“Our biggest desire is to live forever. But when we are freed from this body, we will not wish to come back. Is there such a child who, once born, would like to return to the womb of his mother? Is there a man who, freed from prison, would like to return to it? In the same way, a person would not be afraid about the future liberation from his body, if he is not connected too closely with this material life.”
Tables Of The Babids, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 212)
Immortality Quotes
“Millions of persons long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy afternoon.”
Susan Ertz, via Sunbeams (Page 75)
“Were you to live three thousand years, or even a countless multiple of that, keep in mind that no one ever loses a life other than the one they are living, and no one ever lives a life other than the one they are losing. The longest and the shortest life, then, amount to the same, for the present moment lasts the same for all and is all anyone possesses. No one can lose either the past or the future, for how can someone be deprived of what’s not theirs?”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 85)
“If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my hand not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that i possess, yes even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing. This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive; it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance. Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.”
St. Paul, 1 Corinthians, via Sunbeams (Page 47)
“You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply—though all the while that very day… may be your last.” ~ Seneca, via Essential Zen Habits (Page 22)
“It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent, when they are not.”
Thich Nhat Hanh | Read Matt’s Blog on this Quote ➜
“We are often sad and suffer a lot when things change, but change and impermanence have a positive side. Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Life itself is possible. If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat. If your daughter is not impermanent, she cannot grow up to become a woman. Then your grandchildren would never manifest. So instead of complaining about impermanence, we should say, ‘Warm welcome and long live impermanence.’ We should be happy. When we can see the miracle of impermanence, our sadness and suffering will pass.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
“A man is really a mature man when he has come to this conclusion: ‘If death is happening to everybody else, then I cannot be an exception.’ Once this conclusion sinks deep into your heart, your life can never be the same again. You cannot remain attached to life in the old way. If it is going to be taken away, what is the point of being so possessive? If it is going to disappear one day, why cling and suffer? If life is not going to remain forever, then why be in such misery, anguish, worry?” ~ Osho, The Art of Living and Dying
“Long life is indeed a blessing, but maybe we overdo our concern for the length of our lives and give insufficient attention to the passion we bring to whatever time we have. The meaning and purpose of life are great mysteries, and in that light a very brief life, of only minutes, can be full and rounded. The soul has appeared in the flesh; then it returns to its home of origin.”
Thomas Moore, Original Self | ★ Featured on this book list.
“Unless you know yourself as eternal beings, part of the whole, you will remain afraid of death. The fear of death is simply because you are not aware of your eternal source of life. Once the eternity of your being is realized, death becomes the greatest lie in existence. Death has never happened, never happens, never will happen, because that which is, remains always – in different forms, on different levels, but there is no discontinuity. Eternity in the past and eternity in the future both belong to you. And the present moment becomes a meeting point of two eternities: one going toward the past, one going toward the future.” ~ Osho, Love, Freedom, Alonenss: The Koan of Relationships
“Through books you can start today where the great thinkers of yesterday left off, because books have immortalized man’s knowledge. Thinkers, dead a thousand years, are as alive in their books today as when they walked the earth.” ~ Wilfred Peterson, The Art of Living
“Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality. One learns so much just from living a lifetime. Share that knowledge with the people you come across, it can only help them in their journeys. Even more important, share your failures so that others will not repeat them.” ~ Jordan Lejuwaan, highexistence.com
“The average man does not know what to do with his life, yet wants another one which will last forever.” ~ Anatole France, Nobel Prize-Winning Novelist
