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’ve a call.
—Sylvia Plath (1932–63) American Poet, Novelist
If I had my life over again I should form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death. I would practice, as it were, the remembrance of death. There is no other practice which so intensifies life. Death, when it approaches, ought not to take one by surprise. It should be part of the full expectancy of life. Without an ever-present sense of death life is insipid. You might as well live on the whites of eggs.
—Muriel Spark (1918–2006) Scottish Novelist, Short-story Writer, Poet
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
—Thomas Gray (1716–71) English Poet, Book Collector
Except for the young or very happy, I can’t say I am sorry for anyone who dies.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) English Novelist
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
Your body must become familiar with its death—in all its possible forms and degrees—as a self-evident, imminent, and emotionally neutral step on the way towards the goal you have found worthy of your life.
—Dag Hammarskjold (1905–61) Swedish Statesman, UN Diplomat
The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
Few cross the river of time and are able to reach non-being. Most of them run up and down only on this side of the river. But those who when they know the law follow the path of the law, they shall reach the other shore and go beyond the realm of death.
—The Dhammapada Buddhist Anthology of Verses
He whom the Gods love dies young, while he is in health, has his senses and his judgments sound.
—Plautus (Titus Maccius Plautus) (c.250–184 BCE) Roman Comic Playwright
If your time ain’t come not even a doctor can kill you.
—U.S. Proverb
Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81) British Head of State
Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent, a day’s march nearer home.
—James Montgomery (1771–1854) Scottish Poet, Journalist, Hymnist
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?
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
The Father is the Giver of Life; but the Mother is the Giver of Death, because her womb is the gate of ingress to matter, and through her life is ensouled to form, and no form can be either infinite or eternal. Death is implicit in birth.
—Kabbalah Teaching Jewish Mystical, Theosophical Tradition
You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy’s ranks.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone’s got to take care of all your details.
—Andy Warhol (1928–87) American Painter, Printmaker, Film Personality
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.
—Thomas Browne (1605–82) English Author, Physician
Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living.
—Emily Bronte (1818–48) English Novelist, Poet
A few can touch the magic string,
And noisy Fame is proud to win them:—
Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Man has the possibility of existence after death. But possibility is one thing and the realization of the possibility is quite a different thing.
—Georges Gurdjieff (1877–1949) Armenian Spiritual Leader, Occultist
The pride of dying rich raises the loudest laugh in hell.
—John W. Foster
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.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
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.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
—Woody Allen (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can.
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927–2014) Colombian Novelist, Short-Story Writer
I think of death as some delightful journey that I shall take when all my tasks are done.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American Poet, Journalist
We need not fear life, because God is the Ruler of all and we need not fear death, because He shares immortality with us.
—Ask Ann Landers (1918–2002) American Advice Columnist
But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?
—James Thurber
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