Motivational Quotes

Death

So every bondman in his own hand bears the power to cancel his captivity.

- William Shakespeare

Best Quotes about Death

Dying is a wild night and a new road.

Dickinson, Emily

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

Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. [Psalms 39:4]

Bible

Death is the only inescapable, unavoidable, sure thing. We are sentenced to die the day we're born.

Gilmore, Gary Mark

If even dying is to be made a social function, then, grant me the favor of sneaking out on tiptoe without disturbing the party.

Hammarskjold, Dag

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

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

Durrell, Lawrence

You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy's ranks.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat.

Conrad, Joseph

10.

I never think he is quite ready for another world who is altogether weary of this.

Hamilton, Hugh

11.

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.

Alsop, Steward

12.

I stay a little longer, as one stays, to cover up the embers that still burn.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

13.

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

Butler, Samuel

14.

The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.

Epicurus

15.

Death is the cure for all diseases.

Browne, Sir Thomas

16.

The difficulty about all this dying, is that you can't tell a fellow anything about it, so where does the fun come in?

James, Alice

17.

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

18.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? [1 Corinthians 15:55]

Bible

19.

Men fear death, as if unquestionably the greatest evil, and yet no man knows that it may not be the greatest good.

Mitford, William

20.

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

21.

When I die, I want people to play my music, go wild and freak out and do anything they want to do.

Hendrix, Jimi

22.

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

Miller, Joaquin

23.

Let no man fear to die, we love to sleep all, and death is but the sounder sleep.

Beaumont, Francis

24.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

Hauer, Rutger

25.

When I pass, speak freely of my shortcomings and my flaws. Learn from them, for I'll have no ego to injure.

Aaron McGruder

26.

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel

27.

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.

Donne, John

28.

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

Johnson, Samuel

29.

As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: so man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. [Job 14:11-12]

Bible

30.

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

Montesquieu, Charles De

31.

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

32.

A person doesn't die when he should but when he can.

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia

33.

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. [Matthew 10:28]

Bible

34.

'Tis after death that we measure men.

Hope, James Barron

35.

Death is a Dialogue between, the Spirit and the Dust.

Dickinson, Emily

36.

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

37.

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

Frida Kahlo

38.

We are all dead men on leave.

Levine, Eugene

39.

I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.

Cocteau, Jean

40.

Remember man as you walk by, as you are now so once was I, as I am now, so you will be, so prepare for death and follow me.

Epitaph

41.

I have seen a thousand graves opened, and always perceived that whatever was gone, the teeth and hair remained of those who had died with them. Is not this odd? They go the very first things in youth and yet last the longest in the dust.

Byron, Lord

42.

There will be no lasting peace either in the heart of individuals or in social customs until death is outlawed.

Camus, Albert

43.

Ignore death up to the last moment; then, when it can't be ignored any longer, have yourself squirted full of morphia and shuffle off in a coma. Thoroughly sensible, humane and scientific, eh?

Huxley, Aldous

44.

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

Ann Radcliffe

45.

Since the death instinct exists in the heart of everything that lives, since we suffer from trying to repress it, since everything that lives longs for rest, let us unfasten the ties that bind us to life, let us cultivate our death wish, let us develop it, water it like a plant, let it grow unhindered. Suffering and fear are born from the repression of the death wish.

Ionesco, Eugene

46.

It is simply untrue that all our institutions are evil that all politicians are mere opportunists, that all aspects of university life are corrupt. Having discovered an illness, it's not terribly useful to prescribe death as a cure.

Mcgovern, George

47.

If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.

George Burns

48.

Death does determine life. Once life is finished it acquires a sense; up to that point it has not got a sense; its sense is suspended and therefore ambiguous. However, to be sincere I must add that for me death is important only if it is not justified and rationalized by reason. For me death is the maximum of epicness and death.

Pasolini, Pier Paolo

49.

How gladly would I meet mortality, my sentence, and be earth in sensible! how glad would lay me down, as in my mother's lap! There I should rest, and sleep secure.

Milton, John

50.

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

Craig Volk