quotations about death
The death anxiety of many people is fueled ... by disappointment at never having fulfilled their potential. Many people are in despair because their dreams didn't come true, and they despair even more that they did not make them come true. A focus on this deep dissatisfaction is often the starting point in overcoming death anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM
Staring at the Sun
When Death puts out our Flame, the Snuff will tell,
If we were Wax, or Tallow by the smell.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1739
Death is repose, but the thought of death disturbs all repose.
CESARE PAVESE
This Business of Living, Jun. 7, 1938
I don't necessarily view death as something negative. Death gives meaning to life. Living in fear of death is living in denial. Actually, it's not really living at all, because there is no life without death. It's two sides of the one. You can't pick up one side and say, "I'm just going to use the 'heads' side." No. It doesn't work like that. You have to pick up both sides because nothing is promised to anyone in this world besides death.
50 CENT
From Pieces to Weight
Death is the monster we all fear, yet with each day, we walk toward it, and can't help doing so; we can't help but walk toward the one thing we're most trying to avoid.
BILL MAHER
"On Being Over 50", HuffPost, Oct. 3, 2011
When I take a full view and circle of myself, without this reasonable moderator, and equal piece of justice, Death, I concieve myself the most miserable person extant; were there not another life that I hope for, all the vanities of this world should not entreat a moments breath from me.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Death fixes forever the relation existing between the departed spirit and the survivors upon earth.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
journal, Jul. 24, 1831
Remember the coffin where men
All must to dust be returning.
HENRI CAZALIS
"Always"
I don't mean to imply that I'm afraid of Death. I'm just not ready to go out on a date with him.
DEAN KOONTZ
Odd Thomas
Life is what you celebrate. All of it. Even its end.
JOANNE HARRIS
Chocolat
Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life.
CHARLES FROHMAN
his last words before going down on the Lusitania
There is no knowing beyond that membrane, the meniscus of death. What can be seen from here is distorted, refracted. All we can know are those untrustworthy glimpses--that and rumour. The prattle. The dead gossip: it is the reverberation of that gossip against the surface tension of death that the better mediums hear. It is like listening to whispered secrets through a toilet door. It is a crude and muffled susurrus.
CHINA MIéVILLE
Kraken
As men, we are all equal in the presence of death.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Maxims
Dying is an art.
Like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I have a call.
SYLVIA PLATH
Ariel
Life was to these a dream fulfilled,
And death a starry night.
HERMAN MELVILLE
"Chattanooga"
Weep strong men must,
Since all before us now is lifeless dust;
Majestic clay
Is all, good friends, death leaves to us today.
ELIZA ALLEN STARR
"Col. James A. Mulligan"
Day by day Time rolls the scroll of Life,
Yet man heeds not in worldly strife
The vanished years, till Death demands his claim--
The mound-lines of the clay that mark his name.
HARRIET MAXWELL CONVERSE
"Day by Day"
Only through the death experience could man fully understand his life experience. Only through the realization that his days on earth were finite could he grasp the importance of living those days with honor, integrity, and service to his fellow man.
DAN BROWN
The Lost Symbol
There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Resignation"
Death hides within every religion. And at any time it can flash forth--not with healing in its wings but with poison, with that which wounds.
PHILIP K. DICK
Valis