“IT is an odd weakness of mankind, that while death surrounds us in its myriad forms, it is never present to our minds. At funerals one only hears words of astonishment that a mortal man has died. Each brings to mind the last time he spoke with the deceased and what they had spoken about. Then, all of sudden, he was dead. And we say: How fleeting are a man’s days! But who is it that makes these observations? One who is himself a man; one who does not apply the lesson to himself; one who is not mindful of his own destiny. Or, if some transitory desire to prepare himself for death passes through the mind, he soon casts off such gloomy thoughts. It may even be said that mortals take no less care to bury the thoughts of death than they do the dead themselves.”
— Bousset
