Quotes about death

"Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by hymns, for in ceasing to be numbered with mortals he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life."

Plutarch on death   

"Thank Heaven! the crisis --The danger, is past, and the lingering illness, is over at last --, and the fever called Living is conquered at last."

Poe, Edgar Allan on death
11 fans of this quote   

"Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part."

Pope, Alexander on death
8 fans of this quote   

"There are few things more difficult than to appraise the work of a man suddenly dead in his youth; to disentangle promise from achievement; to save him from that sentimentalizing which confuses the tragedy of the interruption with the merit of the work actually performed."

Pound, Ezra on death
6 fans of this quote   

"We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance."

Proust, Marcel on death
10 fans of this quote   

"Good men must die, but death cannot kill their names."

Proverb on death
17 fans of this quote   

"We come and cry and that is life, we cry and go and that is death."

Proverb on death
11 fans of this quote   

"If your time ain't come not even a doctor can kill you."

Proverb, American on death
8 fans of this quote   

"Death was afraid of him because he had the heart of a lion."

Proverb, Arabian on death
9 fans of this quote   

"Life is a dream walking death is a going home."

Proverb, Chinese on death
17 fans of this quote   

"Death is a shadow that always follows the body."

Proverb, English on death
12 fans of this quote   

"Death always comes too early or too late."

Proverb, English on death
13 fans of this quote   

"Our last garment is made without pockets."

Proverb, Italian on death
7 fans of this quote   

"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box."

Proverb, Italian on death
20 fans of this quote   

"Every man goes down to his death bearing in his hands only that which he has given away."

Proverb, Persian on death
6 fans of this quote   

"There is a remedy for everything; it is called death."

Proverb, Portuguese on death
9 fans of this quote   

"A wooden bed is better than a golden coffin."

Proverb, Russian on death
5 fans of this quote   

"It's astonishing how important a man becomes when he dies."

Proverb, Yiddish on death
5 fans of this quote   

"I am going to seek a great purpose, draw the curtain, the farce is played."

Rabelais, Francois on death   

"O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hath cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet!"

Raleigh, Sir Walter on death   

"I can die when I wish to: that is my elixir of life."

Renan, Ernest on death
3 fans of this quote   

"So little done, so much to do."

Rhodes, Cecil on death
3 fans of this quote   

"The darkness of death is like the evening twilight; it makes all objects appear more lovely to the dying."

Richter, Jean Paul on death
7 fans of this quote   

"Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality."

Richter, Jean Paul on death
9 fans of this quote   

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"Death is a distant rumor to the young."

Rooney, Andy on death
7 fans of this quote   

"And all the winds go sighing, for sweet things dying."

Rossetti, Christina on death
3 fans of this quote   

"Be the green grass above me, with showers and dewdrops wet; and if thou wilt, remember, and if thou wilt, forget."

Rossetti, Christina on death   

"Just like those who are incurably ill, the aged know everything about their dying except exactly when."

Roth, Philip on death   

"You just can't complain about being alive. It's self-indulgent to be unhappy. [When asked how she has coped since husband's death.]"

Rowland, Gena on death   

"Who is mightier than death? Those who can smile when death threatens."

Ruckett on death
12 fans of this quote   

"I died a mineral, and became a plant. I died a plant and rose an animal. I died an animal and I was man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?"

Rumi, Jalal-Uddin on death
7 fans of this quote   

"One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live."

Ruskin, John on death
5 fans of this quote   

"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."

Russell, Bertrand on death
9 fans of this quote   

"Most people would rather die than think: many do."

Russell, Bertrand on death
14 fans of this quote   

"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives."

Sachs, A. on death
18 fans of this quote   

"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."

Sade, Marquis De on death   

"When the body sinks into death, the essence of man is revealed. Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. Only those relationships matter. The body is an old crock that nobody will miss. I have never known a man to think of himself when dying. Never."

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De on death
4 fans of this quote   

"One approaches the journey's end. But the end is a goal, not a catastrophe."

Sand, George on death
9 fans of this quote   

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colors of life in all their purity."

Santayana, George on death
9 fans of this quote   

"What shall he fear that does not fear death."

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von on death