Full Idea
We do not regard the period before we were born in the same way that we regard the prospect of death.
Gist of Idea
We don't worry about the time before we were born the way we worry about death
Source
Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], XI.3)
Book Reference
Nagel,Thomas: 'The View from Nowhere' [OUP 1989], p.228
A Reaction
This is a challenge to Epicurus, who said death is no worse than pre-birth. This idea may be true of the situation immediately post-death, but a thousand years from now it is hard to distinguish them.