A nearly empty glass hourglass stands upright on pale grey ground with a tiny golden grain at its narrow centre.

Original artwork, not a still

Arthur Schopenhauer

After your death you will be what you were before your birth.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The statement equates the condition after death with the condition before birth. Its symmetry offers a way of thinking about mortality by looking backward as well as forward. The comparison is presented as a conviction, without describing either condition or establishing what happens after death.

Context reviewed

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