For aging is an art. The years between its first intimations and the time of the ultimate letting go of all earthly things can-if the readiness and resolve are there-be the real harvest of our lives.
Sherwin B. NulandThe belief in the probability of death with dignity is our, and societyโs, attempt to deal with the reality of what is all too frequently a series of destructive events that involve by their very nature the disintegration of the dying personโs humanity. I have not often seen much dignity in the process by which we die.
Sherwin B. NulandEmpires fall, ids explode, great symphonies are written, and behind all of it is a single instinct that demands satisfaction.
Sherwin B. NulandWhere the despair of loneliness and poverty haunts every hour, the optimism to embark on new projects cannot find a place to alight on the brains cortex. Poverty itself is an enormous obstacle to an enlightened and enlightening - not to say healthy - old age.
Sherwin B. NulandA realistic expectation also demands our acceptance that one's allotted time on earth must be limited to an allowance consistent with the continuity of our species... We die so that the world may continue to live. We have been given the miracle of life because trillions and trillions of living things have prepared the way for us and then have died-in a sense, for us. We die, in turn, so that others may live. The tragedy of a single individual becomes, in the balance of natural things, the triumph of ongoing life.
Sherwin B. Nuland