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I don't mourn the dead. I mourn the living.

Someone who is about to die does not mourn the dead.

At my funeral, if one said, 'Nick was a generous person,' trust me I won't be doing cartwheels in my coffin. Recognition from people is never and never will be a goal. Some people strive for that respect or honor. Living a life to just reach for the position and status is vanity and sin.

Of present fame think little, and of future less; the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.

Funerals are a pagan rite. There's not any doubt about it.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment's grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one's life.

I'm more interested in the meaning of funerals and the mourning that people do. It's not a retail experience. It's an existential one.

These funerals always appear to me the more indecent in a populous city, from the total indifference of the beholders, and the perfect unconcern with which they are beheld.