Motivational Quotes

Death

A man's death makes everything certain about him. Of course, secrets may die with him. And of course, a hundred years later somebody looking through some papers may discover a fact which throws a totally different light on his life and of which all the people who attended his funeral were ignorant. Death changes the facts qualitatively but not quantitatively. One does not know more facts about a man because he is dead. But what one already knows hardens and becomes definite. We cannot hope for ambiguities to be clarified, we cannot hope for further change, we cannot hope for more. We are now the protagonists and we have to make up our minds.

- Berger, John

Best Quotes about Death

Death is delightful. Death is dawn, the waking from a weary night of fevers unto truth and light.

Miller, Joaquin

In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inextricably related. Life moves on to death, and to deny one is to deny the other.

Miller, Henry

Living is death; dying is life. We are not what we appear to be. On this side of the grave we are exiles, on that citizens; on this side orphans, on that children;

Beecher, Henry Ward

I'm trying to die correctly, but it's very difficult, you know.

Durrell, Lawrence

Pale death with an impartial foot knocks at the hovels of the poor and the palaces of king.

Horace

But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet. Lessen like sound of friends departing feet; And death is beautiful as feet of friend. Coming with welcome at our journey's end.

Lowell, James Russell

The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.

Butler, Samuel

If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive.

Samuel Goldwyn

I hope the leaving is joyful; and I hope never to return.

Frida Kahlo

10.

He has gone over to the majority.

Petronius

11.

For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.

Johnny Carson

12.

At death we cross from one territory to another, but we'll have no trouble with visas. Our representative is already there, preparing for our arrival. As citizens of heaven, our entrance is incontestable.

Lutzer, Erwin W.

13.

There is some comfort in dying surrounded by one's children.

Ann Radcliffe

14.

And what the dead had no speech for, when living, they can tell you, being dead: the communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

Eliot, T. S.

15.

It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind.

Jonathan Swift

16.

Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.

Dickinson, Emily

17.

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

Cocteau, Jean

18.

The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.

Auden, W. H.

19.

We need not fear life, because God is the Ruler of all and we need not fear death, because He shares immortality with us.

Landers, Ann

20.

Oh you who have been removed from God in his solitude by the abyss of time, how can you expect to reach him without dying?

Hallaj

21.

The pride of dying rich raises the loudest laugh in hell.

Foster, John W.

22.

We should weep for men at their birth, not at their death.

Montesquieu, Charles De

23.

It's no accident that the church and the graveyard stand side by side. The city of the dead sleeps encircled by the city of the living.

Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

24.

On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down.

Woody Allen

25.

A dead atheist is someone who is all dressed up with no place to go.

Duffecy, James

26.

Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization. It makes the meanest of us sacred --it installs the poet in his immortality, and lifts him to the skies. Death is the greatest assayer of the sterling ore of talent. At his touch the dropsy particles fall off, the irritable, the personal, the gross, and mingle with the dust --the finer and more ethereal part mounts with winged spirit to watch over our latest memory, and protect our bones from insult. We consign the least worthy qualities to oblivion, and cherish the nobler and imperishable nature with double pride and fondness.

Hazlitt, William

27.

Death doesn't frighten me.

Diana, Princess of Wales

28.

I'd rather get my brains blown out in the wild than wait in terror at the slaughterhouse.

Craig Volk

29.

Death is the cure for all diseases.

Browne, Sir Thomas

30.

But there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

31.

We are not victims of aging, sickness and death. These are part of scenery, not the seer, who is immune to any form of change. This seer is the spirit, the expression of eternal being.

Chopra, Deepak

32.

Death may be the King of terrors... but Jesus is the King of kings!

Moody, Dwight L.

33.

He who is obsessed by death is made guilty by it.

Canetti, Elias

34.

So that he seemed not to relinquish life, but to leave one home for another.

Nepos, Cornelius

35.

At birth man is offered only one choice --the choice of his death. But if this choice is governed by distaste for his own existence, his life will never have been more than meaningless.

Melville, Jean-Pierre

36.

Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.

A. Sachs

37.

Death is the king of this world: 'Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet

Eliot, George

38.

When I have fears that I may cease to be, Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain.

Keats, John

39.

Don't strew me with roses after I'm dead. When Death claims the light of my brow No flowers of life will cheer me: instead You may give me my roses now!

Healey, Thomas F.

40.

I am not the least afraid to die.

Darwin, Charles R.

41.

Though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death.

Browne, Sir Thomas

42.

A human act once set in motion flows on forever to the great account. Our deathlessness is in what we do, not in what we are.

Meredith, George

43.

When one by one our ties are torn, and friend from friend is snatched forlorn; When man is left alone to mourn, oh! then how sweet it is to die!

Barbauld, Anna Letitia

44.

I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

Allen, Woody

45.

For the sword outwears its sheath, and the soul wears out the breast. And the heart must pause to breathe, and love itself have rest.

Byron, Lord

46.

A man should not leave this earth with unfinished business. He should live each day as if it was a pre-flight check. He should ask each morning, am I prepared to lift-off?

Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

47.

Some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.

Melville, Herman

48.

There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.

Butler, Samuel

49.

It is not death that alarms me, but dying.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

50.

I guess that's how death works. It doesn't matter if we're ready or not. It just happens.

Randy K. Milholland