“The necessity of holding the resurrection arises from this — that man may obtain the last end for which he was made. This cannot be accomplished in this life, nor in the life of the separated soul … it is necessary for the selfsame man to rise again; and this is effected by the selfsame soul being united to the selfsame body. For otherwise there would be no resurrection properly speaking, if the same man were not reformed.”

"We ought," said Socrates, "to ask ourselves this: what sort of thing is it that would naturally suffer the fate of being dispersed? For what sort of thing should we fear this fate, and for what should we not? When we have answered this, we should next consider to which class the soul belongs; and then we shall know whether to feel confidence or fear about the fate of our souls."

"Quite true."

"Would you not expect a composite object or a natural compound to be liable to break up where it was put together? And ought not anything which is really incomposite be the one thing of all others which is not affected in this way?"

"What is incorruptible must also be ingenerable. The soul, therefore, if immortal, existed before our birth. And if the former existence nowise concerned us, neither will the latter."

“If it happens that people are to suffer unhappiness and pain in the future, they themselves must exist at that future time for harm to be able to befall them. Since death takes away this possibility by preventing the existence of those who might have been visited by troubles, you may be sure that there is nothing to fear in death. Those who no longer exist cannot become miserable, and it makes not one speck of difference whether or not they have ever been born once their mortal life has been snatched away by deathless death.

Look back at the time before our birth. In this way Nature holds before our eyes the mirror of our future after death. Is this so grim, so gloomy?”