Quotes about Death
Most popular death quotes
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infanct, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.
The grave is a crucible where memory is purified; we only remember a dead friend by those qualities which make him regretted.
Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" — and find that there is no death.
Death lives in each one of us and begins its countdown on our birthdays and makes its rough entrance at the last hour and the perfect time.
I always thought death would come on the freeway in a few horrifying moments, so you'd have no time to sort it out. Having months and months to look at it and think about it and talk to people and hear what they have to say, it's a kind of blessing. It's certainly an opportunity to grow up and get a grip and sort it all out. Just being told by an unsmiling guy in a white coat that you're going to be dead in four months definitely turns on the lights. ... It makes life rich and poignant. When it first happened, and I got these diagnoses, I could see the light of eternity, à la William Blake, shining through every leaf. I mean, a bug walking across the ground moved me to tears.
I imagine death to be a kind of release into the imagination in the sense that for characters in a book, what we experience is an unimaginable dimension of freedom.
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
Even death is not to be feared by he who has lived wisely.
The only effort by any intelligent being in this world is to know something that can not be destroyed by death.
People sleep, and when they die, they awake.
Death is only an horizon, and an horizon is only the limit of our sight. Open our eyes to see more clearly...
For those who seek to understand it, death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death.
Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
There is but one way to be born but a hundred ways to die.
We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.
After your death you will be what you were before your birth.
Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the Horizon as the end of the ocean.
Death is on my mind every day.
The true tomb of the dead is the heart of the living.
Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end?
![[The loss of old companies is] inevitably what happens. That's why I think death is the most wonderful invention of life. It purges the system of these old models that are obsolete. I think that's one of Apple's challenges, really. When two young people walk in with the next thing, are we going to embrace it and say this is fantastic? Are we going to be willing to drop our models, or are we going to explain it away? I think we'll do better, because we're completely aware of it and we make it a priority. - Steve Jobs quote.](/img/q/19/15419A-the-loss-of-old-companies-is-inevitably-what-happens-thats-steve-jobs.png)
[The loss of old companies is] inevitably what happens. That's why I think death is the most wonderful invention of life. It purges the system of these old models that are obsolete. I think that's one of Apple's challenges, really. When two young people walk in with the next thing, are we going to embrace it and say this is fantastic? Are we going to be willing to drop our models, or are we going to explain it away? I think we'll do better, because we're completely aware of it and we make it a priority.
Death is the destination we all share, no one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything —all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
I'm sorry, it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much—if at all.
Everyone we cherish will, someday, get sick and die. If we do not practice the meditation on emptiness, when those things happen, we will be overwhelmed.
It is well, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go.
I have a very simple creed: that life and joy and beauty are better than dusty death.
Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.
There is only one way to be prepared for death: to be sated. In the soul, in the heart, in the spirit, in the flesh. To the brim.
People living deeply have no fear of death.
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
We are born in simplicity but die of complications.
Death is something we shouldn't fear because, while we are, death isn't, and when death is, we aren't.
Death is not the opposite of life but an innate part of it. By living our lives, we nurture death.
The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.
If life must not be taken too seriously, then so neither must death.
Obituaries are like near-death experiences for cowards. Reading them is a way for me to think about death while also keeping it at arm's length. Obituaries aren't really about death; they're about life. . . . Reading about people who are dead now and did things with their lives makes me want to get up and do something decent with mine. Thinking about death every morning makes me want to live.
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.
I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary notices I have read with pleasure.
Of all escape mechanisms, death is the most efficient.
Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope.
I shall never act differently, even I'll have to die for it many times.
If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive.
I can't forgive my friends for... I can't forgive my friends for dying; I don't find these vanishing acts of theirs at all amusing.
But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
May my last breath is draw through a pipe and exhale in a pun.
The general outlook is not that the person has died but that the person has lived.
It is a disturbing truth that even undertakers die sometimes.
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.
I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
Death, be not proud. By John Donne. Death, be not proud, though some have called thee. Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;. For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow. Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest," Was not spoken of the soul.
I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade.
We know the road to freedom has always been stalked by death.
If you're afraid to die, you will not be able to live.
I hope to see my Pilot face to face. When I have crost the bar.
Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.
It hath been often said, that it is not death, but dying which is terrible.
If this is dying, then I don't think much of it.
There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure that life gives us.
How can they tell?
His death was the first time that Ed Wynn ever made anyone sad.
To die in the flower of age is a life offered in sacrifice.
Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down.
For certain is death for the born. And certain is birth for the dead. Therefore over the inevitable thou shouldst not grieve.
Death is just a low chemical trick played on everybody except sequoia trees.
Death but supplies the oil for the inextinguishable lamp of everlasting life.
I can imagine myself on my death-bed, spent utterly with lust to touch the next world, like a boy asking for his first kiss from a woman.
The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns.
I believe that when death closes our eyes we shall awaken to a light, of which our sunlight is but the shadow.
The grave the last sleep? No; it is the last and final awakening.
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because dawn has come.
When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do.
The communication Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Just do the steps that you've been shown By everyone you've ever known Until the dance becomes your very own No matter how close to yours another's steps have grown In the end there is one dance you'll do alone.
A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist.
Death not merely ends life, it also bestows upon it a silent completeness, snatched from the hazardous flux to which all things human are subject.
Your lost friends are not dead, but gone before, advanced a stage or two upon that road which you must travel in the steps they trod.
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.
No matter how much you've been warned, Death always comes without knocking. Why now? is the cry. Why so soon? It's the cry of a child being called home at dusk, it's the universal protest against Time.
Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
Death pays all debts.
The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.
Curious, how each one of us secretly carries his private cemetery around with him and watches it filling up with ever new graves. The last one to be our own.
Death hath so many doors to let out life.
Death cancels all engagements.
In literature and in art, alike, this gloomy fashion of regarding Death has been characteristic of Christianity. Death has been painted as a skeleton grasping a scythe, a grinning skull, a threatening figure with terrible face and uplifted dart, a bony scarecrow shaking an hour-glass—all that could alarm and repel has been gathered round this rightly-named King of Terrors.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
I cannot consider death as anything but a removing from one room to another.
Death is the supreme festival on the road to freedom.
Death is the cure of all diseases.
Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly, completely successfully, or just completely, the correct response to death's perfect punctuation mark is a smile.
Death comes along like a gas bill one can't pay.
Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.
To live in hearts we leave behind Is not to die.
Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
To see life through the lens of death is to approach the condition of gratitude for the gift (or simply the fact) of our existence.
We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love.
Death—a passage outside the range of imagination, but within the range of experience.
No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
Death is my neighbor now.
Our final experience, like our first, is conjectural. We move between two darknesses.
Love and memory last, and will so endure till the game is called because of darkness.
Death is the ultimate disappearing act.
I began to recognize that death was indeed a part of life; that dying was merely the blowing out of the candle that was lit at birth.
Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men.
It will happen to all of us that at some point you'll get tapped on the shoulder and told, not just that the party is over, but slightly worse: the party's going on but you have to leave. And it's going on without you.
Many persons have died before they expire—died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as it were, the locking of the doors of the already deserted mansion.
Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is life's change agent.
This is the road we all must travel—over the Bridge of Sighs into the peace of eternity.
Watching a peaceful death of a human being reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment only to disappear into the endless night forever.
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.
Death is someone you see very clearly with eyes in the center of your heart: eyes that see not by reacting to light, but by reaching to a kind of a chill from within the marrow of your own life.
The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.
There is only one way to be prepared for death: to be sated. In the soul, in the heart, in the spirit, in the flesh. To the brim.
Death persecutes before it executes.
We are all under sentence of death, but with a sort of indefinite reprieve.
Death is just a distant rumor to the young.
We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent.
Death sits with his key in my lock. Not one day is taken for granted.
I can't forgive my friends for dying; I don't find these vanishing acts of theirs at all amusing.
Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art.
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Death is like a fisherman who has caught a fish in his net and leaves it for a time in the water: the fish still swims about, but the net surrounds it, and the fisherman will take it when he wishes.
Everyman has his back to his death, like the talker leaning against the mantelpiece.
Death is the enemy. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!
In any man who dies there dies with him his first snow and kiss and fight. It goes with him. They are left books and bridges and painted canvas and machinery. Whose fate is to survive. But what has gone is also not nothing: by the rule of the game something has gone. Not people die but worlds die in them.
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.
Death and dice level all distinction.
In the democracy of the dead, all men at last are equal. There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave.
If you die you're completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I'm not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best hope I've got.
A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumour.
Death most resembles a prophet who is without honour in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Some aspects of success seem rather silly as death approaches.
Certainly God has promised you forgiveness—but he has not promised you the next day.
