quotations about death
Brief and powerless is man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Philosophical Essays
Death hath this also; that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
It's death, that's what I'm suffering from. The systematic encroachment of the big D.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
Smiley's People
Now that you are dead,
You are splendid.
Photographs of people who have just died
Are worth twenty percent more,
And for suicides
There is an additional five percent.
Now that you are dead
You are much in demand.
KOBO ABE
The Ghost is Here
Death--a stopping of impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the cords of motion, and of the ways of thought, and of service to the flesh.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Sweet lovely death
I am waiting for your breath
Come sweet death, one last caress
METALLICA
"Last Caress"
Death is the stone into which our oblivion hardens.
PABLO NERUDA
Evening LXXVIII
Death is the condition of higher and more fruitful life.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Who knows but life be that which men call death,
And death what men call life?
EURIPIDES
Phrixus [fragment]
There is no god but death.
MAXWELL ANDERSON
Elizabeth the Queen
Death is the only god that comes when you call.
ROGER ZELAZNY
"24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai"
The only religious way to think of death is as part and parcel of life; to regard it, with the understanding and the emotions, as the the inviolable condition of life.
THOMAS MANN
The Magic Mountain
Fear ye not
The wrath of any man, nor hide your word
Within your breast: the day of death and doom
Awaits alike the freeman and the slave.
AESCHYLUS
The Libation Bearers
Death, with funereal shades in vain surrounds me,
My reason through his darkness seeth light:
'Tis the last step which brings me close to Thee:
'Tis the veil falling, 'twixt Thy face and mine.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"Prayer", Poetical Meditations
We're ever making plans for life,
But seldom plans for death,
Though death we know must come to us,
And life is but a breath.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
Thoughts
Death was everywhere,
In the air
And in the sounds
Coming off the mounds
Of Bolton's Ridge.
Death's anchorage.
When you rolled a smoke
Or told a joke,
It was in the laughter
And drinking water
It approached the beach
As strings of cutters,
Dropped in the sea and lay around us.
PJ HARVEY
"All and Everyone", Let England Shake
Life is a waste of woes,
And Death a river deep,
That ever onward flows,
Troubled, yet asleep.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
"Lines To --", Imogen and Other Poems
Tell me the truth about death. I don't know what it is. We have them, then they are gone but they stay in our minds. Their stories are part of us as long as we live and as long as we tell them or write them down.
ELLEN GILCHRIST
Good Housekeeping, May 2011
Death is the Christian's vacation morning. School is out. It is time to go home.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
What is Death? Death is the ending of life. When people die, their bodies stop working. The heart stops beating and the brain stops functioning. People have always wanted to learn the secret of living forever. In ancient times, explorers and scientists searched for the secret of eternal life. The truth is, nothing can live forever. Everyone and everything will die in time. Plants, animals, and people all die. Death is a natural part of life.
JOANNE MATTERN
Death