威廉·哈茲裏特/William Hazlitt
Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when we were not:This gives me no concern-why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?I have no wish to have been alive a hundred years ago, or in the reign of Queen Anne. Why should I regret and lay it so much to heart that I shall not be alive a hundred years hence, in the reign of I cannot tell whom?
To die is only to be as we were born;yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea. It is rather a relief and disburthening of the mind;it seems to have been a holiday time with us then:we were not called to appear upon the stage of life, to wear robes or tatters, to laugh or cry, be hooted or applauded;we had lain perdu all this while, snug out of harm’s way;and had slept out our thousands of centuries without wanting to be waked up;at peace and free from care, in a long nonage, in a sleep deeper and calmer than that of infancy, wrapped in the softest and finest dust. And the worst that we dread is, after a short fretful, feverish being, after vain hopes, and idle fears, to sink to final repose again, and forget the troubled dream of life!
或許，死亡恐懼症的最好療法是對生命開端與終結的思索。對此，人們曾毫無認知，因而也未予以關注，於是，時而受到這樣的問題困擾——為何人的生命會到盡頭？我並不希望生活在一百年前，或是安妮女王時代，那為何要為不能長命百歲而煩惱呢？
死亡如同出生。沒有人會因思索這一永恒的主題而備感懊惱、悔恨或質疑。反之，這樣的思索是一種心靈的慰藉、頭腦的放鬆，仿佛度假一般——不會因生活而煩憂，掙紮於窘境，悲喜交織，也不會被他人貶低或讚美；我們會逃避許久，遠離傷害，裹於最輕柔細密的沙塵之中沉睡千百個世紀而不願醒來，並希望一直處於孩童時期的安逸無憂，睡得更為深沉平靜。然而，人們最怕的是，瞬間躁動後的狂熱，在無望和無意義的畏懼後又沉浸於長眠狀態，而忘記了苦苦追尋的夢想！