Light on Aging and Dying - Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks - Week 23

This week I read Light on Aging and Dying by Helen Nearing for the 23rd week in the Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge.

The book basically is a compilation of positive quotes regarding aging and dying. After reading some of the books by Helen and her husband, Scott, and being inspired by them, I was curious to read some of the quotes that Helen had collected through the years regarding these topics.

Below are the quotes that resonated with me:

=> Anyone who stops learning is old, whether 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young. (Henry Ford)

=> I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I've got to hold up for the moment, and I want to make it  burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. (George Bernard Shaw)

=> There is only one way to get ready for immortality, and that is to live this life and live it as bravely and faithfully, and cheerfully as we can. (Henry Van Dyke)

=> No man need fear death, because the ultimate tragedy of life is not death. The ultimate tragedy of life is not having lived fully when one is alive. (Norman Cousins)

=> I think that the dying pray at the last, not "please," but "thank you," as a guest thanks his host at the door. (Annie Dillard)

=> It is really about time that age was accepted as part of life too....We are afraid of growing old. And many of us spend more than half our waking hours trying to camouflage our age....There is nothing more beautiful than an unadorned old face with the lines that tell a story, a story of a life that has been lived with some fullness. (Helen Hayes)

=> So long as we love, we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say we are indispensible. (Robert Louis Stevenson)

=> If you knew that you were going to die tonight, or merely that you would have to go away and never return, would you, looking upon men and things for the last time, see them in the same light that you have hitherto seen them? Would you not love as you never yet have loved? (Maurice Maeterlinck)

=> Do all the good you can
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
At all the times you can
To all the people you can
As long as ever you can.
(John Wesley)

=> When you were born, you cried, and the whole world rejoiced. Live such a life that when you died the world will cry and you will rejoice. (Anonymous)

=> The first part of life is for learning. The second for service, and the last is for oneself. It is a time to discover inner richness and self-development and spiritual growth. It is also a time of transition and preparation for dying. The closer we come to death, the closer we can come to reality and trust. (Gay Gaer Luce)

=> Become what you really are. (Aldous Huxley)

=> He who would be a great soul in future, must be a great soul now. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

=> You grow more selective towards the countless possibilities of life....You ask yourself: What have I neglected? What should I cultivate more? What would be more meaningful? Which time was wasted and which could be used better? You watch less television and read more - fewer newspapers and more books....Viewing life from the perspective of death, we are made freer. Seeing something for the last time is nearly as good as seeing it for the first time. (Peter Noll)

=> Each one of us is born for a specific reason and purpose, and each one of us will die when he or she has accomplished whatever was to be accomplished. The in-between depends on our own willingness to make the best of every day, or every moment, of every opportunity. The choice is always yours. (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross)

=> The character of our life is the character of our dying; both are part of one process. (Stanley Keleman)

=> Ideally, every human being ought to live each passing moment of his life as if the next moment were to be his last. He ought to be able to live in the constant expectation of immediate death and to live like this, not morbidly, but serenely. (Arnold Toynbee)

=> Any act you perform may be your last. The only thing that counts is that you perform your absolute best in anything you do, because it may very well be the last thing you do....Is this the act that I would want if it were to be my final act on earth, is a questions that will drop more pettiness and idiocy from your life than almost anything else. (David Copeland)

=> Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death be like autumn leaves. (Rabindranath Tagore)

=> What a simple thing death is, just as simple as the falling of an autumn leaf. (Vincent Van Gogh)

=> Look upon death as a going home. (Chinese proverb)

=> Death is the final stage of growth in this life. There is no total death. Only the body dies. The self or spirit...is eternal. (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross)