My thought of death

For I think myself as mortal only if I think that my death has no need of my thought of death in order to be actual. If my ceasing to be depended upon my continuing to be so that I could keep thinking myself as not being, then I would continue to agonize indefinitely, without ever actually passing away.

Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude (Continuum, 2008) p. 57