Will Rogers on dying

When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep.  Not screaming like all the passengers in his car. 

~ Will Rogers

Olivia Newton-John on her cancer struggle

I look at my cancer journey as a gift: It made me slow down and realise the important things in life and taught me to not sweat the small stuff.

~ Olivia Newton-John, 1948-2022

Kevin Duffy compares Covid-19 to other fatality risks

Thanks in part to all of the confusion (fake news, politicized science), most people have overestimated the risk of death from the coronavirus. If you're under the age of 50, your chances of dying from the coronavirus if infected are less than 1 in 5,000. Assuming you have a 20% chance of getting infected over your lifetime, the odds of dying are 1 in 25,000. And this assumes our ability to treat this disease doesn't  improve and herd immunity won't reduce the risk of infection. 

How does Covid compare to other fatality risks over a lifetime? 

heart disease = 1 in 6 

cancer = 1 in 7

drug overdose = 1 in 98

car accident = 1 in 106

choking on food = 1 in 2,618

sunstroke = 1 in 7,770

bee sting = 1 in 54,000

dog attack = 1 in 119,000

lightning = 1 in 181,000

plane crash = 1 in 250,000?

Despite these risks, we still drive, fly, own pets, go outside and put unhealthy things into our bodies.

~ Kevin Duffy

Alex Epstein on the "living death" of Covid-19 panic

Some people with [the coronavirus] are afraid of death.  I'm afraid of living death.  I'm afraid of a decade or more where we lose because we're just in this state of panic and we no longer produce value and we're no longer free to interact with one another and we're just perpetually terrified of this virus.  That's what I'm afraid of most of all.

~ Alex Epstein, podcast host of Power Hour, "Lockdowns vs. Human Flourishing: Is There Another Approach?," The Tom Woods Show, April 6, 2020

Robert Higgs on the coronavirus

As for coronavirus disease, there's good news and bad news. First the good news: the odds that you will die of this cause are very low. Now the bad news: even if you don't die of coronavirus disease you will die of something else, sooner or later.

Did you really think you would be the exception to the rule?

~ Robert Higgs, Facebook post, March 9, 2020

Ben Franklin on life and death

Most men die at 25, we just don't bury them until they are 70.

~ Ben Franklin

Yogi Berra on the value of going to funerals

You should always go to other people's funerals. Otherwise they won't come to yours.

~ Yogi Berra

(Baseball legend Yogi Berra died September 22nd at the age of 90.)

Anais Nin on death

I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.

~ Anais Nin

Lew Rockwell on socialism and mass murder

[Socialism] was tried in the 20th century. It produced economic stagnation and despair. In its purest form, it extinguished more than one hundred million people.

— Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr., “Beating Back Obamanomics” LewRockwell.com, March 6, 2009

Samuel Johnson on mental focus

Nothing focuses the mind like an impending hanging.

~ Samuel Johnson

Mark Twain on his death

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

~ Mark Twain in a May, 1897 note to the New York Journal. This is widely misquoted.