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
Death is a Dialogue between, the Spirit and the Dust.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
So that he seemed not to relinquish life, but to leave one home for another.
—Cornelius Nepos (c.99–c.24 BCE) Roman Historian
He would make a lovely corpse.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
The Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea are made of the same water. It flows down, clean and cool, from the heights of Herman and the roots of the cedars of Lebanon. the Sea of Galilee makes beauty of it, the Sea of Galilee has an outlet. It gets to give. It gathers in its riches that it may pour them out again to fertilize the Jordan plain. But the Dead Sea with the same water makes horror. For the Dead Sea has no outlet. It gets to keep.
—Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969) American Baptist Minister
It is a sign of a creeping inner death when we no longer can praise the living.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
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
Virtue alone has majesty in death.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
The death of what’s dead is the birth of what’s living.
—Arlo Guthrie (b.1947) American Singer, Songwriter
But learn that to die is a debt we must all pay.
—Euripides (480–406 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
The only religious way to think of death is as part and parcel of life.
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German Novelist, Short Story Writer, Social Critic, Philanthropist, Essayist
For those who live neither with religious consolations about death nor with a sense of death (or of anything else) as natural, death is the obscene mystery, the ultimate affront, the thing that cannot be controlled. It can only be denied.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
No evil is honorable: but death is honorable; therefore death is not evil.
—Zeno of Citium (c.334–c.265 BCE) Greek Philosopher
Distance of time and place generally cure what they seem to aggravate; and taking leave of our friends resembles taking leave of the world, of which it has been said, that it is not death, but dying, which is terrible.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
Woe, woe, woe… in a little while we shall all be dead. Therefore let us behave as though we were dead already.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
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
Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release; the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure; the comforter of him whom time cannot console.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Death is someone you see very clearly with eyes in the center of your heart: eyes that see not by reacting to light, but by reacting to a kind of a chill from within the marrow of your own life.
—Thomas Merton (1915–68) American Trappist Monk
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
Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.
—Thomas Browne (1605–82) English Author, Physician
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.
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
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
Though lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.
—Dylan Thomas (1914–53) Welsh Poet, Author
Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling.
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
There is no such thing as death. In nature nothing dies. From each sad remnant of decay, some forms of life arise so shall his life be taken away before he knoweth that he hath it.
—Charles Mackay (1814–89) Scottish Poet, Journalist, Songwriter
Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
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
Is death the last step? No, it is the final awakening.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
Know one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator