinghow long we'd have in our bodies.” - Joseph Bathanti
21. “Every soldier in the course of time exists only in the breath of written word.” - Ivan Doig
22. “He'd learned something. Life was booby-trapped and there was no easy passage through. You had to jump from colour to colour, from happiness to happiness. And all those possible explosions in between. It could be all over any time.” - Rupert Thomson
23. “Resignation is what kills people. Once they've rejected resignation, humans gain the privilege of making humanity their footpath.” - Kouta Hirano
24. “Tell me something. Do you believe in God?'Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction. 'What? Who still believes nowadays?''It isn't that simple. I don't mean the traditional God of Earth religion. I'm no expert in the history of religions, and perhaps this is nothing new--do you happen to know if there was ever a belief in an...imperfect God?''What do you mean by imperfect?' Snow frowned. 'In a way all the gods of the old religions were imperfect, considered that their attributes were amplified human ones. The God of the Old Testament, for instance, required humble submission and sacrifices, and and was jealous of other gods. The Greek gods had fits of sulks and family quarrels, and they were just as imperfect as mortals...''No,' I interrupted. 'I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a...sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems or mechanisms that serves specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and which measures his unending defeat.'Snow hesitated, but his attitude no longer showed any of the wary reserve of recent weeks:'There was Manicheanism...''Nothing at all to do with the principles of Good and Evil,' I broke in immediately. 'This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot...'Snow pondered for a while:'I don't know of any religion that answers your description. That kind of religion has never been...necessary. If i understand you, and I'm afraid I do, what you have in mind is an evolving god, who develops in the course of time, grows, and keeps increasing in power while remaining aware of his powerlessness. For your god, the divine condition is a situation without a goal. And understanding that, he despairs. But isn't this despairing god of yours mankind, Kelvin? Is it man you are talking about, and that is a fallacy, not just philosophically but also mystically speaking.'I kept on:'No, it's nothing to do with man. man may correspond to my provisional definition from some point of view, but that is because the definition has a lot of gaps. Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve is age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside. If there was only a since human being in existence, he would apparently be able to attempt the experiment of creating his own goals in complete freedom--apparently, because a man not brought up among other human beings cannot become a man. And the being--the being I have in mind--cannot exist in the plural, you see? ...Perhaps he has already been born somewhere, in some corner of the galaxy, and soon he will have some childish enthusiasm that will set him putting out one star and lighting another. We will notice him after a while...''We already have,' Snow said sarcastically. 'Novas and supernovas. According to you they are candles on his altar.''If you're going to take what I say literally...'...Snow asked abruptly:'What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?''I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.” - Stanisław Lem
25. “Dès que Séraphine l'a laissé seul, Gontran se jette à genoux au pied du lit ; il enfonce son front dans les draps, mais ne parvient pas à pleurer ; aucun élan ne soulève son cœur. Ses yeux désespérément restent secs. Alors il se relève. Il regarde ce visage impassible. Il voudrait, en ce moment solennel, éprouver je ne sais quoi de sublime et de rare, écouter une communication de l'au-delà, lancer sa pensée dans des régions éthérées,suprasensibles - mais elle reste accrochée, sa pensée, au ras du sol. Il regarde les mains exsangues du mort, et se demande combien de temps encore les ongles continueront de pousser.” - Andre Gide
26. “Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal—there's the trick!” - Mikhail Bulgakov
27. “Each man is everything to himself, for with his death everything is dead for him. That is why each of us thinks he is everything to everyone. We must not judge nature by ourselves, but by its own standards.” - Blaise Pascal
28. “Past humanity is not only implicit in each new man born but is contained in him. Humanity is an ever-widening spiral and life is the beam that plays briefly on each succeeding ring. All humanity from its beginning to its end is already present but the beam has not yet played beyond you.” - Flann O'Brien
29. “And now let us love and take that which is given us, and be happy; for in the grave there is no love and no warmth, nor any touching of the lips. Nothing perchance, or perchance but bitter memories of what might have been.” - H. Rider Haggard
30. “That which is alive hath known death, and that which is dead can never die, for in the Circle of the Spirit life is naught and death is naught. Yea, all things live forever, though at times they sleep and are forgotten.” - H. Rider Haggard
31. “A popular Harvard business professor urged his students to read the obituaries in the New York Times before they read anything else, in order to learn from the lives of great men.” - Georges F. Doriot
32. “Come here, let me share a bit of wisdom with you.Have you given much thought to our mortal condition?Probably not. Why would you? Well, listen.All mortals owe a debt to death.There's no one alivewho can say if he will be tomorrow.Our fate moves invisibly! A mystery.No one can teach it, no one can grasp it.Accept this! Cheer up! Have a drink!But don't forget Aphrodite--that's one sweet goddess.You can let the rest go. Am I making sense?I think so. How about a drink.Put on a garland. I'm surethe happy splash of wine will cure your mood.We're all mortal you know. Think mortal.Because my theory is, there's no such thing as life,it's just catastrophe.” - Anne Carson
33. “Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.” - George Bernard Shaw
34. “Nothing can last forever. There isn't any memory, no matter how intense, that doesn't fade out at last.” - Juan Rulfo
35. “They live forever. But many of them are even more lonely and miserable than we are. Why do you think they bother with us? We teach them life's value.” - N.K. Jemisin
36. “Me, I'm living under a sword too, as Jack may have told you. An old wino's disease, which could lay me in the grave most anytime. Not that I mind too much; I've done everything I ever wanted to do. But ... as you know, one would like to continue doing the good things over and over again, so long as there's pleasure in it.” - Edward Abbey
37. “The earth is literally a mirror of thoughts. Objects themselves are embodied thoughts. Death is the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything.” - Saul Bellow
38. “For nothing is evil in the beginning.” - J.R.R. Tolkien
39. “The doctrine of original sin is the doctrine according to which divine forgiveness makes known the accidental nature of human mortality, thus permitting an entirely new anthropological understanding.” - James Alison
40. “Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud-Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?” - William Knox
41. “I had to ride my bike to and from their god damn plant way up north in the high-chemical crime district, and reachable only by riding on the shoulder of some major freeways. I could feel the years ticking off my life expectancy as the mile markers struggled by.” - Neal Stephenson
42. “None of us are getting out of here alive".” - R. Alan Woods
43. “The answer is simple: if you cannot find meaning inherent in life right now, as you live it in this visible world, the addition of an infinite amount more of the same isn't about to somehow make it any more meaningful! Add a whole string of zeroes to a zero and watch what happens.” - Robert M. Price
44. “This is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsNot with a bang but a whimper.” - T.S. Eliot
45. “You walk around feeling like a teenager and immortal your whole life, and suddenly there isn't much time left.” - Stieg Larsson
46. “Legacy is not what's left tomorrow when you're gone. It's what you give, create, impact and contribute today while you're here that then happens to live on.” - Rasheed Ogunlaru
47. “Hence, in a season of calm weatherThough inland far we be,Our souls have sight of that immortal sea” - William Wordsworth
48. “Side by side, their faces blurred,The earl and countess lie in stone,Their proper habits vaguely shownAs jointed armour, stiffened pleat,And that faint hint of the absurd -The little dogs under their feet.Such plainness of the pre-BaroqueHardly involves the eye, untilIt meets his left-hand gauntlett, stillClasped empty in the other, andOne sees with a sharp tender shockHis hand withdrawn, holding her hand.They would not think to lie so long,Such faithfulness in effigyWas just a detail friends would see,A sculptor's sweet commissioned graceThrown off in helping to prolongThe Latin names around the base.They would not guess how early inTheir supine stationary voyageThe air would change to soundless damage,Turn the old tenantry away;How soon succeeding eyes beingTo look, not read. Rigidly, theyPersisted, linked, through lengths and breadthsOf time. Snow fell, undated. LightEach summer thronged the grass. A brightLitter of birdcalls strewed the sameBone-littered ground. And up the pathsThe endless altered people cameWashing at their identity.Now helpless in the hollowOf an unarmorial age, a troughOf smoke in slow suspended skeinsAbove their scrap of history,Only an attitude remains.Time has transfigured them intoUntruth. The stone fidelityThey hardly meant has come to beTheir final blazon and to proveOur almost-instinct almost-true:What will survive of us is love.- An Arundel Tomb” - Philip Larkin
49. “We only pass everything by like a transposition of air.” - Rainer Maria Rilke
50. “The great art of life is to moderate our passions. Objects of affection are like other belongings. We must love them enough to enrich our lives while we have them, not enough to impoverish our lives when they are gone.” - C.S. Lewis
51. “Were it not Folly, Spider-like to spinThe Thread of present Life away to win-What? for ourselves, who know not if we shallBreathe out the very Breath we now breathe in!” - Omar Khayyám
52. “Before the beginning of yearsThere came to the making of manTime, with a gift of tears;Grief, with a glass that ran;Pleasure, with pain for leaven;Summer, with flowers that fell;Remembrance, fallen from heaven,And madness risen from hell;Strength without hands to smite;Love that endures for a breath;Night, the shadow of light,And Life, the shadow of death.” - Algernon Charles Swinburne
53. “Do you believe that you will die? Yes, man is mortal, I am a man, ergo... No, that isn't what I mean. I know that you know that. What I'm asking is: Have you ever actually believed it, believe it completely, believe not with your mind but with your body, actually felt that one day the fingers now holding this very piece of paper will be yellow and icy...?” - Yevgeny Zamyatin
54. “Time itself is a thing, so it seems to me, that stands solidly like a fence of iron palings with its endless row of years; and we flow past like Gyoll, on our way to a sea from which we shall return only as rain.” - Gene Wolfe
55. “Death is the only serious preoccupation in life.” - Alexandre Dumas
56. “Idag samlar vi skor och bilar, igår flintyxor. Utan tvivel har arkeologer funnit betydligt fler flintyxor än vad människan rimligtvis behövde. Jag tror att flintyxorna handlar om en längtan, kanske en rädsla. Om jag bara har tillräckligt många flintyxor, eller skor, eller ett nyrenoverat kök så kan inget ont hända. Det är den där dödsångesten igen. Den otäcka insikten att allt, allt, allt är förgängligt. Jag kommer att dö, men mina flintyxor kommer att finnas kvar. (Och de fanns ju kvar, eller hur? Men vad hjälper det?)” - Ann Heberlein
57. “Man is mortal, and as the professor so rightly said mortality can come so suddenly” - Mikhail Bulgakov
58. “The Society wants us to be afraid of dying. But I'm not. I'm only afraid of dying wrong.” - Ally Condie
