"The best end of life happened to them, and the Deity showed in their case that it is better for a man to die than to live."
"Διέδεξέ τε ἐν τούτοισι ὁ Θεὸς ὡς ἄμεινον εἴη ἀνθρώπῳ τεθάναι μᾶλλον ἢ ζώειν."—Herod., ΚΛΕΙΩ. i. 32.
"As for all other living creatures, there is not one but, by a secret instinct of nature, knoweth his owne good and whereto he is made able.... Man onely knoweth nothing unlesse hee be taught. He can neither speake nor goe, nor eat, otherwise than he is trained to it: and, to be short, apt and good at nothing he is naturally, but to pule and crie. And hereupon it is that some have been of this opinion, that better it had been, and simply best, for a man never to have been born, or else speedily to die."—Pliny's Nat. Hist. by Holland, Intr. to b. vii.
"Happy the mortal man, who now at last
Has through this doleful vale of misery passed;
Who to his destined stage has carry'd on
The tedious load, and laid his burden down;
Whom the cut brass or wounded marble shows
Victor o'er Life, and all her train of woes.
He, happier yet, who, privileged by Fate
To shorter labour and a lighter weight,
Received but yesterday the gift of breath,