quotations about death
How terrible is Death to one man, yet to another it appears the greatest providence in nature; even to all ages and conditions it is the wish of some, relief of many, and the end of all. It puts us all upon a level; the prince and peasant are doomed to the same fate.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Death lies dormant in each of us and will bloom in time.
DEAN KOONTZ
Odd Thomas
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
We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream: it may be so the moment after death.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
American Note-Books, 1836
Death is simply the soul's change of residence.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Graveyards remind us of the vanity of all human endeavour.
IVAN KLIMA
Waiting for the Dark
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 stone into which our oblivion hardens.
PABLO NERUDA
Evening LXXVIII
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.
THOMAS CAMPBELL
Hallowed Ground
Death is a Dialogue between
The Spirit and the Dust.
EMILY DICKINSON
"Death is a Dialogue"
When a house has just lost its soul, a stricken silence falls over the sudden emptiness that no one will fill again. And all the noises that may be made later in that house will be like a scandalous din, ugly echoes from one room to another, from one corridor to another, sharp and discordant as if the walls are no longer able to absorb any music once the source of harmony has been taken away. But this strange detail about the power of death can only be picked up by ears that are very attentive to the smallest murmurs of life. Rational people go through these empty spaces with the serenity of a lawyer, and their indulgent smiles categorise you if you decide to point out in their presence that there is something lacking in the atmosphere.
PIERRE MAGNAN
The Messengers of Death
Taunting Death ... means pitting oneself against a wily enemy who cannot lose.
J. K. ROWLING
The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Death's gang is bigger and tougher than anyone else's. Always has been and always will be. Death's the man.
MICHAEL MARSHALL
The Upright Man
Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force.
YODA
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Death is the side of life which is turned away from us.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
letter to W. von Hulewicz, The Duino Elegies
I cannot tell you if the dead,
Who loved us fondly when on earth,
Walk by our side, sit at our hearth,
By ties of old affection led....
But this I know--in many dreams
They come to us from realms afar,
And leave the golden gates ajar
Through which immortal glory streams.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Dead"
Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
JOHN KEATS
epitaph for himself
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
Leap through the Mystery of death as the circus-rider leaps through the papered hoop ... find Life ambling along beneath us on the Other Side?
SIDNEY LANIER
Songs Against Death
Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.
SYLVIA PLATH
The Bell Jar