“At the same time that he is this great thing almost like a god, man is also not a god in the most crucial way possible. Gods do not die. Men die.”
- The Dark Ages, (2007) lecture by Donald Kagan
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?“ // “The final reward of the dead- to die no more.”
“One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal!” // “And if beauty is terror,” said Julian, “then what is desire? We think we have many desires, but in fact we have only one. What is it?” “To live,” said Camilla. “To live forever,” said Bunny, chin cupped in palm.”
- The Secret History, (1992) Donna Tartt
"The tree seemed more overwhelming when it lay on the ground. Its proportions more frightening, once it no longer lived.”
- The Lowland (2013), Jhumpa Lahiri
“Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.”
- A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
“In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire / That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, / As the death-bed whereon it must expire, / Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.”
- Sonnet 73, William Shakespeare
“I see, you lord it over the dead in all your power. So grieve no more at dying, great Achilles.” I reassured the ghost, but he broke out, protesting, “No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus! By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man—some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive—than rule down here over all the breathless dead.”
- The Odyssey, (Book XI) Homer
(some musings on gods, mortality and beyond; these were listed while listening to kagan’s lectures on greek tragedies)
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