Other related topics at:
Death and Mourning
5. Death; Friendship; Mourning
I have ever since [since his wife's death] seemed to myself
broken off from mankind; a kind of solitary wanderer in the wild
of life, without any direction, or fixed point of view: a gloomy
gazer on the world to which I have little relation. Yet I would
endeavor, by the help of you and your brother, to supply the want
of a closer union, by friendship: and hope to have long the
pleasure of being, dear Sir, most affectionately yours...
Boswell: Life
Link
13. Death; Disease; Mourning; War
I should be sorry to think that what engrosses the attention of
my friend, should have no part of mine. 
Your mind is now full of
the fate of Dury; but his fate is past, and nothing remains but
to try what reflection will suggest to mitigate the terrours of a
violent death, which is more formidable at first glance, than on
a nearer and more steady view. A violent death is never very
painful; the only danger is, lest it should be unprovided. But
if a man can be supposed to make no provision for death in war,
what can be the state which would have awakened him to the care
of futurity? When would that man have prepared himself to die,
who went to seek death without preparation? What then can be the
reason why we lament more him that dies of a wound, than him that
dies of a fever? A man that languishes with disease, ends his
life with more pain, but with less virtue: he leaves no example
to his friends, nor bequeaths any honour to his descendants. The
only reason why we lament a Soldier's death, is, that we think he
might have lived longer; yet this cause of grief is common to
many other kinds of death, which are not so passionately
bewailed. The truth is, that every death is violent which is the
effect of accident; every death which is not gradually brought
on by the miseries of age, or when life is extinguished for any
other reason than that it is burnt out. He that dies before
sixty, of a cold or consumption, dies, in reality, by a violent
death; yet his death is borne with patience, only because the
cause of his untimely end is silent and invisible. Let us
endeavor to see things as they are, and then enquire whether we
ought to complain. Whether to see life as it is, will give us
much consolation, I know not; but the consolation which is drawn
from truth if any there be, is solid and durable: that which may
be derived from errour, must be, like its original, fallacious
and fugitive.
Johnson: Letter to Bennet Langton
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19. Death
"Those who have endeavoured to teach us to die well, have taught
few to die willingly; yet I cannot but hope that a good life
might end at least in a contented death."
Johnson: Letter to Baretti (June 10, 1761)
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82. Death
Boswell: "But is not the fear of death natural to man?"
Johnson: "So much so, Sir, that the whole of life is but
keeping away the thoughts of it."
Boswell: Life
Link
83. Death; Mourning
Boswell: "But suppose now, Sir, that one of your intimate
friends were apprehended for an offence for which he might be
hanged." Johnson: "I should do what I could to bail him,
and give him any other assistance; but if he were once fairly
hanged, I should not suffer." Boswell: "Would you eat
your dinner that day, Sir?" Johnson: "Yes, Sir, and eat
it as if he were eating it with me. Why, there's Baretti, who is
to be tried for his life to-morrow, friends have risen up for him
on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat
a slice of plum-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetick feeling
goes a very little way in depressing the mind."
Boswell: Life
Link
87. Death
To my question, as to whether we might fortify our minds for the
approach of death, he answered in a passion, "No, Sir, let it
alone. It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act
of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time." He
added, with an earnest look, "A man knows it must be so, and
submits. It will do him no good to whine."
Boswell: Life
Link
146. After-life; Death
Of a Jamaica gentleman, then lately dead -- "He will not, whither
he is now gone (said Johnson), find much difference, I believe,
either in the climate or the company."
Piozzi: Anecdotes
Link
156. Death; Mourning
The truth is, nobody suffered more from pungent sorrow at a
friend's death than Johnson, though he would suffer no one else
to complain of their losses in the same way; "for (says he) we
must either outlive our friends you know, or our friends must
outlive us; and I see no man that would hesitate about the
choice."
Piozzi: Anecdotes
Link
234. After-life; Death; Mortality;
Religion
I mentioned to Dr. Johnson, that David Hume's persisting in his
infidelity, when he was dying, shocked me much. Johnson:
"Why should it shock you, Sir? Hume owned he had never read the
New Testament with attention. Here then was a man, who had been
at no pains to inquire into the truth of religion, and had
continually turned his mind the other way. It was not to be
expected that the prospect of death would alter his way of
thinking, unless God should send an angel to set him right." I
said, I had no reason to believe that the thought of annihilation
gave Hume no pain. Johnson: "It was not so, Sir. He had
a vanity in being thought easy. It is more probable that he
should assume an appearance of ease, than that so very probable a
thing should be, as a man not afraid of going (as, in spite of
his delusive theory, he cannot be sure but he may go,) into an
unknown state, and not being uneasy at leaving all he knew. And
you are to consider, that upon his own principle of annihilation
he had no motive to speak the truth."
Boswell: Life
Link
235. Death; Mortality
I ventured to tell him, that I had been, for moments in my life,
not afraid of death; therefore I could suppose another man in
that state of mind for a considerable space of time. He said,
"he never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him."
He added, that it had been observed, that scarce any man dies in
publick, but with apparent resolution; from that desire of
praise which never quits us. I said, Dr. Dodd seemed to be
willing to die, and full of hopes of happiness. "Sir, (said he,)
Dr. Dodd would have given both his hands and both his legs to
have lived. The better a man is, the more afraid he is of death,
having a clearer view of infinite purity."
Boswell: Life
Link
275. After-life; Damnation; Death;
Salvation
I expressed a horrour at the thought of death. Mrs.
Knowles: "Nay, thou should'st not have a horrour for what is
the gate of life." Johnson (standing upon the hearth
rolling about, with a serious, solemn, and somewhat gloomy air,)
"No rational man can die without uneasy apprehension." Mrs.
Knowles: "The Scriptures tell us, 'The righteous shall have
hope in his death.'" Johnson: "Yes, Madam; that
is, he shall not have despair. But, consider, his hope of
salvation must be founded on the terms on which it is promised
that the mediation of our Saviour shall be applied to us,
--namely, obedience; and where obedience has failed, then, as
suppletory to it, repentance. But what man can say that his
obedience has been such, as he would approve in another, or even
in himself upon close examination, or that his repentance has not
been such as to require being repented of? No man can be sure
that his obedience and repentance will obtain salvation."
Mrs. Knowles: "But divine intimation of acceptance may be
made to the soul." Johnson: "Madam, it may; but I
should not think the better of a man who should tell me on his
death-bed he was sure of salvation. A man cannot be sure himself
that he has divine intimation of acceptance; much less can he
make others sure that he has it." Boswell: "Then, Sir,
we must be contented to acknowledge that death is a terrible
thing." Johnson: "Yes, Sir, I have made no approaches to
a state which can look on it as not terrible." Mrs.
Knowles (seeming to enjoy a pleasing serenity in the
persuasion of benignant divine light,) "Does not St. Paul say, 'I
have fought the good fight of faith, I have finished my course;
henceforth is laid up for me a crown of life'?" Johnson:
"Yes, Madam; but here was a man inspired, a man who had been
converted by supernatural interposition." Boswell: "In
prospect death is dreadful; but in fact we find that people die
easy." Johnson: "Why, Sir, most people have not
thought much of the matter, so cannot say much, and
it is supposed they die easy. Few believe it certain they are
then to die; and those who do, set themselves to behave with
resolution, as a man does who is going to be hanged. He is not
the less unwilling to be hanged."
Boswell: Life
Link
346. After-life; Death
"No wise man will be contented to die, if he thinks he is to go
into a state of punishment. Nay, no wise man will be contented
to die, if he thinks he is to fall into annihilation: for
however unhappy any man's existence may be, he yet would rather
have it, than not exist at all. No, there is no rational
principle by which a man can die contented, but a trust in the
mercy of God, through the merits of Jesus Christ."
Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
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353. Death
"If one was to think constantly of death, the business of life
would stand still."
Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
Link
383. Death; Mortality
"Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a
fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
Boswell: Life
Link
844. Death
"The death of great men is not always proportioned to the lustre
of their lives."
Johnson: Pope (Lives of the Poets)
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874. After-life; Death
Milton has judiciously represented the father of mankind
as seized with horror and astonishment at the sight of death,
exhibited to him on the mount of vision; for surely nothing can
so much disturb the passions or perplex the intellects of man as
the disruption of his union with visible nature; a separation
from all that has hitherto delighted or engaged him; a change
not only of the place but the manner of his being; an entrance
into a state not simply which he knows not, but which perhaps he
has not faculties to know; an immediate and perceptible
communication with the Supreme Being, and, what is above all
distressing and alarming, the final sentence and unalterable
allotment."
Johnson: Rambler #78 (December 15, 1750)
Link
875. Death; Mourning; Familiarity
"We, to whom the shortness of life has given frequent occasions
of contemplating mortality, can, without emotion, see generations
of men pass away, and are at leisure to establish modes of
sorrow and adjust the ceremonial of death. We can look upon
funeral pomp as a common spectacle, in which we have no concern,
and turn away from it to trifles and amusements, without
dejection of look or inquietude of heart."
Johnson: Rambler #78 (December 15, 1750)
Link
1,165. Death; Fear; Mortality
"To be always afraid of losing life is, indeed, scarcely to enjoy
a life that can deserve the care of preservation. He that once
indulges idle fears will never be at rest. Our present state
admits only of a kind of negative security; we must conclude
ourselves safe when we see no danger, or none inadequate to our
powers of opposition. Death, indeed, continually hovers about
us, but hovers commonly unseen, unless we sharpen our sight by
useless curiosity."
Johnson: Rambler #126 (June 1, 1751)
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1,219. Death; Truth; Writing
"In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath."
Boswell: Life of Johnson
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1,473. Death; Old Age
"A few years make such havoc in human generations that we soon
see ourselves deprived of those with whom we entered the world,
and whom the participation of pleasures or fatigues had endeared
to our remembrance."
Johnson: Rambler #203 (February 25, 1752)
Link
1,867. Death; Mortality; Old Age
"Every funeral may justly be considered as a summons to prepare
for that state, into which it shews us that we must sometime
enter; and the summons is more loud and piercing, as the even of
which it warns us is at less distance. To neglect at any time
preparation for death, is to sleep on our post at a siege, but to
omit it in old age, is to sleep at an attack."
Johnson: Rambler #78 (December 15, 1750)
Link
