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Tell over next all those you have known, one after the other: think how one buried his fellow, then lay dead himself, to be buried by a third.

Death, like birth, is a mystery of nature; the one a compounding of elements, the other a resolution into the same.

Fear proceeds from the same things when absent which occasion grief when present.

The third is, that it is folly to wear one's self out with grief which can avail nothing.

Supposing, then, each separate misfortune to occasion a separate additional grief, the whole would be too great to be supportable.

Affected of course I am by the loss of a friend as I think there will never be again, such as I can fearlessly say there never was before.

it was the virtue of the man that I loved, and that has not suffered death

As death, therefore, is hanging over our head every hour, how can a man ever be unshaken in soul if he fears it?

Now, old age is as it were the playing out of the drama, the full fatigue of which we should shun, especially when we also feel that we have had more than enough of it.

This ripeness is so delightful to me, that, as I approach nearer to death, I seem as it were to be sighting land, and to be coming to port at last after a long voyage.

Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change

a man should, at the first approaches, favour their grief and express some approbation of their sorrow

Your heart is wounded with compassion to hear the mourning of friends, and, perhaps with anger, to hear the counterfeit condolings of pretenders.

A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief.

For this reason there is no truth comparable to sorrow.

when people see their friends' houses on fire they put it out as quickly and energetically as they can, but when their souls are on fire they themselves bring fuel

much of grief is blunted and relaxed when the body is permeated by calm, like the sea in fine weather

Only, my dear wife, let us both be patient at this calamity.

Otherwise, my dear wife, we shall seem discontented at the birth of our little daughter, if we consider our position before her birth as more perfect.

Now the discourse that ought to come from friends and people disposed to be helpful should be consolation, and not mere assent with a man's sad feelings.

these things occurring daily and being importunate make the mind little, and narrow, and unsocial, and harsh, and timid, so that, being besieged and taken in hand by grief, it can no longer laugh, and shuns daylight, and avoids society

Again, in taking away our friends, death does not take them away utterly, but leaves behind a mocking, tragical, and soon intolerable residue, which must be hurriedly concealed.

The powers and the ground of friendship is a mystery; but, looking back, I can discern that, in part, we loved the thing he was, for some shadow of what he was to be.

Before those who loved him, his memory shines like a reproach; they honour him for silent lessons; they cherish his example; and in what remains before them of their toil, fear to be unworthy of the dead.