Death
Yang Zhu agreed with the search for happiness, but he felt one should not strive for life beyond one’s allotted span, nor should one unnecessarily shorten one’s life. Death is as natural as life, Yang Zhu felt, and therefore should be viewed with neither fear nor awe. Funeral ceremonies are of no worth to the deceased. “Dead people are not concerned whether their bodies are buried in coffins, cremated, dumped in water or in a ditch; nor whether the body is dressed in fine clothes. What matters most is that before death strikes one lives life to the fullest” (Liu: 1967: 358).
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Famous quotes containing the word death:
“So he with difficulty and labour hard
Moved on, with difficulty and labour he;
But he once passed, soon after when man fell,
Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain
Following his track, such was the will of Heaven,
Paved after him a broad and beaten way
Over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf
Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length
From hell continued reaching th utmost orb
Of this frail world;”
—John Milton (16081674)
“Do but consider this small dust, here running in the glass,
By atoms moved.
Could you believe that this the body was
Of one that loved?
And in his mistress flame playing like a fly,
Turned to cinders by her eye?
Yes, and in death as life unblest,
To havet expressed,
Even ashes of lovers find no rest.”
—Ben Jonson (15721637)
“No man may him hide
From Death hollow-eyed,”
—John Skelton (1460?1529)