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 want to live—but do you know how to live? You are scared of dying—and, tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different from being dead?
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Fear of death has been the greatest ally of tyranny past and present.
—Sidney Hook (1902–89) American Social Philosopher, Educationalist
All say, “How hard it is that we have to die” — a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
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.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.
—Stephen Vincent Benet (1898–1943) American Poet, Novelist
Be the green grass above me, with showers and dewdrops wet; and if thou wilt, remember, and if thou wilt, forget.
—Christina Rossetti (1830–94) English Poet, Hymn Writer
I don’t believe in an after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear.
—Woody Allen (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
Death is nature’s way of saying, Your table’s ready.
—Robin Williams (1951–2014) American Actor, Comedian, Voice Artist
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.
—Deepak Chopra (b.1946) Indian-born American Physician, Public Speaker, Writer
Death never takes the wise man by surprise; he is always ready to go.
—Jean de La Fontaine (1621–95) French Poet, Short Story Writer
Death is the veil which those who live call life; They sleep, and it is lifted.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
I’m trying to die correctly, but it’s very difficult, you know.
—Lawrence Durrell (1912–90) English Novelist, Poet, Travel Writer
I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was two things I had a right to, liberty and death. If I could not have one, I would have the other, for no man should take me alive.
—Harriet Tubman (c.1820–1913) American Abolitionist, Social Reformer
It is a sign of a creeping inner death when we no longer can praise the living.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?
—James Thurber
Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearances.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) American Military Leader
I really wanted to die at certain periods in my life. Death was like love, a romantic escape. I took pills because I didn’t want to throw myself off my balcony and know people would photograph me lying dead below.
—Brigitte Bardot (b.1934) French Film Star
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-British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
After your death you will be what you were before your birth.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death.
—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
If Nature denies eternity to beings, it follows that their destruction is one of her laws. Now, once we observe that destruction is so useful to her that she absolutely cannot dispense with it from this moment onward the idea of annihilation which we attach to death ceases to be real what we call the end of the living animal is no longer a true finish, but a simple transformation, a transmutation of matter. According to these irrefutable principles, death is hence no more than a change of form, an imperceptible passage from one existence into another.
—Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Writer
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
But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
—John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) English Economist
Dying is a wild night and a new road.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
Nothing that is really good and God-like dies.
—Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769–1860) German Poet, Patriot
There’s a thing that keeps surprising you about stormy old friends after they die; their silence.
—Ben Hecht (1894–1964) American Screenwriter, Playwright
Leave a Reply