“It wasn’t a death wish. It was a see-how-close-you-can-get-and-live wish.”
Steve Perry (1947) American writer
Source: The Ramal Extraction (2012), Chapter 12
“It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.”
Source: The Count of Monte Cristo
Last update March 15, 2026. History
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live." by Alexandre Dumas?
Alexandre Dumas123
French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer a… 1802–1870Related quotes
“Knowing not to have illusions is absolutely necessary in order to have dreams.”
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Ibid., p. 276
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Saber não ter ilusões é absolutamente necessário para se poder ter sonhos.
“God knows how ardently I wish I had ten lives”
John Herschel (1792–1871) English mathematician, astronomer, chemist and photographer
In a letter to Charles Babbage, as quoted in The Shadow of the Telescope: A Biography of John Herschel by Günther Buttmann, p. 14
“It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live.”
Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged
Source: Atlas Shrugged
Mary Renault book Fire from Heaven
Fire from Heaven (1969)
Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist
Confessions of a Revolutionary (1849)
Context: It is necessary to have lived in this insulator which is called the national assembly, in order to perceive how the men who are the most completely ignorant of the state of the country are almost always the ones who represent it. I set myself to read everything that the distribution bureau sends the representatives: proposals, reports, brochures, even the Moniteur and the Bulletin of the laws. The greater part of my colleagues of the left and the extreme left were in the same perplexity of spirit, in the same ignorance of the daily facts. The national workshops were spoken of only with a kind of fright; for fear of the people is the defect of all those who belong to authority; the people, as concerns power, is the enemy.
Nathan Hale (1755–1776) soldier for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War
Statement to Captain William Hull prior to his spying mission, as quoted in "Captain Nathan Hale (1755 - 1776)" http://www.connecticutsar.org/patriots/hale_nathan.htm by Rev. Edward Everett Hale <br class="br">Context: I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary. If the exigencies of my country demand a peculiar service, its claim to perform that service are imperious.
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
Post-Presidency, Nobel lecture (2002)
Source: The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture
“You can't just wish change; you have to live the change in order for it to become a reality.”
Steve Maraboli (1975)
Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 61