Fear of death

“ All at once this man, heretofore so sure, so self-sufficient, so incredulous of anything except his own continued glory and happiness and life, was face to face with the first fear—the simple, primitive fear of death. ”

“ Tell me where I can escape death; discover for me the country, show me the men to whom I must go, whom death does not visit. Discover to me a charm against death. If I have not one, what do you wish me to do? I cannot escape from death. Shall I not escape from the fear of death, but shall I die lamenting and trembling? ”

“ After the first sight—after that sharp, quivering intake of breath—the gaze of the condemned man shifts about the room. His expression haunts one. You feel that it is both all-seeing and unseeing. The fear of death—a definite emotion—is here portrayed in a fashion that but few have beheld. There is utter finality in that look. ”

“ The Fear of Death often proves mortal, and sets People on Methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them. ”

“ He was finally obsessed by a religious mania, became a mystic, and sought salvation by fasting and self-denial. Fear of death was a life-long obsession and he strove to conquer both love and death together by seeking and defying the latter. ”

“ As for us, we behave like a herd of deer. When they flee from the huntsman’s feathers in affright, which way do they turn? What haven of safety do they make for? Why, they rush upon the nets! And thus they perish by confounding what they should fear with that wherein no danger lies. . . . Not death or pain is to be feared, but the fear of death or pain. Well said the poet therefore:—
Death has no terror; only a Death of shame! ”

“ One might call it a condemned person, a being so terrified by the approach of death that all the blood has rushed to the heart. It is a spirit frozen with fear, the eyes looking toward the unknown, the large nostrils scenting death. ”

“ And the fear of death with us does not come from the nerves, but from the will. Death ushers us into the presence of God. Those of whom we speak hate and fear death because they fear God, and hate His presence. ”

“ I fear'd with life to die, by death to live;
I left my guide,—now left, and leaving God;
To breathe in bliss I fear'd my breath to give,
I fear'd for heavenly sign an earthly rod;
These fears I fear'd, fears feeling no mishaps.
Oh! fond, oh! faint, oh! false, oh! faulty lapse!
How can I live, that thus my life denied?
What can I hope, that lost my hope in fear?
What trust in one, that truth itself defied?
What good in him, that did his God forswear?
O sin of sins! of ills the very worst ”

“ We grow ashamed of our distresses, new and hot and coarse, like villainous roadside brandy; we see life in aerial perspective, under the heavens of faith; and out of the worst, in the mere presence of contented elders, look forward and take patience. Fear shrinks before them ‘like a thing reproved,’ not the flitting and ineffectual fear of death, but the instant, dwelling terror of the responsibilities and revenges of life. ”

“ I might conclude this fragment with some comment on the Fear of Death. The dread of death is an instinct common to all humanity. Its counterpart is the instinct of self-preservation, the resolve to live. It is not concerned with the question of physical pain or distress, but is the fear of extinction, a dread of leaving the world, with its loves, its friendships and its cherished individual affairs, with perhaps hopes unrealized and projects incomplete. It is a dread of which the young know little. To them life is eternal. ”

“ Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him? ”

“ Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die. ”

“ When the spirit of death is seen, the body of death vanishes from us. Death is God's angel of birth. We fear him. The dying stretches out loving hands of hope towards him. I do not believe that death is to the dying the dreadful thing it looks to the beholders. ”

“ When you see that death is inevitable will you not turn away from your errors?"
"He gives me strength to overcome death; I fear it not. I look upon death itself as but a change from this life of sorrow to an immortality of bliss. Whether I die by the wild beasts or by the flames it will be all the same. If I continue faithful he will support me and lead my soul at once to immortal life in heaven. The death which you threaten me with has no terrors; but the life to which you invite me is more terrible to me than a thousand deaths." ”

“ Death, with its mystery and threat, brought its awesome fear like a wave, with an impetus acquired from rolling down past generations, to minds prepared to quail before it in momentary surrender. From the distant and impersonal, it suddenly loomed out of the fog of the mysterious unknown real, and made real by a mind trained to present truth as it is, and became close and personal. ”

“ As it is by the fear of death, and of eternal torment after death, that human life is most disturbed, it is necessary to explain the nature of the soul, and to show that it perishes in death along with the body. ”

“ He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. "Where is it? What death?" There was no fear because there was no death.
In place of death there was light. ”

“ Death, as an event which is bound to come soon or late, should be regarded without fear. The tremors it excites are like the shuddering of children at a tragic mask of Gorgon or Fury. Turn the mask, and the terror is gone.2610 For what is death? ”

“ A true saying, Timor mortis, morte pejor, the fear of death is worse than death itself, and the memory of that sad hour, to some fortunate and rich men, “is as bitter as gall,” Eccl. ”

“ There is, of course, a fear of death which is altogether natural. Many dread death who pretend not to believe in a future life, or even in the existence of God. And many there are whose lives are holy, and who have not whereof they ought to fear, but for whom, nevertheless, the very thought of death is fraught with all manner of terrors. ”

“ Works Death such change upon our dead,
Doth it such awe around them spread,
That should they suddenly appear,
At once we’d shrink from them with fear,
Though on their breast we laid our head?
Why should their light and ghostly tread
Thus thrill us with a nameless dread,
If still we hold them all so dear?
Works Death such change? ”

“ When I tell you I feel sure your phantom of approaching death is unreal, I am telling you a truth deduced from hard study, and than which no other conclusion could arrive. Of this I give you my most sacred assurance. Put this thought out of your mind as you would recoil from any adverse suggestion. The fact is, very few deaths are natural: they are the result of fear. ”

“ We grope in vain. We strain our eyes in vain. “Oh, death is, after all, a fearful thing,” so we say with the old cringing fear that clings to the known, the familiar scene, and abhors the untravelled bourne. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIII RADIANCIES OF DEATH
For centuries the human mind has been afraid, disturbed, distressed, at the thought of death; the uncertainty of the beyond; "shall we know each other there?" and the thousand and one questions that have arisen as to what life, if any, there is beyond the grave. Years ago, in my own innerness, all sense of fear, of disturbance, of distress at the thought of death vanished, never again to appear. I have no resentment at the thought of death, either for myself, or those I love. ”

“ The most rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of death is to set a just value on life. ”

“ If this be so, there is also nothing disagreeable in death—only in the fearthought about it—and hence the one only bull's-eye we have been sure of hitting—the cause of fear of death—does not exist, except in our hopes or our fears. ”

“ And in these short and violent deaths, the consequence that I foresee administers more consolation to me than the effect does fear. They say, that as life is not better for being long, so death is better for being not long. I do not so much evade being dead, as I enter into confidence with dying. I wrap and shroud myself into the storm that is to blind and carry me away with the fury of a sudden and insensible attack. ”

“ But there is another and separate agency through which the fear of death may happen to act as a disturbing force, and most irregularly as viewed in relation to moral courage and strength of mind. This anomalous force is the imaginative and shadowy terror with which different minds recoil from death—not considered as an agony or torment, but considered as a mystery, and, next after God, as the most infinite of mysteries. ”

“ Are there any here who fear to die? Are there any who shrink and tremble when they think they may be the next it may please the Lord to call? My Christian brethren, think awhile, and such thoughts will cease to appal you. To the heathen alone is death the evil spirit, the blackening shadow which, when called to mind, will poison his dearest joys! ”

“ As imagination grew it is likely that the fear of death increased until the Folk that were to come projected this fear into the dark and peopled it with spirits. ”

“ Death is a change of consciousness, a change of that which I can recognise as myself. And therefore fear of death is a horrible superstition. Death is a joyous event standing at the [261] end of each life. Suffering is sent to people to hold them back from death. Otherwise every one understanding life and death, would struggle towards death. But now it is impossible to go towards death unless through suffering. ”

“ It is absolutely impossible to give even a faint idea of the horror, the agony, the heart-rending terror that harrowed up his soul, whenever the thought of death flashed across his mind. He received me with phrensied ardour, in which hope and fear were strongly depicted. ”

“ Wave rolling after wave was all that answered back again.
But night and morn and noon they prayed—oh blessed voice of prayer!
That God would bring their trembling souls out of this great despair.
Again the fatal die was cast; a man of powerful frame
Slowly and with reluctant step to the dread summons came.
Large drops of anguish on his brow—his lips were white with fear—
Oh 'tis a dreadful death to die! Is there no succor near? ”

“ Have you not, lastly, often read, and as often been told, that bodily death is one of the most tremendous evils which man has to fear, and consequently to be dreaded as the scourge of all scourges, and the plague of all plagues, in the long catalogue of human miseries? ”

“ Why be afraid of death as tho your life were breath?
Death but anoints your eyes with clay. O, glad surprize!
Why should you be forlorn? Death only husks the corn.
Why should you fear to meet the Thresher of the wheat?
Is sleep a thing to dread? Yet sleeping you are dead
Till you awake and rise, here, or beyond the skies.
Why should it be a wrench to leave your wooden bench?
Why not with happy shout run home when school is out? [163]
The dear ones left behind—O foolish one and blind. ”

“ At this my perplexity grew deeper than ever, for such an explanation as this only served to make the mystery greater.
"Here," said she, "no one understands what it is to fear death. They all love it and long for it; but everyone wishes above all to die for others. ”

“ It is, in a word, mere poetry, inspired by fear and unguided by philosophy.
Death has been shown in the guise of a fowler spreading his net, setting his snares for men. But this image concerns itself with the accidents of the subject, the unexpectedness of the fatal blow, the treacherous springing of the trap, leaving the root of the matter untouched. The circumstances of the mortal hour are infinitely varied, the heart of the experience is unchangeably the same: there are a thousand modes of dying, but there is only one death. ”

“ For great fear and intense sadness take hold of all bodies on the day of their death, whether it be man or woman, beast wild or tame, or whatever creeps on the ground or flies in the air. At the last all creatures under heaven in whom is the breath of life are struck with horror, and their souls depart from their bodies with strong fear and great depression. Now therefore, O Lord and my God, let Thy holy angel be present with his help to my soul and body, until they shall be dissevered from each other. ”

“ Many a man will brave death, who fears it.
Death is the king of terrors, and all men stand in awe of him, saving the Christian, with his armor of righteousness about him, cap-a-pie; and even he, perhaps, is slightly pricked, by that fear, now and then, in articulo, between the joints of the harness. I must honestly confess, that I once knew a man, who had a terrible vixen of a wife, and, when about to die, he replied to his clergyman’s inquiry, if he was not afraid to meet the king of terrors, that he was not, for he had lived with the queen, for thirty years. ”

“ The deceptive interpretation of the words, the doings, and the condition of dying people; the natural fear of death, for instance, is systematically confounded with the supposed fear of what is to happen "after death." ”

“ Yes, - Death! Death will come, it will come and it ought not to come. Even in facing actual death I would certainly not feel anything of what I felt now. Then it would be simply fear, whereas now it was more than that. I was actually seeing, feeling the approach of death, and along with it I felt that death ought not to exist.
My entire being was conscious of the necessity of the right to live, and at the same time of the inevitability of dying. This inner conflict was causing me unbearable pain. I tried to shake off the horror ”

“ What then will be the feelings of the dying man when he is told that he is dying? " Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die and not live." With what fear, will he not be told that his illness is mortal, that he must make his peace with God, and receive the Blessed Sacrament, and bid farewell to the world? ”

“ We shrink from it as from any other change to the unknown, and also perhaps from an instinctive sense that the fear of death is a sine quâ non for physical and moral progress, but the fear is like all else in life, a substantial thing which, if its foundations be dug about, is found to rest on a superstitious basis. ”