A Quote by Robert Jordan

Death comes to us all; we can only choose how to face it when it comes.

Robert Jordan

Quote Topics

Choose Death Face How Only Us

Quote Author

Robert Jordan
American - Writer
October 17, 1948 - September 16, 2007

Of all living things, only humans consciously anticipate death; the consequent need to choose how to behave in its face - to worry about how to die - distinguishes us from other animals. The need to manage death is the particular lot of humanity.

Drew Gilpin Faust

We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents, or the country of our birth. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessnness, we do choose how we live.

Joseph Epstein

We do not choose to be born.We do not--most of us, choose to die, or the times or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live--Courageously or in cowardice, Honorably or dishonorably, With purpose or adrift. We decide what is important and what is trivial. What makes us significant is what we DO, Or REFUSE TO DO. WE DECIDE and WE CHOOSE--and so we give definition to our lives.

Joseph Epstein

To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere." "To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.

Michel de Montaigne

All men and women are born, live, suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.

Joseph Epstein

You think because you face situations not of your making that you exercise no choice? That you are helpless? To the contrary, child. Your whole life has been full of choices. Hiding from a hard truth is a choice. Surrender - even to the inevitable - is a choice. Even in death there is a choice. You may have no control over the time or manner of your death, but you can choose how you face it.

C. L. Wilson

The question of what we are can only be answered by ourselves. We each decide what we are by the life choices we make. How we were made, who are parents are, where we are from, the color of our skin, who we choose to love, all those things do not define us. Our actions define us, and will keep defining us until even after death.

P. C. Cast

There is no single best kind of death. A good death is one that is "appropriate" for that person. It is a death in which the hand of the way of dying slips easily into the glove of the act itself. It is in character, ego-syntonic. It, the death, fits the person. It is a death that one might choose if it were realistically possible for one to choose one's own death.

Edwin S. Shneidman

This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.

Terry Pratchett

Bushido is realised in the presence of death. In the case of having to choose between life and death you should choose death. There is no other reasoning.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo

I have found that the Way of the samurai is death. This means that when you are compelled to choose between life and death, you must quickly choose death.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo

If untimely death came only those who deserved that fate, Keturah, where would choice be? No one would do good for its own sake, but only to avoid an early demise. No one would speak out against evil because of his own courageous soul, but only to live another day. The right to choose is man's great gift, but one thing is not his to choose--the time and means of death.

Martine Leavitt

It's strange how death mocks us, that only in death do we cherish [the ones we love].

Jamie Yeo

For it is only in accepting death that one can truly live, and for the human animal, death has always been the great black beast from the abyss to be dreaded or defeated or avoided or hated - but never looked upon clearly face to face.