I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know that I shall be horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to keep myself from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a pass; but I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.

It is clear that men accept an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because they expect a greater pleasure in the future. Often the pleasure is illusory, but their error in calculation is no refutation of the rule. You are puzzled because you cannot get over the idea that pleasures are only of the sense; but, child, a man who dies for his country dies because he likes it as surely as a man eats pickled cabbage because he likes it.

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.

Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.