quotations about death
Death happens but once, yet we feel it every moment of our lives; it is worse to dread it than to suffer it.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères
Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?
PLATO
Phaedo
My soul defense against the natural horror which death inspires, is to love beyond it.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Thoughts", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
That's life. Still the best alternative to death.
CODY MCFADYEN
The Face of Death
The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Maxims
To those who view the voyage of life from the port of departure the bark that has accomplished any considerable distance appears already in close approach to the farther shore.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"The Death of Halpin Frayser"
To will the obligatory in relation to death is to fall in line with the major immutable cycles of Nature, especially human nature, and to understand that (whether or not there is a purpose or meaning to life or a life of the spirit beyond the life of the body) no one, absolutely no one, escapes being finite and mortal. And knowing this, and then to accept it, to will it, and not to be in an unnecessary state of angst or rebellion or terror over it.
EDWIN SHNEIDMAN
A Commonsense Book of Death
Life is hard, but death is even harder.
PETER KREEFT
Between Heaven and Hell
Death is release, if you've lived all right.
EDWARD ALBEE
Seascape
Death is the only god that comes when you call.
ROGER ZELAZNY
"24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai"
Death is the veil which those who live call life;
They sleep, and it is lifted.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Prometheus Unbound
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
Here was a man who now for the first time found himself looking into the eyes of death--who was passing through one of those rare moments of experience when we feel the truth of a commonplace, which is as different from what we call knowing it, as the vision of waters upon the earth is different from the delirious vision of the water which cannot be had to cool the burning tongue. When the commonplace 'We must all die' transforms itself suddenly into the acute consciousness 'I must die--and soon,' then death grapples us, and his fingers are cruel; afterwards, he may come to fold us in his arms as our mother did, and our last moment of dim earthly discerning may be like the first.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
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
When I read obituaries I always note the age of the deceased. Automatically I relate this figure to my own age. Four years to go, I think. Nine more years. Two years and I'm dead. The power of numbers is never more evident than when we use them to speculate on the time of our dying.
DON DELILLO
White Noise
Oh! that "eternal shore,"
When Death shall be no more!
How widely differing from this mortal state,
Where we but draw our earliest breath
To yield it up again in death,
Obedient to the unchanging laws of fate!
ANNE S. BUSHBY
"Easter Morning"
Scientists have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is life after death -- though they say it's virtually impossible to get decent Chinese food.
DAVID LETTERMAN
Late Show with David Letterman, October 13, 2014
While life could be evaded, death could not.
DEAN KOONTZ
Velocity
Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
MACKEY MILLER
Mouse Attack 5!!!
So when the friends we love the best lie in their churchyard bed, we must not cry too bitterly over the happy dead; because, for our dear Saviour's sake, our sins are all forgiven; and Christians only fall asleep to wake again in Heaven.
CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER
"Child's Funeral"