Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right. From his speech at Stanford University during graduation in the spring of 2005.

Death is the destination we all share, no one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life.