Quotes about death
page 34

Michael Moorcock photo
Benjamin Zephaniah photo

“Because their possessions were great, the appeasers had much to lose should the Red flag fly over Westminster. That was why they had felt threatened by the hunger riots of 1932. It was also the driving force behind their exorbitant fear and distrust of the new Russia. They had seen a strong Germany as a buffer against Bolshevism, had thought their security would be strengthened if they sidled up to the fierce, virile Third Reich. Nazi coarseness, anti-Semitism, the Reich's darker underside, were rationalized; time, they assured one another, would blur the jagged edges of Nazi Germany. So, with their eyes open, they sought accommodation with a criminal regime, turned a blind eye to its iniquities, ignored its frequent resort to murder and torture, submitted to extortion, humiliation, and abuse until, having sold out all who had sought to stand shoulder to shoulder with Britain and keep the bridge against the new barbarism, they led England herself into the cold damp shadow of the gallows, friendless save for the demoralized republic across the Channel. Their end came when the House of Commons, in a revolt of conscience, wrenched power from them and summoned to the colors the one man who had foretold that all had passed, who had tried, year after year, alone and mocked, to prevent the war by urging the only policy which would have done the job. And now, in the desperate spring of 1940, with the reins of power at last now firm in his grasp, he resolved to lead Britain and her fading empire in one last great struggle worthy of all they had been and meant, to arm the nation, not only with weapons but also with the mace of honor, creating in every English breast a soul beneath the ribs of death.”

William Manchester (1922–2004) (April 1, 1922 – June 1, 2004) American author, journalist and historian

Source: The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone 1932-1940 (1988), p. 688-689

Fred Astaire photo

“Fred Astaire once worked so hard/ he often lost his breath/ and now he taps all other chaps to death”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

from Lorenz Hart's lyric to "Do it the Hard Way" from Pal Joey.

Radhanath Swami photo
Heather Brooke photo
Sam Harris photo

“I'll tell you what harms the vast majority of Muslims that love freedom and hate terror: Muslim theocracy does. Muslim intolerance does. Wahabism does. Salafism does. Islamism does. Jihadism does. Sharia law does. The mere conservatism of traditional Islam does. We're not talking about only jihadists hating homosexuals and thinking they should die, we're talking about conservative Muslims. The percentage of British Muslims polled who said that homosexuality was morally acceptable was zero. Do you realize what it takes to say something so controversial in a poll that not even 1% of those polled would agree with it? There's almost no question that extreme that you will ever see in a poll that gets a zero, but ask British Muslims whether homosexuality is morally acceptable, and that's what you get. And the result is more or less the same in dozens of other countries. It's zero in Cameroon, zero in Ethiopia. 1% in Nigeria, 1% in Tanzania, 1% in Mali, 2% in Kenya, 2% in Chad. 1% in Lebanon, 1% in Egypt, 1% in the Palestinian territories, 1% in Iraq, 2% in Jordan, 2% in Tunisia, 1% in Pakistan. But 10% in Bangladesh. Bangladesh: that bright spot in the Muslim world where they are regularly hunting down and butchering secular writers with machetes. The people who suffer under this belief system are Muslims themselves. The next generation of human beings born into a Muslim community who could otherwise have been liberal, tolerant, well-educated, cosmopolitan productive people are to one or another degree being taught to aspire to live in the Middle Ages, or to ruin this world on route to some fictional paradise after death. That's the thing we have to get our heads around. And yes, some of what I just said applies with varying modifications to other religions and other cults. But there is nothing like Islam at this moment for generating this kind of intolerance and chaos. And if only a right wing demagogue will speak honestly about it, then we will elect right wing demagogues in the West more and more in response to it. And that will be the price of political correctness: that's when this check will finally get cashed. That will be the consequence of this persistent failure we see among liberals to speak and think and act with real moral clarity and courage on this issue. The root of this problem is that liberals consistently fail to defend liberal values as universal human values. Their political correctness, their multiculturalism, their moral relativism has led them to rush to the defense of theocrats and to abandon the victims of theocracy and to vilify anyone who calls out this hypocrisy for what it is as a bigot. And to be clear, and this is what liberals can't seem to get, is that speaking honestly about the ideas that inspire Islamism and jihadism, beliefs about martyrdom, and apostasy and blasphemy and paradise and honour and women, is not an expression of hatred for Muslims. It is in fact the only way to support the embattled people in the Muslim community: The reformers and the liberals and the seculars and the free thinkers and the gays and the Shiia in Sunni-majority context and Sufis and Ahmadiyyas, and as Maajid Nawaz said, the minorities within the minority, who are living under the shadow, and sword rather often, under theocracy. […] If you think that speaking honestly about the need for reform within Islam will alienate your allies in the Muslim community, then you don't know who your allies are.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, "Waking Up with Sam Harris Podcast #38 — The End of Faith Sessions 2" (15 June 2016) https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-end-of-faith-sessions-2
2010s

Allan Boesak photo
Pat Condell photo
Hildegard of Bingen photo
Matthew Stover photo

“All true stories end in death.”

(X.6) Del Rey, p. 380
Blade of Tyshalle (2001)

Shi Nai'an photo
H. Rider Haggard photo
Mickey Mantle photo
Gaurav Sharma (author) photo
Barbara Bush photo

“But why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or that or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that, and watch him (her husband, former president George H. W. Bush) suffer?”

Barbara Bush (1925–2018) former First Lady of the United States

Addressing the question of how much television news she'd recently been watching, in light of the enormous media attention given to likely outcomes in a U.S. war with Iraq. The interview took place two days prior to the start of the Iraq War, Good Morning America (18 March 2003)

Oliver Lodge photo
Edward Bellamy photo
Chief Seattle photo
Sri Aurobindo photo
Aldo Capitini photo
Sandra Fluke photo
Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
Ludwig Feuerbach photo
Matthew Stover photo
Margaret Mead photo
John Mayer photo

“I love the Grammy nominations this year. Anybody who really loves what they do got rewarded for it. It's not a death match between Ray Charles and Jessica Simpson.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

No byline (2004-12-20), "John Mayer". Newsweek. 144 (25):71

Anthony Burgess photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Chinua Achebe photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Lin Yutang photo
Russell Brand photo
Will Cuppy photo
Alexander Pope photo

“Such were the notes thy once lov'd poet sung,
Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

"Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer" preface to Thomas Parnell's Poems on Several Occasions (1721).

William Lane Craig photo
Heinrich Mann photo
James Frazer photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Ray Comfort photo
Pope John Paul II photo

“Dear brothers and sisters, we are all still grieved after the death of our most beloved John Paul I. And now the eminent cardinals have called a new bishop of Rome. They have called him from a far country… far, but always near through the communion of faith and in the Christian tradition. (…) I don't know if I can make myself clear in your… in our Italian language. If I make a mistake, you will correct me.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Carissimi fratelli e sorelle, siamo ancora tutti addolorati dopo la morte del nostro amatissimo Papa Giovanni Paolo I. Ed ecco che gli Eminentissimi Cardinali hanno chiamato un nuovo vescovo di Roma. Lo hanno chiamato da un paese lontano... lontano, ma sempre così vicino per la comunione nella fede e nella tradizione cristiana. (...) Non so se posso bene spiegarmi nella vostra... nostra lingua italiana. Se mi sbaglio mi correggerete.
the pope intentionally mispronounced the Italian word correggerete, "you will correct".
First address to the faithful in Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City, on 16 October 1978
Source: Libreria Editrice Vaticana http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1978/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19781016_primo-saluto_it.html (Italian)

Will Rogers photo

“We are the first nation to starve to death in a storehouse that's overfilled with everything we want.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Daily Telegram #1355, The First Good News of the 1928 Campaign! Mr. Rogers Says He Will Not Run For Anything (26 November 1930)
Daily telegrams

Thomas Kuhn photo

“I rapidly discovered that Aristotle had known almost no mechanics at all. … How could his characteristic talents have deserted him so systematically when he turned to the study of motion and mechanics? Equally, if his talents had so deserted him, why had his writings in physics been taken so seriously for so many centuries after his death? … I was sitting at my desk with the text of Aristotle's Physics open in front of me… Suddenly the fragments in my head sorted themselves out in a new way, and fell into place together. My jaw dropped, for all at once Aristotle seemed a very good physicist indeed, but of a sort I'd never dreamed possible. Now I could understand why he had said what he'd said, and what his authority had been. Statements that had previously seemed egregious mistakes, now seemed at worst near misses within a powerful and generally successful tradition. That sort of experience -- the pieces suddenly sorting themselves out and coming together in a new way -- is the first general characteristic of revolutionary change that I shall be singling out after further consideration of examples. Though scientific revolutions leave much piecemeal mopping up to do, the central change cannot be experienced piecemenal, one step at a time. Instead, it involves some relatively sudden and unstructured transformation in which some part of the flux of experience sorts itself out differently and displays patterns that were not visible before.”

Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) American historian, physicist and philosopher

Source: The Road Since Structure (2002), p. 16-17; from "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" (1982)

Joan Miró photo
Roger Waters photo

“"Perfect Sense (part I)" on Amused to Death (Roger Waters, 1992)”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

Variant: "Perfect Sense" on Amused to Death (Roger Waters, 1992)

Dorothy Parker photo

“[On being told of Calvin Coolidge's death] How do they know? (Coolidge was well-known for being a man of very few words.)”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Quoted in Writers at Work 1st Series by Malcolm Cowley (1958)

“With the tragic death of Steve Jobs, Apple has lost its ability to innovate.”

Peter Cohan American businessman

6 Reasons Apple Is Still More Doomed Than You Think http://forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2015/01/28/6-reasons-apple-is-still-more-doomed-than-you-think in Forbes (28 January 2015)

Aldo Capitini photo
Albert Pike photo
Dejan Stojanovic photo

“Life and death merge in greatness.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

"Hush," p. 61
The Shape (2000), Sequence: “Big Chamber”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) photo
Ai Weiwei photo
Statius photo

“The sounds of early night die down. Mingled with the darkness of his kinsman Death and dripping with Stygian dew, Sleep enfolds the doomed city, pouring heavy ease from his unforgiving horn, and separates the men.”
Primae decrescunt murmura noctis, cum consanguinei mixtus caligine Leti rore madens Stygio morituram amplectitur urbem Somnus et implacido fundit grauia otia cornu secernitque viros.

Source: Thebaid, Book V, Line 196

“Jesus isn't interested in negotiating. He knows that death, the surrendering of our immediate desires, is how we can take hold of an even greater joy.”

The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)

George Chapman photo
Will Cuppy photo

“The Egyptians of the First Dynasty were already civilized in most respects. They had hieroglyphics, metal weapons for killing foreigners, numerous government officials, death, and taxes.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part I: It Seems There Were Two Egyptians, Cheops, or Khufu

Klaus Kinski photo
Bernie Sanders photo
Jerry Cantrell photo

“On continuining Alice in Chains after Layne Staley's death.”

Jerry Cantrell (1966) American musician and songwriter

https://www.spin.com/2009/08/qa-jerry-cantrell-alice-chains/, Q&A: Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains, August 21, 2009, SPIN Magazine
On Alice in Chains

Herman Kahn photo
Angus Scrimm photo
Bob Dylan photo

“In the dark I hear the night birds call
I can feel a lover's breath
I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
Sleep is like a temporary death”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Modern Times (2006), Workingman's Blues #2

Lama Ole Nydahl photo
Lewis Pugh photo
John Gray photo
Wilhelm Liebknecht photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
John Fletcher photo

“Let no man fear to die: We love to sleep all,
And death is but the sounder sleep.”

Act III, scene 6.
The Humorous Lieutenant (c. 1619; published 1647)

H. Rider Haggard photo

“I looked down the long lines of waving black plumes and stern faces beneath them, and sighed to think that within one short hour most, if not all, of those magnificent veteran warriors, not a man of whom was under forty years of age, would be laid dead or dying in the dust. It could not be otherwise; they were being condemned, with that wise recklessness of human life which marks the great general, and often saves his forces and attains his ends, to certain slaughter, in order to give their cause and the remainder of the army a chance of success. They were foredoomed to die, and they knew the truth. It was to be their task to engage regiment after regiment of Twala’s army on the narrow strip of green beneath us, till they were exterminated or till the wings found a favourable opportunity for their onslaught. And yet they never hesitated, nor could I detect a sign of fear upon the face of a single warrior. There they were—going to certain death, about to quit the blessed light of day for ever, and yet able to contemplate their doom without a tremor. Even at that moment I could not help contrasting their state of mind with my own, which was far from comfortable, and breathing a sigh of envy and admiration. Never before had I seen such an absolute devotion to the idea of duty, and such a complete indifference to its bitter fruits.”

Source: King Solomon's Mines (1885), Chapter 14, "The Last Stand of the Greys"

Woody Allen photo

“im little jesica. im dying because of obamas help care bill. im on my death bed and the doctor is ignoring me because my dady works hard”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/11074098650]
Tweets by year, 2010

Joanna Newsom photo

“And in an infinite regress:
Tell me, why is the pain of birth
lighter borne than the pain of death?”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Divers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divers_(Joanna_Newsom_album) (2015)

John Donne photo

“And what is so intricate, so entangling as death? Who ever got out of a winding sheet?”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

No. 54, preached to the King at Whitehall, April 5, 1628
LXXX Sermons (1640)

Thomas Browne photo
D.H. Lawrence photo

“I suppose that's what we do in death⎯⎯⎯sleep in wonder.”

Source: Sons and Lovers (1913), Ch.11

Thomas Carlyle photo

“I am, in my own homeland, convicted and imprisoned for the crime of being a human rights defender, a feminist and an opponent of the death penalty. [But] not only have my imprisonment and my recent 16-year sentence not made me feel any regret, they have actually strengthened my convictions and commitment to defending human rights more than ever before.”

Narges Mohammadi (1972) Iranian human rights activist

As quoted in Did Facebook censor an Arab Women’s Rights Group?l http://www.vocativ.com/tech/facebook/facebook-double-standard-why-these-women-had-their-pictures-taken-down/index.html (November 13, 2012), Vocativ.

Georg Simmel photo
Baruch Spinoza photo
Edward Carson, Baron Carson photo

“We do not want sentence of death with a stay of execution for six years.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson (1854–1935) Irish politician, barrister and judge

Speech in the House of Commons against a Government amendment allowing each county of Ulster to opt out of Home Rule for six years, 9 March 1914.

Frederick II of Prussia photo
Richard Rumelt photo
Glenn Beck photo
Martin Buber photo
J.M. Coetzee photo
John Ogilby photo

“Nor is there place for Death.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Georgicks

Donald Barthelme photo
Samuel Butler photo

“There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

The Defeat of Death
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXIII - Death

John Ogilby photo

“Thus at Home happy, oft fond Youth complain,
And Peace and Plenty with soft Beds disdain.
But when in Forrein War Death seals his Eys,
His Birth-place he remembers e'r he Dies.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

Fab. LIII: Of the Tortoise and the Frogs, Moral
The Fables of Aesop (2nd ed. 1668)

Houston Stewart Chamberlain photo
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo