Quotes about death
page 30

Evelyn Waugh photo
Rebecca West photo
André Breton photo
Adolf Eichmann photo
Diogenes of Sinope photo

“Perdiccas threatened to put him to death unless he came to him, "That's nothing wonderful," Diogenes said, "for a beetle or a tarantula would do the same."”

Diogenes of Sinope (-404–-322 BC) ancient Greek philosopher, one of the founders of the Cynic philosophy

Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 44
Quoted by Diogenes Laërtius

Seneca the Younger photo

“Pyrrhus: Mercy often means giving death, not life.”
Pyrrhus: Mortem misericors saepe pro vita dabit.

Troades (The Trojan Women), line 329; Translation by Emily Wilson
Tragedies

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Subhas Chandra Bose photo

“One individual may die for an idea, but that idea will, after his death, incarnate itself in a thousand lives.”

Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945) Indian nationalist leader and politician

"Quotations by 60 Greatest Indians" at Institute of Information and Communication Technology http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/quotations.html

Kage Baker photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes: those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Have You a Hobby?, Answers, 21 April 1934

Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol IV, Churchill at Large, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 288. ISBN 0903988453
The 1930s

Berthe Morisot photo

“I can not get over everything you did for me in that first day [for his support to hang her works on the 7th Impressionist exhibition, Spring 1882], it seems to me that you are working yourself to death, and all on my account. This touches me deeply and vexes me at the same time.”

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) painter from France

Berthe Morisot, in a letter to her husband Eugene Manet, 1882; as cited in Impressionist quartet, ed. Jeffrey Meyers; publishers, Harcourt, 2005, p. 120
1881 - 1895

H. Rider Haggard photo
Muhammad photo

“A person seeing (visiting) my grave deserves my intercession. And a person who visits me after my death is like a person who visited me during my lifetime.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Biharul Anwar, Volume 96, Page 334
Shi'ite Hadith

Frederick William Faber photo
Garth Brooks photo
Rebecca West photo
Robert E. Howard photo

“Up the River of Death
Sailed the Great Admiral!”

Henry Howard Brownell (1820–1872) American writer and historian

The River Fight (published 1864).

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“If physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children and their white brothers from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Keep Moving From This Mountain (1965)

Whittaker Chambers photo
James Montgomery photo

“If God hath made this world so fair,
Where sin and death abound,
How beautiful beyond compare
Will paradise be found!”

James Montgomery (1771–1854) British editor, hymn writer, and poet

The Earth full of God's Goodness.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Emil M. Cioran photo

“One of the greatest delusions of the average man is to forget that life is death's prisoner.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

Slavoj Žižek photo
Tony Snow photo

“Okay, we will divide the first [of two questions] and let the second die a crib death.”

Tony Snow (1955–2008) American White House Press Secretary

White House Press Briefing http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060706-2.html (2006-07-06).

Clive Staples Lewis photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Immanuel Kant photo

“As men, we are all equal in the presence of death.”

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 1
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

Philip Schaff photo

“In the progress of the work he founded a Collegium Biblieum, or Bible club, consisting of his colleagues Melanchthon, Bugenhagen (Pommer), Cruciger, Justus Jonas, and Aurogallus. They met once a week in his house, several hours before supper. Deacon Georg Rörer (Rorarius), the first clergyman ordained by Luther, and his proof-reader, was also present; occasionally foreign scholars were admitted; and Jewish rabbis were freely consulted. Each member of the company contributed to the work from his special knowledge and preparation. Melanchthon brought with him the Greek Bible, Cruciger the Hebrew and Chaldee, Bugenhagen the Vulgate, others the old commentators; Luther had always with him the Latin and the German versions besides the Hebrew. Sometimes they scarcely mastered three lines of the Book of Job in four days, and hunted two, three, and four weeks for a single word. No record exists of the discussions of this remarkable company, but Mathesius says that "wonderfully beautiful and instructive speeches were made."
At last the whole Bible, including the Apocrypha as "books not equal to the Holy Scriptures, yet useful and good to read," was completed in 1534, and printed with numerous woodcuts.
In the mean time the New Testament had appeared in sixteen or seventeen editions, and in over fifty reprints.
Luther complained of the many errors in these irresponsible editions.
He never ceased to amend his translation. Besides correcting errors, he improved the uncouth and confused orthography, fixed the inflections, purged the vocabulary of obscure and ignoble words, and made the whole more symmetrical and melodious.
He prepared five original editions, or recensions, of his whole Bible, the last in 1545, a year before his death.
The edition of 1546 was prepared by his friend Rörer, and contains a large number of alterations, which he traced to Luther himself. Some of them are real improvements, e. g., Die Liebe höret nimmer auf, for, Die Liebe wird nicht müde (1 Cor. 13:8). The charge that he made the changes in the interest of Philippism (Melanchthonianism), seems to be unfounded.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Luther's Bible club

Cornelius Castoriadis photo

“I ask to be able to participate directly in all the social decisions that may affect my existence, or the general course of the world in which I live. I do not accept the fact that my lot is decided, day after day, by people whose projects are hostile to me or simply unknown to me, and for whom we, that is I and everyone else, are only numbers in a general plan or pawns on a chessboard, and that, ultimately, my life and death are in the hands of people whom I know to be, necessarily, blind.”

Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) Greek-French philosopher

Je désire pouvoir, avec tous les autres, savoir ce qui se passe dans la société, contrôler l’étendue et la qualité de l’information qui m’est donnée. Je demande de pouvoir participer directement à toutes les décisions sociales qui peuvent affecter mon existence, ou le cours général du monde où je vis. Je n’accepte pas que mon sort soit décidé, jour après jour, par des gens dont les projets me sont hostiles ou simplement inconnus, et pour qui nous sommes, moi et tous les autres, que des chiffres, dans un plan ou des pions sur un échiquier et qu’à la limite, ma vie et ma mort soient entre les mains de gens dont je sais qu’ils sont nécessairement aveugles.
Source: The Imaginary Institution of Society (1975), p. 92.

Alan M. Dershowitz photo
Nikos Kazantzakis photo

“Who holds a sword is tempted, who has youth must play,
he who does not fear death on earth does not fear God.”

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer

Odysseus, Book VIII, line 560
The Odyssey : A Modern Sequel (1938)

Huldrych Zwingli photo
Joyce Kilmer photo

“There is no rope can strangle song
And not for long death takes his toll.
No prison bars can dim the stars
Nor quicklime eat the living soul.”

Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) American poet, editor, literary critic, soldier

"Easter Week"
Main Street and Other Poems (1917)

Wallace Stevens photo

“The death of one god is the death of all.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Be Abstract

G. I. Gurdjieff photo

“Man has the possibility of existence after death. But possibility is one thing and the realization of the possibility is quite a different thing.”

G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer

In Search of the Miraculous (1949)

Robert Fisk photo

“Yesterday, with an inevitability born of the utterly false promise that the bloodbath in Iraq is yielding dividends, we were supposed to believe that the death of Zarqawi was a famous victory.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

Zarqawi's end is not a famous victory, nor will it bring Iraq any nearer to peace http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13556.htm, June 9, 2006
2006

Thomas Bradwardine photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset photo
Lama Ole Nydahl photo
Mumia Abu-Jamal photo
Warren Farrell photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo
Alphonse de Lamartine photo
Michel De Montaigne photo

“I want death to find me planting my cabbages.”

Je veux que la mort me trouve plantant mes choux.
Book I, Ch. 20
Essais (1595), Book I

Tzachi Hanegbi photo

“As far as I'm concerned, they can strike for a day, a month, until death.”

Tzachi Hanegbi (1957) Israeli politician

In reference to convicted Palestinian prisoners announcing a hunger strike. Hanegbi: Prisoners on hunger strike 'can starve to death' http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=464469 Haaretz, 14 August 2004

Lama Ole Nydahl photo
Eric Hoffer photo

“Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Section 36
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

Barbara W. Tuchman photo

“Nothing is more certain than death and nothing uncertain but its hour.”

Enguerrand VII de Coucy, quoted on p. 570
A Distant Mirror (1978)

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo
Artimus Pyle photo
Luís de Camões photo

“"Death, what are you taking?" "The daylight."
"What hour did you take it?" "As it dawned."
"Do you know what you're taking?"
"I'm unconcerned."
"Then who made you do it?" "The Creator."”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Transforma-se o amador na cousa amada

Huey P. Newton photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Elizabeth Barrett Browning photo
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax photo

“Malice is of a low Stature, but it hath very long Arms. It often reacheth into the next World, Death itself is not a Bar to it.”

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician

Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Moral Thoughts and Reflections

Ahmad Sirhindi photo
Hilaire Belloc photo
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Horace photo

“Ah, Postumus! they fleet away,
Our years, nor piety one hour
Can win from wrinkles and decay,
And Death's indomitable power.”

Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, labuntur anni nec pietas moram rugis et instanti senectae adferet indomitaeque morti.

Horace book Odes

Book II, ode xiv, line 1 (trans. John Conington)
Odes (c. 23 BC and 13 BC)

Adam Roberts photo

“Death is the currency of power.”

Part 3, Chapter 8, “The Wrath of Diana” (p. 337).
Jack Glass (2012)

Will Eisner photo
Piet Joubert photo
Ernst Kaltenbrunner photo

“Among the spiritual forces secretly working in the camp of Germany's enemies and their allies in this war, as in the last, stands Freemasonry, the danger of whose activities has been repeatedly stressed by the Fuehrer in his speeches. The present brochure, now made available to the German and European peoples in a 3rd edition, is intended to shed light on this enemy working in the shadows. Though an end has been put to the activities of Masonic organizations in most European countries, particular attention must still be paid to Freemasonry, and most particularly to its membership, as the implements of the political will of a supra-governmental power. The events of the summer of 1943 in Italy demonstrate once again the latent danger always represented by individual Freemasons, even after the destruction of their Masonic organizations. Although Freemasonry was prohibited in Italy as early as 1925, it has retained significant political influence in Italy through its membership, and has continued to exert that influence in secrecy. Freemasons thus stood in the first ranks of the Italian traitors who believed themselves capable of dealing Fascism a death blow at a critical juncture, shamelessly betraying the Italian nation. The intended object of the 3rd printing of this brochure is to provide a clearer knowledge of the danger of Masonic corruption, and to keep the will to self-defence alive.”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany executed for war crimes

Foreword in "Freemasonry: Ideology, Organization, and Policy," first published in 1944.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Christopher Hitchens photo
Albert Camus photo
Herman Kahn photo

“However, even those who expect deterrence to work might hesitate at introducing a new weapon system that increased the reliability of deterrence, but at the cost of increasing the possible casualties by a factor of 10, that is, there would then be one or two billion hostages at risk if their expectations fail. Neither the 180 million Americans nor even the half billion people in the NATO alliance should or would be willing to design and procure a security system in which a malfunction or failure would cause the death of one or two billion people. If the choice were made explicit, the United States or NATO would seriously consider "lower quality" systems; i. e., systems which were less deterring, but whose consequences were less catastrophic if deterrence failed. They would even consider such possibilities as a dangerous degree of partial or complete unilateral disarmament, if there were no other acceptable postures. The West might be willing to procure a military system which, if used in a totally irrational and unrealistic way, could cause such damage, but only if all of the normal or practically conceivable abnormal ways of operating the system would not do anything like the hypothesized damage. On the other hand, we would not let the Soviets cynically blackmail us into accommodation by a threat on their part to build a Doomsday Machine, even though we would not consciously build a strategic system which inevitably forced the Soviets to build a Doomsday Machine in self-defense.”

Herman Kahn (1922–1983) American futurist

The Magnum Opus; On Thermonuclear War

Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Henry Clay Trumbull photo
Svetlana Alexievich photo
Muhammad bin Tughluq photo
Tom Robbins photo
Seneca the Younger photo

“For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands.”
In hoc enim fallimur, quod mortem prospicimus: magna pars eius iam praeterit; quidquid aetatis retro est mors tenet.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter I: On Saving Time

Calvin Coolidge photo
David Letterman photo

“Nothing—believe me—nothing is more satisfying to me personally than getting a great idea and then beatin' it to death.”

David Letterman (1947) American comedian and actor

Late Night with David Letterman (5 March 1993).

Raymond Poincaré photo

“The most powerful figure in French politics after the retirement of Clemenceau was ex-President Poincaré. He disliked the Treaty [of Versailles] intensely. For several years after the withdrawal of Clemenceau, the policy of France was dominated by this rather sinister little man. He represented the vindictive and arrogant mood of the governing classes in France immediately after her terrible sacrifices and her astounding victory. He directly and indirectly governed France for years. All the Premiers who followed after Clemenceau feared Poincaré. Millerand was his creature. Briand, who was all for the League and a policy of appeasement, was thwarted at every turn by the intrigues of Poincaré. Under his influence, which continued for years after his death, the League became not an instrument of peace and goodwill amongst all men, including Germans; it was converted into an organisation for establishing on a permanent footing the military and thereby the diplomatic supremacy of France. That policy completely discredited the League as a body whose decisions on disputes between nations might be trusted to be as impartial as those of any ordinary tribunal in any civilised country. The obligations entered into by the Allies as to disarmament were not fulfilled. British Ministers put up no fight against the betrayal of the League and the pledges as to disarmament. Hence the Nazi Revolution, which has for the time—maybe for a long time—destroyed the hopes of a new era of peaceful co-operation amongst free nations.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

David Lloyd George, The Truth about the Peace Treaties. Volume II (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938), p. 1410.
About

Mengistu Haile Mariam photo
Fritz Leiber photo
Charles-François Daubigny photo

“Adieu, adieu, I am going to see up there [after death] whether friend Corot has found me any new subjects for landscape painting.”

Charles-François Daubigny (1817–1878) French painter

Quote, as recorded by Albert Wolff, 1880's, in Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1886), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choice of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 74
Daubigny's final thought for art in 1878 was appearently strongly connected with Corot.
1860s - 1870s

“Better be killed than frightened to death.”

Robert Smith Surtees (1805–1864) English writer

Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds (1865) ch. 39

James Branch Cabell photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“A useless life is an early death.”

Ein unnütz Leben ist ein früher Tod...
Act I, sc. ii
Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787)

Stanisław Lem photo
John Crowe Ransom photo
Torrey DeVitto photo
J.C. Ryle photo

“All the sciences in the world never smoothed down a dying pillow. No earthly philosophy ever supplied hope in death.”

J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 530.