It is only the dead who do not return.

It is only the dead who do not return.

You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the Grim Reaper.

You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the Grim Reaper.

When I pastored a country church, a farmer didn't like the sermons I preached on hell. He said, "Preach about read more

When I pastored a country church, a farmer didn't like the sermons I preached on hell. He said, "Preach about the meek and lowly Jesus." I said, "That's where I got my information about hell.".

To be in a world which is a hell, to be of that world and neither to believe in or read more

To be in a world which is a hell, to be of that world and neither to believe in or guess at anything but that world is not merely hell but the only possible damnation: the act of a man damning himself. It may be -- I hope it is -- redemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable.

In the democracy of the dead all men at last are equal. There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative read more

In the democracy of the dead all men at last are equal. There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave.

Go thou, deceased, to this earth which is a mother, and spacious
and kind. May her touch be soft read more

Go thou, deceased, to this earth which is a mother, and spacious
and kind. May her touch be soft like that of wool, or a young
woman, and may she protect thee from the depths of destruction.
Rise above him, O Earth, do not press painfully on him, give him
good things, give him consolation, as a mother covers her child
with her cloth, cover thou him.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and read more

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

A jade curtain of
willow fronds
parts world of
green earth
from that of blue pond
A grey curtain
of read more

A jade curtain of
willow fronds
parts world of
green earth
from that of blue pond
A grey curtain
of morning mist
separates turquoise waters
from blue sky
A more slender
veil is
at the portal
hiding the paradise
of the immortal.

But whether on the scaffold high,
Or in the battle's van,
The fittest place where man can read more

But whether on the scaffold high,
Or in the battle's van,
The fittest place where man can die
Is where he dies for man.