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 us no concern — why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer

Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners, “On the Fear of Death” (1821-1822)

Full text.