Mark Twain (1835-1910) was one of the greatest American humorists in history- and one of the most talented writers of his day. His many works endure as some of the finest examples of literature. In real life, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) lost 3 children before he died- he had to endure the deaths of a son and two daughters. Extremely painful to say the least. But he used his talents as a writer to express what he felt about death, and here are some of his comforting, sometimes funny quotes about the subject:
Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.
– Following the Equator
Life was not a valuable gift, but death was. Life was a fever-dream made up of joys embittered by sorrows, pleasure poisoned by pain; a dream that was a nightmare-confusion of spasmodic and fleeting delights, ecstasies, exultations, happinesses, interspersed with long-drawn miseries, griefs, perils, horrors, disappointments, defeats,humiliations, and despairs–the heaviest curse devisable by divine ingenuity; but death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man’s best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.
– Letters from the Earth
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.
– The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Comedy of the Extraordinary Twins
All say, “How hard it is that we have to die”– a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
– The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Comedy of the Extraordinary Twins
To die one’s self is a thing that must be easy, & light of consequence; but to lose a part of one’s self–well, we know how deep that pang goes, we who have suffered that disaster, received that wound which cannot heal.
– Letter to Will Bowen, 11/4/1888
Manifestly, dying is nothing to a really great and brave man.
– Letter to Olivia Clemens, 7/1/1885
Death is so kind, so benignant, to whom he loves; but he goes by us others & will not look our way.
– Letter to W. D. Howells, 12/20/1898
[I am] not sorry for anybody who is granted the privilege of prying behind the curtain to see if there is any contrivance that is half so shabby and poor and foolish as the invention of mortal life.
– Letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 1894
The Impartial Friend: Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all–the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.
– Mark Twain, last written statement; Moments with Mark Twain, Paine
Death is the starlit strip between the companionship of yesterday and the reunion of tomorrow.
– on the monument erected to Mark Twain at his gravesite in Elmira, New York
“The sad truth is that man’s real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites—day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end.”
― C.G. Jung, Man and His Symbols
“Every transformation demands as its precondition “the ending of a world”-the collapse of an old philosophy of life.”
― C.G. Jung, Man and His Symbols
Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.
— Mark Twain
It is a time when one’s spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.