But everybody goes

English novelist Thomas Hardy was born on this day in 1840. In his novel Jude the Obscure, as his hero lay dying alone, Hardy wrote:

"Nobody came, because nobody does."

The Last of J. F. Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper, the most popular American writer of the early 19th century, died on this day in 1851, one day short of his birthday. He was born Sept. 15, 1789. He wrote:

"The tendencies of democracies are, in all things, to mediocrity."

Cioran 101

E. M. Cioran, a Romanian writer who wrote in French, died on this day in 1995. A sampling of Cioran:

"When we must make a crucial decision, it is extremely dangerous to consult anyone else, since no one sincerely wishes us well."

"Religions, like the ideologies that have inherited their vices, are reduced to crusades against humor."

"To love one's neighbor is inconceivable. Does one ask a virus to love another virus?"

"Happiness and misery make me equally wretched."

"Believing in God dispenses one from believing in anything else."

"Friendship has scope and interest only for the young. For an older person, what he dreads most is being survived by his friends."

Cioran was born in Transylvania. he said that gypsy music made him "mad with melancholy." His father was a gloomy priest. His mother's last note to him ended:

"Whatever people try to do, they'll regret it sooner or later."

For more by Cioran on death and thoughts of death, visit Farewells

Sorry I can't go with you

German writer Thomas Mann (The Magic Mountain) was born on this day in 1875. He wrote:

"What we call mourning for our dead is perhaps not so much grief at not being able to call them back as it is grief at not being able to want to do so."

For more on this subject, visit Farewells

I've no burning desire to be one

On this day in 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for heresy.

"It is too readily assumed that 'non-attachment' is not only better than a full acceptance of earthly life, but that the ordinary man only rejects it because it is too difficult; in other words, that the average human being is a failed saint. It is doubtful whether this is true.

"Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.

"If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for 'non-attachment' is a desire to escape from the pain of living." -- George Orwell.



To read about another famous death on this day, visit Farewells

At least he's consistent

Mark Twain died on this day in 1910.

"All the talk about tolerance, in anything or anywhere, is plainly a gentle lie," Twain wrote. "It does not exist. "It is in no man's heart; but it unconsciously, and by moss-grown inherited habit, drivels and slobbers from all men's lips.

"Intolerance is everything for oneself, and nothing for the other person. The mainspring of man's nature is just that — selfishness.

"Let us skip the other lies, for brevity's sake. To consider them would prove nothing, except that man is what he is — loving toward his own, lovable to his own — his family, his friends — and otherwise the buzzing, busy, trivial enemy of his race — who tarries his little day, does his little dirt, commends himself to God, and then goes out into the darkness, to return no more, and send no messages back — selfish even in death.



For more about Twain's death, visit Farewells

A dream deferred

Martin Luther King was assassinated by James Earl Ray on this day in 1968.

“But so it is, that there is a secret affinity, a hankering after, evil in the human mind…that takes a perverse delight in mischief, since it is a never-failing source of satisfaction.

"Pure good soon grows insipid…Pain is a bitter-sweet, which never surfeits. Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: Hatred alone is immortal.

"…the greatest possible good of each individual consists in doing all the mischief he can to his neighbor.” – William Hazlitt.

For more on the death of King, visit Farewells

Let's all set a goal for the New Year

Samuel Johnson, the English writer, lexicographer, critic, wit and subject of Boswell's Life of Johnson, died on this day in 1784. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

"The goal of all life is death." -- Sigmund Freud.

For some of Johnson's thoughts on the subject of death (and life leading up to it), visit farewells.blogspot.com.

The Marquis de Shame

The Marquis de Sade (Donatien Alphonse-François de Sade) died on this day in 1814. He wrote:

"I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed."

To read about the Marquis de Sade's death and last wishes, visit farewells.blogspot.com.