Death is the cure for all diseases.
—Thomas Browne (1605–82) English Author, Physician
He was exhaled; his great Creator drew His spirit, as the sun the morning dew.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
In the fall, you don’t grieve because the leaves are falling and dying. You say, “Isn’t it beautiful!” Well, we’re the same way. There are seasons. We all fall sooner or later. It’s all so beautiful. And our concepts, without investigation, keep us from knowing this. It’s beautiful to be a leaf, to be born, to fall, to give way to the next, to become food for the roots. It’s life, always changing its form and always giving itself completely. We all do our part. No mistake.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him, lies on the paths of men.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
Only the young die good.
—Oliver Herford (1863–1935) American Writer, Artist, Illustrator
Death is the dropping of the flower that the fruit may swell.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
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.
—Eugene Ionesco (1909–94) Romanian-born French Dramatist
Death not merely ends life, it also bestows upon it a silent completeness, snatched from the hazardous flux to which all things human are subject.
—Hannah Arendt (1906–75) German-American Philosopher, Political Theorist
If even dying is to be made a social function, then, grant me the favor of sneaking out on tiptoe without disturbing the party.
—Dag Hammarskjold (1905–61) Swedish Statesman, UN Diplomat
Virtue alone has majesty in death.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
I shall not wholly die, and a great part of me will escape the grave.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
How wonderful is death! Death and his brother sleep.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
No evil is honorable: but death is honorable; therefore death is not evil.
—Zeno of Citium (c.334–c.265 BCE) Greek Philosopher
We should weep for men at their birth, not at their death.
—Montesquieu (1689–1755) French Political Philosopher, Jurist
He that lives to live forever, never fears dying.
—William Penn (1644–1718) American Entrepreneur, Political leader, Philosopher
A good man dies when a boy goes wrong.
—Unknown
Each day is a little life; every waking and rising a little birth; every fresh morning a little youth; every going to rest and sleep a little death.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.
—Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher
I would not that death should take me asleep. I would not have him merely seize me, and only declare me to be dead, but win me, and overcome me. When I must shipwreck, I would do it in a sea, where mine impotency might have some excuse; not in a sullen weedy lake, where I could not have so much as exercise for my swimming.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
This world is the land of the dying; the next is the land of the living.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.
—Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American Sportsperson
Personally I have no bone to pick with graveyards, I take the air there willingly, perhaps more willingly than elsewhere, when take the air I must.
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish Novelist, Playwright
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
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
Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
Like pilgrims to the appointed place we tend; The world’s an inn, and death the journey’s end.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
Death is a distant rumor to the young.
—Andy Rooney (b.1919) American Writer, Humorist, TV Personality
God’s finger touched him and he slept.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
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