Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Death is irrelevant because we existed long before birth and it causes no inconvenience.
In plain terms
Death doesn't affect us; we were already 'dead' before birth.
What can you take from it?
Don't fear death; it changes nothing.

Where it applies

  • end‑of‑life counseling
  • personal reflection

Putting it to work

  • practice mindfulness
  • accept impermanence

Questions to consider

  • Does the concept of pre‑birth existence lessen fear?
  • How do we find meaning despite mortality?

Another view

Death does have emotional impact on the living.

More from Samuel Langhorne Clemens

  1. Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

    Permalink to quote #56
  2. Jesus died to save men -- a small thing for an immortal to do, & didn't save many, anyway; but if he had been damned for the race that would have been act of a…

    Permalink to quote #58
  3. The lack of money is the root of all evil.

    Permalink to quote #55

Related quotes

  1. And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, None knew so well as I: For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die.

    Oscar WildeOscar Wilde quote #210
  2. Death is the dies of life which is turned away from us.

    Rainer Maria RilkeRainer Maria Rilke quote #8
  3. The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the tw…

    Vladimir NabokovVladimir Nabokov quote #9