quotations about immortality
Without a belief in personal immortality, religion surely is like an arch resting on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an abyss.
MAX MULLER
Chips from a German Workshop
Immortality no longer interests the weary old man at all.
MILAN KUNDERA
Immortality
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.
C. S. LEWIS
The Weight of Glory
There are two kinds of immortality; that which the soul really enjoys after this life, and that imaginary existence by which men live in their fame and reputation. The best and greatest actions have proceeded from the prospect of the one or the other of these.
JOSEPH ADDISON
"On Immortality", Essays, Moral and Humorous
O glorious immortality! it is thine alone, to maintain the rights of virtue and humanity. Without thee, the beasts were our superiors, and the worst of men would have the advantage of the best in numberless instances. The dying raptures of the saints and of martyrs, and the misgiving horrors of the ungodly, are inspired by thee alone. And though thou wert a gay chimera, and but a pleasing deceit; yet were it the interest of mankind to hold thee fast, to refuse to let thee go.
WILLIAM MCEWEN
Select Essays
Man by his nature is an unnatural animal. If any creature stands a chance of defeating death, it is man.
TOM ROBBINS
Jitterbug Perfume
Each one of us is inhabited. With what wonderful respect we would look upon every human being, if we thought of that invisible Psyche who dwells within him and who causes him to be what he is, and who will endure longer than the world, endure always, after these poor bones are reduced to dust! How can our eyes contemplate any human person without seeking anxiously after the eternal mystery which is living in him? The first Christians kissed the breasts of their children with awe and veneration, thinking of that eternal presence within them. They had some idea, some awareness, less fickle than ours, of the immortality of the human soul.
JACQUES MARITAIN
"The Immortality of Man"
Life-span extension has now become a respectable (if modest) goal of the drug discovery process, and the search is not limited to longevity genes. William Andrews, who left Geron when the company shifted its focus from aging to cancer research, started a new company called Sierra Sciences in Reno, Nevada, and has been trying to harness the power of telomerase to rejuvenate cells, and bodies. The company claims to have discovered molecules that might transiently allow the telomerase gene to be turned on, so that people could periodically take a pill that would lengthen their telomeres, theoretically resetting the clock of cellular aging. While highly speculative and preliminary, this suggests that there may be a number of paths to the molecular fountain of youth.
STEPHEN S. HALL
Merchants of Immortality
The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease. They may even discover the germ of old age.
THOMAS EDISON
"Wizard Edison," The Newark Advocate, Jan. 2, "Wizard Edison," The Newark Advocate, Jan. 2, 1903
All aging is is the physical materials of the body wearing down. A car wears down over time too--but is its aging inevitable? If you perfectly repaired or replaced a car's parts whenever one of them began to wear down, the car would run forever. The human body isn't any different--just far more complex.
TIM URBAN
"The AI Revolution: Our Immortality or Extinction", Wait But Why, January 27, 2015
I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.
CARL SAGAN
Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
Do we currently have the knowledge and the technologies to live forever? At this precise moment in time, the answer would have to be no. We can dramatically slow down diseases and the aging process far more than most people realize, but we do not yet have the "magic bullet" to indefinitely extend human life. We now know, however, what the solution most likely will be, and there is every reason to believe that it will be available sometime in the next twenty years. It will be a drug therapy that turns on the telomerase gene in healthy somatic cells.
MICHAEL FOSSEL
The Immortality Edge
The futurologists of immortality like to imagine that life extension will be accompanied by the kind of medical wisdom and skill that will keep everyone vigorous and healthy during their extended lifetimes--certainly a laudable goal, lest we all end up like Jonathan Swift's decrepit and crabby Struldbruggs, who had "not only all the Follies and Infirmities of other old Men, but many more which arose from the dreadful Prospect of never dying." But that exceedingly improbable scenario would essentially require the simultaneous medical cure of virtually every age-related ailment that we know about. What good is curing heart attacks with stem cells, for example, if it merely preserves more elderly brains for Alzheimer's disease to steal? What good is the ability to bioengineer organs like livers and bladders if we implant them in bodies chronically incapacitated by arthritis and osteoporosis?
STEPHEN S. HALL
Merchants of Immortality
There is nothing very remarkable about being immortal; with the exception of mankind, all creatures are immortal, for they know nothing of death. What is divine, terrible, and incomprehensible is to know oneself immortal.
JORGE LUIS BORGES
"The Immortal"
Do not believe yourself healthy. Immortality is health; this life is a long sickness.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Sermons
To destroy the ideas of immortality of the soul, is to add death to death.
MME. DE SOUZA
attributed, Day's Collacon
We must be laid like a brand in the fire ... if we would gain immortal youth.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
That which is alive hath known death, and that which is dead can never die, for in the Circle of the Spirit life is naught and death is naught. Yea, all things live forever, though at times they sleep and are forgotten.
H. RIDER HAGGARD
She
If the soul be immortal, it requires to be cultivated with attention, not only for what we call the time of life, but for that which is to follow--I mean eternity; and the least neglect in this point may be attended with endless consequences.
SOCRATES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?
TERRY PRATCHETT
Going Postal