Everything on earth changes - we have no abiding city here - it is the experience of everybody. That it is God's will that we should part with what is dearest on earth - we ourselves change in many respects, we are not what we once were, we shall not remain what we are now.

There was enough reason for it too, as the whole of France was shaken. Certainly in our eyes the election and its results and its representatives are only symbols. But what it proves once more is that worldly ambition and fame pass away, but the human heart beats the same to this day, in as perfect sympathy with the past of our buried forefathers as with the generation to come.

Better was it to go unknown and leave behind you an arch, then to burn like a meteor and leave no dust.

Perhaps the best proof of the Almighty's existence is that we never know when we are to die.

Let death find us as we are building up our matchstick protests against its waves.

When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed forever.

What God is doing is trying to help us see that there is a fight to be fought, a race to be run, something of eternal significance to be contended for. He's calling us to greater purpose, but he knows how easy it is to just eat a good meal, relax with a nice drink, and forget about the brevity of life on earth.

Feasts and business and pleasure and enjoyments seem great things to us, whilst we think of nothing else; but as soon as we add death to them they all sink into an equal littleness.

When death speaks to me, it speaks only of the beauty of life.

[W]hen the pleasure is at the sweetest, death is the nearest (461)[.]

St. Teresa of Avila described our life in this world as like a night in a second-class hotel.

Life is very precious to God. That's why He made it so fragile and so short." "That make absolutely no sense." "Yes, it does. He made it fragile so we would treasure it, just like He does. You're not nearly as careful with your cast-iron frying pans as you are with your good china, are you? God wanted life to be precious to us-so He made it as frail as fine china.