We all pay for life with death, so everything in between should

The words of Bill Hicks, “We all pay for life with death, so everything in between should be free,” rise like a lament and a challenge — a cry of both rebellion and compassion. Beneath the sharp wit for which Hicks was known, there lies an ancient wisdom: that the final price of existence has already been paid in full. Death is the debt we all share, the inevitable end that equalizes kings and beggars alike. If such is the cost of living, Hicks asks, how can the moments in between — the fleeting beauty of our days — be measured, bought, or sold? His words strike at the heart of material greed and awaken a deeper truth: that life itself is sacred, and its joys belong to all.

In the manner of the ancients, we might say that Hicks speaks not merely as a comedian, but as a philosopher disguised in laughter. Like Diogenes of Sinope, who lived in poverty to expose the folly of wealth and pride, Hicks used humor to reveal the tragedy of a world obsessed with ownership. When he says that everything “should be free,” he does not speak of gold or bread alone, but of the freedom to live fully — to love, to dream, to create, to seek truth without the chains of greed or fear. He is reminding humanity that the greatest treasures — compassion, joy, wonder — are beyond the marketplace, yet we imprison them daily behind walls of money and ambition.

To pay for life with death is to acknowledge that the final toll cannot be avoided. Every breath brings us closer to the end, and in that truth lies both sorrow and liberation. The ancients taught that mortality, far from being a curse, is the very root of meaning. Marcus Aurelius, the stoic emperor, once wrote: “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” Hicks’s wisdom follows the same path — it is a call to live with intensity, not fear; to give generously, not hoard; for in the brief spark between birth and death, everything we cling to will vanish but the good we share.

Consider, for example, the story of St. Francis of Assisi, who renounced his father’s wealth to walk barefoot among the poor. He had once been rich, armored in comfort, but found only emptiness. When he stripped himself of possession, he found freedom, for he no longer needed to pay for life with anything but love. The birds were his choir, the sun his friend, and the earth his home. In living without grasping, he lived more fully than the princes of his age. Hicks’s words echo the same spirit — that to live rightly, one must live freely, unbound by the hunger for more.

But Hicks also speaks to the injustice of the modern world — a world where many toil endlessly for survival while a few feast without limit. His words are a rebellion against systems that turn human life into transaction, that place a price upon health, education, even time itself. When he says that everything should be free, he is not naïve; he is idealistic in the most sacred sense — recalling the ancient dream that the earth’s bounty was meant to be shared, not hoarded. The “free” he envisions is not the absence of effort, but the presence of fairness, of dignity, of shared humanity.

At its heart, this quote is not merely social critique — it is spiritual instruction. It reminds us that all our striving, all our anxiety over wealth and power, ends in dust. The only true currency of life is how deeply we love and how freely we give. To live as if everything must be earned is to live as a slave; to live as if everything is gift is to live as a soul awakened. Hicks’s voice, though clothed in humor, carries the thunder of ancient prophets who told kings to remember their mortality, who warned that greed is the slowest form of death.

So let this teaching be carried forward like a torch: Live as though you owe nothing and own nothing, except your time and your kindness. Give without measure, forgive without demand, and cherish the passing days as sacred coins that cannot be spent twice. Refuse to be caged by fear of loss or the illusion of wealth. For the grave awaits us all, but before that hour comes, we are free — free to create beauty, to laugh, to uplift, to love. That is what Hicks meant: that if death is the price of life, then the only fitting response is to live richly in spirit, and to let every moment — like every soul — be free.