Mark Twain? Isaac Asimov? Vincent van Gogh? Harold S. Kushner? Harold S. Kushner? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: A famous author once commented on the anxiety induced by the contemplation of mortality. Here are two versions:
(1) Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born—a hundred million years—and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life.
(2) I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
U.S. humorist Mark Twain has received credit for this remark. Would you please help me to locate a citation which presents the correct phrasing?
Reply from Quote Investigator: Mark Twain died in 1910, and his two volume autobiography appeared in 1924.1 The editor was Twain’s friend and literary executor Albert Bigelow Paine who followed the deceased man’s wishes by withholding material that might cause unhappiness or pain to surviving friends and family members.
In 1958 Charles Neider who was working on a new edition of Twain’s autobiography published an article in “Harper’s Magazine” titled “Mark Twain Speaks Out”. The article contained controversial opinions that had been deliberately omitted from the 1924 edition of the autobiography. The material came from lengthy sessions of dictation Twain had engaged in during 1906 and 1907 when he was 72 years old. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:2
But I have long ago lost my belief in immortality—also my interest in it. I can say now what I could not say while alive—things which it would shock people to hear; things which I could not say when alive because I should be aware of that shock and would certainly spare myself the personal pain of inflicting it.
Twain offered an explanation for his lack of trepidation regarding his approaching demise:
Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born—a hundred million years—and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together.
There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes.
In 1959 Charles Neider completed his editing of “The Autobiography of Mark Twain”, and he published the revised and expanded edition which included the material from the “Harper’s Magazine” article.3 Thus, Twain’s comments achieved further distribution.
The inquiry above contained two versions of the quotation; however, QI has only found evidence supporting the first version. The second version was attributed to Twain in a 2006 book by Richard Dawkins. QI conjectures that the second version was derived from a paraphrase of the first version, and it was not spoken or written by Twain.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Many famous individuals have suggested that they do not fear death. For example, Vincent van Gogh penned a letter to his brother Theo in 1889 containing the following:4
But when I am in a delirium and everything I love so much is in turmoil, then I don’t mistake that for reality, and I don’t play the false prophet.
Indeed, illness or death holds no terror for me . . .
In 1986 prominent rabbi Harold S. Kushner wrote: “death holds no terror for me”. His explanation was, in part, based on faith in a benevolent deity:5
I recently turned 51, and I hope to live for many more years. But the prospect of death holds no terror for me. I have loved and been loved. I have been challenged in my personal and professional life and have managed, if not a perfect score, at least a passing grade. . . . I walk unafraid through the valley of the shadow of death, not only because God is with me now but because he has guided me to this point.
Science fiction luminary Isaac Asimov died in 1992. He wrote a short note of farewell addressed to the readers of his long-running column which appeared in “The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction”:6
It has always been my ambition to die in harness with my head face down on a keyboard and my nose caught between two of the keys, but that’s not the way it worked out.
Fortunately, I believe neither in heaven nor hell, so death holds no terrors for me . . . I have had a long and happy life and I have no complaints about the ending thereof . . .
In 2001 “Mark Twain: His Words, Wit, and Wisdom” edited by R. Kent Rasmussen included the following entry:7
c. 1907 I have long ago lost my belief in immortality—also my interest in it. … I have sampled this life and it is sufficient. . . . Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born—a hundred million years—and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together.
(Autob/AMT, ch. 49, p. 249)
In 2006 Richard Dawkins published “The God Delusion” which attributed the second version of the quotation to Twain without a citation:8
Mark Twain’s dismissal of the fear of death is another: ‘I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.’
In conclusion, Mark Twain deserves credit for the remark he spoke circa 1907 which appeared in the 1959 edition of his autobiography and in the December 1958 issue of “Harper’s Magazine”. The version of the quotation appearing in the 2006 book by Richard Dawkins is currently unsupported.
Image Notes: Illustration of a person who is searching from Warren at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Diogenes O’Sinope, Dean Gordon, Clayton Parks, and Gerard Trigo whose discussion and inquiry on Facebook led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
- 1924, Mark Twain’s Autobiography by Mark Twain, Volume 1 and 2, Edited by Albert Bigelow Paine, Harper & Brothers, New York. (Note: This edition omitted controversial material) (Verified with hardcopy) ↩︎
- 1958 December, Harper’s Magazine, Volume 217, Mark Twain Speaks Out: Four Unpublished Pieces by Mark Twain, Edited by Charles Neider, Start Page 36, Quote Page 36 and 37, Harper & Brothers, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1959, The Autobiography of Mark Twain Including Chapters Now Published For the First Time, Edited by Charles Neider, Chapter 49, Quote Page 249, Harper & Brothers, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1997, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh by Vincent van Gogh, Selected and Edited by Ronald de Leeuw, Translated by Arnold Pomerans, Chapter: Arles, Letter Date: February 3, 1889, Letter To: Theo van Gogh, Start Page 431, Quote Page 432, Penguin Books, London, England. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1986 August, Reader’s Digest, Volume 129, Number 772, Why I’m Not Afraid To Die by Harold S. Kushner, (Condensed from “When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough”), Start Page 86, Quote Page 89, The Reader’s Digest Association, Pleasantville, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1992 August, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume 83, Number 2, Farewell — Farewell — by Isaac Asimov, Quote Page 163 (Inside Back Cover), Mercury Press, Cornwall, Connecticut. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2001, Mark Twain: His Words, Wit, and Wisdom, Edited by R. Kent Rasmussen, Topic: Immortality, Quote Page 140, Gramercy Books, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2006, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, Chapter 10: A Much Needed Gap?, Quote Page 354, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Massachusetts. (Verified with scans) ↩︎