"Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, These are the seals of that most firm assurance Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength; And if, with infirm hand, Eternity, Mother of many acts and hours, should free The serpent that would clasp her with his length; These are the spells by which to reassume An empire o'er the disentangled doom."

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Culture gives us each a sense that life has meaning and that we have value - by offering us assurances of immortality. Either literally, through the heavens, the soul's afterlives or reincarnation, or by the prospect that some vestige of ourselves will persist over time - from having kids, amassing great fortunes or producing great works of art or science. Yet no culturally constructed symbolic belief system is ever powerful enough to completely eradicate the anxiety that is engendered by the awareness of death.

— Sheldon Solomon