Quotes about death page 5
“For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.”
Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Pt. III, st. 22
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Source: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems
“Faster, Faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death.”
Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author
“Death frees from the fear of dying”
Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist
Source: Veronika Decides to Die
“My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people's.”
Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan
Cecil Graham, Act III
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
“If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anchored a ship.”
Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author
“It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.”
Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain
Variant: Love stands opposed to death. It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.
Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 6; variant translation: It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death. Only love, not reason, gives sweet thoughts. And from love and sweetness alone can form come: form and civilization.
Context: Love stands opposed to death. It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death. Only love, not reason, gives kind thoughts.
“Our life is made by the death of others.”
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIV Anatomy, Zoology and Physiology
“And what would humans be without love?"
RARE, said Death.”
Terry Pratchett book Sourcery
Source: Sourcery
Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese
No. LXIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
“Life… is a paradise to what we fear of death.”
William Shakespeare Measure for Measure
Source: Measure for Measure
“And funerals are pretty compared to deaths.”
Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire
Source: A Streetcar Named Desire
“And make death proud to take us.”
William Shakespeare Antony and Cleopatra
Source: Antony and Cleopatra
“As a day well spent procures a happy sleep, so a life well employed procures a happy death.”
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Not by Twain, but from Edward Abbey's A Voice Crying In The Wilderness (1989).
Misattributed
Alan Brennert (1954) American writer
Source: Moloka'i
“I have lost friends, some by death… others by sheer inability to cross the street.”
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer
Orhan Pamuk (1952) Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient
Source: My Name is Red
“In the midst of life, we are in death.”
Agatha Christie And Then There Were None
Source: And Then There Were None
“Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening.”
Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet
“Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.”
Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer
Misattributed
“Death is more universal than life. Everyone dies, but not everyone lives.”
Andrew Sachs (1930–2016) British actor
“Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal.”
Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author
Source: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga
“Strange secrets are let out by Death
Who blabs so oft the follies of this world.”
Part 2, line 112.
Paracelsus (1835)
“Do not forget, man, consumed by lust:
you—are the stone, the desert, are death …”
Friedrich Nietzsche book Dionysian-Dithyrambs
Dionysian-Dithyrambs (1888)
André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old
“Loss and Possession, Death and Life are one.
There falls no shadow where there shines no sun.”
Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer
"On the Same" (On a Sundial III)
Quoted by Kevin Smith's character in the film Catch and Release (2006)
Sonnets and Verse (1938)
Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899–1990) Norwegian philosopher, mountaineer, and author
Source: The Last Messiah (1933), To Be a Human Being https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4m6vvaY-Wo&t=1110s (1989–90)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Remarks after the Umpqua Community College shooting (October 2015)
Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse
no, she thought, one could say nothing to nobody.
Part III, Ch. 5
To the Lighthouse (1927)
Banda Singh Bahadur (1670–1716) Sikh military commander
Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they.
Bill Shankly (1913–1981) Scottish footballer and manager
An interview on a Granada Television chat-show, hosted by Shelley Rohde on Wednesday 20th of May 1981
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
Letter to Cecil Spring-Rice (12 March 1900)
1900s
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
1950s, The Impact of Science on Society (1952)
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Reverence for Life (1969)
Kurt Vonnegut book God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
He asked if it had a name, and I said “Indianapolis.”
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)
“To me death is better than the defensive.”
Alexander Suvorov (1730–1800) Russian military commander
Quoted in W. Lyon Blease, "Suvorof," 1926.