[英国]威廉·哈兹里特/William Hazlitt
威廉·哈兹里特（1778-1830），英国散文家、评论家、画家。他曾从事过绘画，但是在柯尔雷基的鼓励下写出《论人的行为准则》，随后又写了更多的散文作品。1812年在伦敦当记者，并为《爱丁堡评论》撰稿。从其作品来看，他热衷争论，擅长撰写警句，谩骂和讽刺性的文字。他最著名的散文集是《席间闲谈》和《时代精神》。
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!
也许摆脱死亡恐惧的最佳疗法是思考生命的开始与终结。曾经我们对此没有给予关注。
为什么走到生命的尽头时，这个问题却会困扰我们？我不希望生活在一百年前，或者安妮女王时代，为什么还要为未能生活在一百年前，说不出是谁的统治时代而感到遗憾？