Quotes about death and parting

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“When a person loves another very much, she greatly wished to meet that person. Why then should I be afraid of death? Death brings us to God.”

Josephine Bakhita (1868–1947) Italian saint and former slave

Quoted in "Goodness and missionary zeal", The Holy See https://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20010112_bakhita_en.html.

“He does not lose anything, for with the loss of himself he loses the knowledge of loss.”

Jack London book The Sea-Wolf

Wolf Larsen, Chapter Six
The Sea-Wolf (1904)

“Good sirs, take heart: —
We'll bury him; and then, what's brave, what's noble,
Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,
And make Death proud to take us. Come, away:
This case of that spirit now is cold. —
Ah, women, women!
Come; we have no friend
But resolution, and the briefest end.”

Cleopatra VII (-69–-30 BC) last active pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt

Source: As quoted, Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, Act III, movie XV, (1623)

“Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Meistens belehrt uns erst der Verlust über den Wert der Dinge.
Source: Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

“The flames roll'd on-he would not go
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.”

Felicia Hemans Casabianca

Casabianca, st. 3.

“I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past.”

Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912) Royal Navy officer and explorer

Journal, 29 March 1912 http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/diaries/scottslastexpedition/ Context: We arrived within 11 miles of our old One Ton Camp with fuel for one hot meal and food for two days. For four days we have been unable to leave the tent - the gale howling about us. We are weak, writing is difficult, but for my own sake I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past. We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last.

“I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I take it out and talk to it: "Hello, baby, how you doing? When you coming for me? I'll be ready.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“It's easy to believe in something when you win all the time… The losses are what define a man's faith.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

“The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

“The people think of wealth and power as the greatest fate,
But in this world a spell of health is the best state.
What men call sovereignty is a worldly strife and constant war;
Worship of God is the highest throne, the happiest of all estates.”

Suleiman (1494–1566) Sultan of the Ottoman Empire

Mansel, Philip, Constantinople: city of the world's desire 1453-1924 (1995), p. 84
Poetry

“Every morning my day begins with an SMS from the General Staff. Over the past 24 hours there were 7 occasions of shelling and two casualties. Figures may vary, but only one figure makes the morning good. It is zero. The shelling is zero. The loss is zero.”

Volodymyr Zelensky (1978) 6th President of Ukraine

Original: (uk) Кожен мій ранок починається з sms-повідомлення. Це sms від Генерального штабу. За минулу добу обстрілів – сім, втрат – дві. Цифри можуть бути різними, але тільки одна робить ранок добрим. Це – нуль. Обстрілів – нуль. Втрат – нуль. Transliteration: Kozhen miy ranok pochynayetʹsya z sms-povidomlennya. Tse sms vid Heneralʹnoho shtabu. Za mynulu dobu obstriliv – sim, vtrat – dvi. Tsyfry mozhutʹ buty riznymy, ale tilʹky odna robytʹ ranok dobrym. Tse – nulʹ. Obstriliv – nulʹ. Vtrat – nulʹ. Speech by Zelensky during the celebration of Independence Day of Ukraine https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-society/2766331-promova-zelenskogo-z-nagodi-28i-ricnici-nezaleznosti-ukraini.html (24 August 2019)

“I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation.”

Gus Speth

Quoted by Daniel crockett
Source: [Crockett, Daniel, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/daniel-crockett/nature-connection-will-be-the-next-big-human-trend_b_5698267.html/Nature, Connection Will Be the Next Big Human Trend, Huffington Post, Aug 22, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20160105052014/http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/daniel-crockett/nature-connection-will-be-the-next-big-human-trend_b_5698267.html, January 5, 2016, yes]

“Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Opium (1929)

“Within the child lies the fate of the future.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

“I have eaten your bread and salt.
I have drunk your water and wine.
The deaths ye died I have watched beside
And the lives ye led were mine.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Prelude, Stanza 1.
Departmental Ditties and other Verses (1886)

“The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

Human Options (1981)

“It is not the things we do in life that we regret on our death bed. It is the things we do not.”

Randy Pausch (1960–2008) American professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design

CMU Graduation speech (2008)
Context: It is not the things we do in life that we regret on our death bed. It is the things we do not. I assure you I've done a lot of really stupid things, and none of them bother me. All the mistakes, and all the dopey things, and all the times I was embarrassed — they don't matter. What matters is that I can kind of look back and say: Pretty much any time I got chance to do something cool I tried to grab for it — and that's where my solace comes from.

“The Filipino loves his country no less than the Spaniard does his, and although he is quieter, more peaceful and with more difficulty stirred up, once aroused he does not hesitate and for him the struggle means death to the finish. He has both the meekness and ferocity of the carabao. Climate affects bipeds in the same way it does quadrupeds.”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

"The Philippines: A Century Hence" in La Solidaridad (1889-90) - translated from the Spanish by Charles Derbyshire

“courage is being scared to death - and saddling up anyway"

"A goal, A love and A dream give you total control over your body and your life”

John Wayne (1907–1979) American film actor

“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”

John Wayne (1907–1979) American film actor