Life is rather a state of embryo, - a preparation for life. A man is not completely born until he has passed through death. [ Franklin ]

Birth into this life was the death of the embryo life that preceded, and the death of this will be birth into some new mode of being. [ Rev. Dr. Hedge ]

It takes twenty years to bring man from the state of embryo, and from that of a mere animal, as he is in his first infancy, to the point when his reason begins to dawn. It has taken thirty centuries to know his structure; it would take eternity to know something of his soul; it takes but an instant to kill him. [ Voltaire ]