Motivational Quotes

Death

There's a thing that keeps surprising you about stormy old friends after they die; their silence.

- Becht, Ben

Best Quotes about Death

I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

Landor, Walter Savage

I'd rather die while I'm living then live while I'm dead.

Buffett, Jimmy

Life is the jailer, death the angel sent to draw the unwilling bolts and set us free.

Lowell, James Russell

Death eats up all things, both the young lamb and old sheep; and I have heard our parson say, death values a prince no more than a clown; all's fish that comes to his net; he throws at all, and sweeps stakes; he's no mower that takes a nap at noon-day, but drives on, fair weather or foul, and cuts down the green grass as well as the ripe corn: he's neither squeamish nor queesy-stomach d, for he swallows without chewing, and crams down all things into his ungracious maw; and you can see no belly he has, he has a confounded dropsy, and thirsts after men's lives, which he gurgles down like mother's milk.

Cervantes, Miguel De

If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a wandering to find home, why should we not look forward to the arrival?

Lewis, C. S.

Fear of death has been the greatest ally of tyranny past and present.

Hook, Sydney

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Gray, Thomas

Know one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

Plato

One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

10.

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

11.

A considerable percentage of the people we meet on the street are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead. It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror.

Gurdjieff, George

12.

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

Woody Allen

13.

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.

14.

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

Carson, Johnny

15.

The grave's a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace.

Marvell, Andrew

16.

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

17.

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

Allen, Woody

18.

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

19.

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

Aurelius, Marcus

20.

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

21.

Death is the great adventure beside which moon landings and space trips pale into insignificance.

Bayly, Joseph

22.

Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men.

Herodotus

23.

We all have to die some day, if we live long enough.

Farber, Dave

24.

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

Bacon, Francis

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.

Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity.

Milton, John

27.

The killing was the best part. It was the dying I couldn't take.

Craig Volk

28.

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.

Maugham, W. Somerset

29.

Die, my dear doctor! That's the last thing I shall do!

Palmerston, Lord

30.

Against self-slaughter there is a prohibition so divine that cravens my weak hand.

William Shakespeare

31.

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

Mitford, William

32.

Now, a corpse, poor thing, is an untouchable and the process of decay is, of all pieces of bad manners, the vulgarest imaginable. For a corpse is, by definition, a person absolutely devoid of savoir vivre.

Huxley, Aldous

33.

I am ready to meet my maker, but whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

Churchill, Winston

34.

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

35.

Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He comet up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.

Book Of Common Prayer

36.

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

37.

Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.

Camus, Albert

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

42.

I am going to concentrate on what's important in life. I'm going to strive everyday to be a kind and generous and loving person. I'm going to keep death right here, so that anytime I even think about getting angry at you or anybody else, I'll see death and I'll remember.

Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

As we look deeply within, we understand our perfect balance. There is no fear of the cycle of birth, life and death. For when you stand in the present moment, you are timeless.

Rodney Yee

47.

If life must not be taken too seriously -- then so neither must death.

Butler, Samuel

48.

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

49.

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

Horace

50.

When we die, no one remembers us for what we weighed. Our weight isn't etched into our headstones.

Stephanie Klein