“Death in itself is nothing; but we fear To be we know not what, we know not where.”

— John Dryden, Aureng-Zebe (1676), Act IV, sc. i

About John Dryden

1631 – 1700

English poet and playwright, the first Poet Laureate of England.

“Beware the fury of a patient man.”

“Whatever is, is in its causes just.”

“Genius must be born, and never can be taught.”

“I can state from my own experience that what people fear in death is the loneliness of having to leave this world forever.”

“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin, more even than death.”

“To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.”

“Love can defeat that nameless terror. Loving one another, we take the sting from death.”

“A propensity to hope and joy is real riches: One to fear and sorrow, real poverty.”

“We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.”