“He first deceased; she for a little tried
To live without him, liked it not, and died.”
Henry Wotton (1568–1639) English ambassador
Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton's Wife (1651).
Of Benjamin Disraeli, in May 1881 to his secretary, Edward Hamilton, regarding Disraeli's instructions to be given a modest funeral. Disraeli was buried in his wife's rural churchyard grave. Gladstone, Prime Minister at the time, had offered a state funeral and a burial in Westminster Abbey. Quoted in chapter 11 of Gladstone: A Biography (1954) by Philip Magnus
1880s
“He first deceased; she for a little tried
To live without him, liked it not, and died.”
Henry Wotton (1568–1639) English ambassador
Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton's Wife (1651).
Glen Cook book Soldiers Live
Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 99, “By the Military Cemetery: Missing Persons” (p. 664)
Context: “It doesn’t make much sense, does it?” my darling whispered to me. “People go at the oddest times and from the oddest causes.”
“Soldiers live,” I muttered.
“You’re turning that into a mantra.”
“You feel guilty. You wonder why him and not me, then you’re glad it was him and not you, then you feel guilty. Soldiers live. And wonder why.”
“A man living without conflicts, as if he never lives at all.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Source: The Analects, Other chapters
“For if he like a madman lived,
At least he like a wise one died.”
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright
Don Quixote's epitaph
Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book IV
James Boswell book The Life of Samuel Johnson
October 26, 1769, p. 174
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer
October 26, 1769, p. 174
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II
Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet
Misattributed, "What surprises you most about humanity?"