“Let the dead rest, and care for the living.”

“Care for the living. I'll weep for the dead later. - Perrin Aybara”

Robert Jordan The Shadow Rising

“This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

“Let the dead have the immortality of fame, but the living the immortality of love.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

“Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

“Jesus once said that the dead should left to bury the dead (Luke 9:60). This shows no disrespect for the dead. It shows an awareness that there are some functions in society that will be well taken care of without Christians investing their creativity in those functions. Someone else, in meeting such needs, can make a stable living. Burying the dead is still one of the businesses in which you can make a stable living. There are other such services that we can count on society handling by itself. Leadership in government and business are among these. Let us reserve our limited creativity for functions that will not be taken care of if we do not to it.”

John Howard Yoder (1927–1997) 20th century American Mennonite theologian

“Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

“Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

“Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow A Psalm of Life

“Let music make less terrible
The silence of the dead;
I care not, so my spirit last
Long after life has fled.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist