威廉·哈兹里特/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!
或许，死亡恐惧症的最好疗法是对生命开端与终结的思索。对此，人们曾毫无认知，因而也未予以关注，于是，时而受到这样的问题困扰——为何人的生命会到尽头？我并不希望生活在一百年前，或是安妮女王时代，那为何要为不能长命百岁而烦恼呢？
死亡如同出生。没有人会因思索这一永恒的主题而备感懊恼、悔恨或质疑。反之，这样的思索是一种心灵的慰藉、头脑的放松，仿佛度假一般——不会因生活而烦忧，挣扎于窘境，悲喜交织，也不会被他人贬低或赞美；我们会逃避许久，远离伤害，裹于最轻柔细密的沙尘之中沉睡千百个世纪而不愿醒来，并希望一直处于孩童时期的安逸无忧，睡得更为深沉平静。然而，人们最怕的是，瞬间躁动后的狂热，在无望和无意义的畏惧后又沉浸于长眠状态，而忘记了苦苦追寻的梦想！