Not only a saying: science. As long as you can walk 1.36 m/s (about 5 km/hour), the grim reaper will never catch up with you. 0.82 m/s (about 3km/hour) already makes you mostly safe (http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d7679)
It's nice to see an editor for the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) has a sense of humor. I wasn't expecting to see Pratchett T. as the first citation in a (somewhat) serious medical journal article.