Cicero on Death

“Emori nolo: sed me esse mortuum nihil æstimo. Translation: I do not wish to die: but I care not if I were dead.”

“Ex vita discedo, tanquam ex hospitio, non tanquam ex domo. I depart from life as from an inn, and not as from my home.”

“Supremus ille dies non nostri extinctionem sed commutationem affert loci. That last day does not bring extinction to us, but change of place.”

“Vetat dominans ille in nobis deus, injussu hinc nos suo demigrare. The divinity who rules within us, forbids us to leave this world without his command.”

“Some men make a womanish complaint that it is a great misfortune to die before our time. I would ask what time? Is it that of Nature? But she, indeed, has lent us life, as we do a sum of money, only no certain day is fixed for payment. What reason then to complain if she demands it at pleasure, since it was on this condition that you received it.”