Impermanence

Shakyamuni Buddha said,

All component things are perishable; work diligently on your own salvation.

Last words

"Components," or "aggregates," that represent the body and the mind: (1) form, (2) feeling, (3) conception, (4) impulse, and (5) consciousness. In the physical sense, form is the physical body and consciousness is the faculty of awareness. By realization that the five components are intrinsically empty, one can escape all suffering

Though you hold fast, you cannot stay.
What benefit is there
In being frightened and scared
Of what is unalterable?

This life disappears only very quickly
Like something written in water with a stick.

According to the basic law of impermanence, whether death will occur in order of seniority or in the reverse is unpredictable. All things must pass. Nothing stays forever. Few believe this, even if someone teaches and exhorts them. And so the stream of birth-and-death continues everlastingly.

A place to stay untouched by death
Does not exist.
It does not exist in space, it does not exist in the ocean,
Nor if you stay in the middle of a mountain.

All to soon, this body will lie on the ground cast off, bereft of consciousness, like a useless scrap of wood.

Human life may not last from one breath to the next.

This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is a flash of lightning in the sky. Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.

Death is a temporary end of a temporary phenomenon.

If you ask, does man live beyond death, I answer No, not in any sense comprehensible to the mind of man which itself dies at death, and if you ask, does a man altogether die at death, I answer No, for what dies is what belongs to this world of form and illusion.

When one of the parents, children, brothers, sisters, husband or wife dies, those surviving mourn over the loss, and their attachment to the deceased persists. Deep sorrow fills their hearts and, grief-stricken, they mournfully think of the departed. Days pass and years go by, but their distress goes on. Even if someone teaches them the Way, their minds are not awakened. Brooding over fond memories of the dead, they cannot rid themselves of attachment. Being ignorant, inert, and illusion-bound, they are unable to think deeply, to keep their self-composure, to practice the Way with diligence, and to dissociate themselves from worldly matters. As they wander here and there, they come to their end and die before entering on the Way.

Some die in the womb,
Others at birth,
Still others when they can crawl,
Some when they can walk.

Some are old,
Others are adults,
Going one by one
Like fruit falling to the ground.

- end of quotes from Shakyamuni Buddha. -

Your life dwells among the causes of death
Like a lamp standing in a strong breeze.

Nagarjuna's Precious Garland

It is crucial to be mindful of death - to contemplate that you will not remain long in this life. If you are not aware of death, you will fail to take advantage of this special human life that you have already attained.

His Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama

If death did not exist, there would be an unbearable accumulation of memories. People come and go, the memories are wiped out therefore, there is a sense of balance.

Nisargadatta

Everyone dies, but no one is dead.

Tibetan saying

Nobody is born or dies at any time; it is the mind that conceives its birth and death and its migration to other bodies and other worlds

Yoga Vasistha