Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? The first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle.

If we begin to die when we live, and long life be but a prolongation of death, our life is a sad composition; we live with death, and die not in a moment.

There are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read may read our natures.

The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.

I would not live over my hours past ... not unto Cicero's ground because I have lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse.

For the world, I count it not an inn, but a hospital; and a place not to live, but to die in.

There is musick, even in the beauty and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument.