„I am alive and well and unconcerned about the rumors of my death. But if I were dead, I would be the last to know.“
— Paul McCartney English singer-songwriter and composer 1942
Quotes about death
A collection of quotes on the topic of death.
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„An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.“
— Ambrose Bierce American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist 1842 - 1914
Source: What I Saw At Shiloh (1881), V
„Sadness isn't sadness. It's happiness in a black jacket. Tears are not tears. They're balls of laughter dipped in salt. Death is not death. It's life that's jumped off a tall cliff.“
— Paul McCartney English singer-songwriter and composer 1942
Source: Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics, 1965-1999
„I've seen my own death in dreams like this and it's helped me appreciate life more. I've also seen my own life in dreams and it's helped me appreciate death more.“
— Marilyn Manson American rock musician and actor 1969
Source: The Long Hard Road Out of Hell
„A judgment is being visited upon the Jews that, while barbaric, is fully deserved by them. The prophecy which the Führer made about them for having brought on a new world war is beginning to come true in a most terrible manner. One must not be sentimental in these matters. If we did not fight the Jews, they would destroy us. It's a life-and-death struggle between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus.“
— Joseph Goebbels Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister 1897 - 1945
Dated 27 March 1942
Diary excerpts
„The noblest people are those despising wealth, learning, pleasure and life; esteeming above them poverty, ignorance, hardship and death.“
— Diogenes of Sinope ancient Greek philosopher, one of the founders of the Cynic philosophy -404 - -322 BC
Stobaeus, iv. 29a. 19
Quoted by Stobaeus
„All things Death claims. To perish is not doom, but law.“
— Marcus Annaeus Seneca Roman scholar -54 - 39 BC
From Epigrammata: De Qualitate Temporis 7, 7 as quoted in L. De Mauri, Angelo Paredi, Gabriele Nepi, 5000 proverbi e motti latini https://books.google.gr/books?id=hjiMpXCMCvsC&printsec=, Hoepli Editore, 1995, p. 384 and Hubertus Kudla, Lexikon der lateinischen Zitate https://books.google.gr/books?id=2Vtf_GVrdbgC&dq=, C. H. Beck, 2007, p. 416. The full text can be found in Anthologia Latina I, fasc. 1 (Walter de Gruyter, 1982) https://books.google.gr/books?id=PHWq0avQcGIC&pg=, ed. by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, p. 164. Harold Edgeworth Butler ( Post-Augustan Poetry: From Seneca to Juvenal https://books.google.gr/books?id=2gR48lrVJ-cC&dq=, Library of Alexandria, 1969, ch. 2, sec. 2) attributes De Qualitate Temporis to Seneca the Younger.
Misattributed
Original: (la) Omnia mors poscit. Lex est, non poena, perire.
„I wish to go on living even after my death.“
— Anne Frank victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary 1929 - 1945
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
„I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death!“
— Anne Frank victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary 1929 - 1945
5 April 1944
The Diary of a Young Girl (1942 - 1944)
Original: (nl) Ik moet iets hebben naast man en kinderen waar ik me aan wijden kan! O ja, ik wil niet zoals de meeste mensen voor niets geleefd hebben. Ik wil van nut of plezier zijn voor de mensen, die om mij heen leven en die mij toch niet kennen.
Variant: I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met.
„Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another“
— Morrie Schwartz American sociologist 1916 - 1995
„That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.“
— H.P. Lovecraft, book The Nameless City
Variant: That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
Source: The Nameless City
„Death frees from the fear of dying“
— Paulo Coelho Brazilian lyricist and novelist 1947
Source: Veronika Decides to Die
„If by our sacrifice — yours and mine,' said Onos T'oolan, 'the pain of one life can be ended; if, by our deaths, this one can be guided home… we will judge this a worthy cause.'
'This Crippled God — he is a stranger to us all.'
'It is enough that in the place he calls home, he is no stranger.“
— Steven Erikson, book The Crippled God
The Crippled God (2011)
„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 Royal Navy officer and explorer 1868 - 1912
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.
„Let us ease the Roman people of their continual care, who think it long to await the death of an old man.“
— Hannibal military commander of Carthage during the Second Punic War -247 - -183 BC
Last words according to Livy "ab urbe condita", Book XXXIX, 51.
Original: (la) Liberemus diuturna cura populum Romanum, quando mortem senis exspectare longum censent. (Latin, not original language)
„You should never, ever be understood completely. That's like the kiss of death, isn't it? It's a full stop. I don't ever think you should put full stops on thoughts. They change.“
— John Lydon English singer, songwriter, and musician 1956
„Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.“
— Martin Luther seminal figure in Protestant Reformation 1483 - 1546
Letter 99, Paragraph 13. Erika Bullmann Flores, Tr. from: <cite>Dr. Martin Luther's Saemmtliche Schriften</cite>Dr. Johann Georg Walch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Georg_Walch Ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, N.D.), Vol. 15, cols. 2585-2590. http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/letsinsbe.txt
Context: If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign.