"We know how we were born, but know not how we will die"
About this Quote
The intent feels less philosophical than practical: a reminder that the only guaranteed information we get about our life arc is its opening scene. Everything after that, including the ending, is rumor. Subtextually, it’s an antidote to modern self-mythmaking. We live in an era of quantified selves and curated narratives, where people talk about “legacy” like it’s a brand deck. Morassutti punctures that fantasy. You can document your origin, you can even perform your identity, but you can’t storyboard your exit.
Context matters here because actors trade in endings nightly. They die onstage, get resurrected for curtain call, repeat. Real death doesn’t offer that release valve. The quote works because it compresses that backstage knowledge into a single, plainspoken sentence: certainty is always retrospective. The future remains uncast, and the one scene everyone shares is the one nobody gets to preview.
Quote Details
| Topic | Mortality |
|---|---|
| Source | Evidence:
A collection of quotes written by Italian actor Giovanni Morassutti. Giovanni Morassutti. " I believe that nowadays ... We know how we were born , but know not how we will die . " " For me personally , The Organic Creative Process ... |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Morassutti, Giovanni. (2026, February 18). We know how we were born, but know not how we will die. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-know-how-we-were-born-but-know-not-how-we-will-171439/
Chicago Style
Morassutti, Giovanni. "We know how we were born, but know not how we will die." FixQuotes. February 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-know-how-we-were-born-but-know-not-how-we-will-171439/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"We know how we were born, but know not how we will die." FixQuotes, 18 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-know-how-we-were-born-but-know-not-how-we-will-171439/. Accessed 4 Mar. 2026.









