Quotes about suicide
page 5

Ford Madox Ford photo
Dylan Moran photo

“Continued adherence to the doctrine of military necessity will lead to mutual suicide.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Must We Go to War? (1937)

Simone Weil photo
Sarah Vowell photo
Doug Stanhope photo

“getting pissed off at the idea of someone going on to wiki pedia and changing the name of the japanese suicide forest to "Warios Woods"”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/937459644229828608]
Tweets by year, 2017

Pat Condell photo

“Swedish politicians are not right about much, but you get the impression they think they're setting the example to the rest of us. And they are right about that. Their recent bizarre decision to recognize 'Palestine' – a country that doesn't exist – is somewhat poignant: as the way things are going Sweden itself won't exist much longer. Seems like every piece of news that comes out of that country is more disturbing than the last. But, then, they have been committing cultural suicide so enthusiastically for so long there is now almost a sense that a tipping point is being reached and that, for the rest of us, it's really just a matter of watching the grim process unfold as we thank our lucky stars we don't live there… In Sweden today, democracy is a threat that must be neutralised, just as free speech is a threat that must be criminalised. Like the old Soviet Union, they can't afford to allow either because they're attempting to create an artificial society from a blueprint that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. And they've given it an almost theological significance so that a dogma has been established, and this has led, inevitably, to heresy becoming a problem. So now anyone in Sweden who expresses the wrong opinion about Muslim immigration is liable to be arrested, that's if the police are not too busy running away from violent Muslims.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Sweden — Ship of fools" (13 October 2014) https://youtube.com/watch/?v=RZsvdg1dkJ4
2014

Hassan Nasrallah photo

“And on this last day of the century, I promise Israel that it will see more suicide attacks, for we will write our history with blood.”

Hassan Nasrallah (1960) Secretary General of Hezbollah

Speech at a Hezbollah rally in Beirut. December 31, 1999.
Quote, 1990s
Source: Bruns International http://www.unb.ca/web/bruns/9900/issue14/intnews/israel.html / Associated Press.

Bob Dylan photo

“She left one too many a boy behind
He committed suicide”

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

Song lyrics, The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964 (2010), Gypsy Lou (recorded 1963)

Isaac Asimov photo

“SWA Magazine: Talking about spacecraft, what do you think about the shuttle program?
Asimov: Well, I hope it does get off the ground. And I hope they expand it, because the shuttle program is the gateway to everything else. By means of the shuttle, we will be able to build space stations and power stations, laboratory facilities and habitations, and everything else in space.
SWA Magazine: How about orbital space colonies? Do you see these facilities being built or is the government going to cut back on projects like this?
Asimov: Well, now you've put your finger right on it. In order to have all of these wonderful things in space, we don't have to wait for technology - we've got the technology, and we don't have to wait for the know-how - we've got that too. All we need is the political go-ahead and the economic willingness to spend the money that is necessary. It is a little frustrating to think that if people concentrate on how much it is going to cost they will realize the great amount of profit they will get for their investment. Although they are reluctant to spend a few billions of dollars to get back an infinite quantity of money, the world doesn't mind spending $400 billion every years on arms and armaments, never getting anything back from it except a chance to commit suicide.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

An Interview with Isaac Asimov (1979)

George W. Bush photo
Mike Cernovich photo
Daniel Pipes photo
Alan Keyes photo

“I will stand against those who see terrorism when Americans die, but who see suicide bombers who kill Israelis and believe that that is just part of the negotiating process.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Israel's Independence Day Festival, April 21, 2002. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/02_04_21israel.htm.
2002

Michael Ignatieff photo
Ludwig Feuerbach photo
Honoré de Balzac photo

“Suicide, moreover, was at that time in vogue in Paris: what more suitable key to the mystery of life for a skeptical society?”

D'ailleurs, le suicide régnait alors à Paris; ne doit-il pas être le dernier mot des sociétés incrédules?
Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 7: Suicide.

Anthony Bourdain photo
Graham Greene photo
Ernest Bramah photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Gary Gygax photo
Thomas Friedman photo
Daniel Abraham photo

““See, this is why I can’t ever be in command,” she said.
“Don’t like making tough calls with incomplete information?”
“More I’m not suicidally irresponsible,” she replied.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Leviathan Wakes (2011), Chapter 17 (pp. 178-179)

“Trent read and re-read the pitiful message [a suicide note], so full of the awful egotism of grief.”

Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875–1956) British writer

12. "The Ordinary Hairpins"
Trent Intervenes (1938)

Warren Farrell photo
Immanuel Kant photo
Cesare Pavese photo

“The thing most feared in secret always happens.
I write: oh Thou, have mercy. And then?
All it takes is a little courage.
The more the pain grows clear and definite, the more the instinct for life asserts itself and the thought of suicide recedes.
It seemed easy when I thought of it. Weak women have done it. It takes humility, not pride.
All this is sickening.
Not words. An act. I won't write any more.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

, end. Nine days later he committed suicide, leaving this message: «I forgive everyone and to everyone I ask forgiveness. Well enough? Don't gossip too much».
This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Mao Zedong photo

“People who try to commit suicide — don't attempt to save them!... China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Attributed by Wang Li, “历史将宣告我无罪” (History Will Pronounce Me Innocent), manuscript, Beijing, 1993, p. 7. This source is a privately printed collection of letters and documents concerning Wang Li's expulsion from the CCP. Cited in Mao's Last Revolution (2006) by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, ISBN 0674023323
Attributed

Jibril Rajoub photo

“Resistance does not just mean sending some martyrdom-seeker to Tel Aviv…. If resistance meant nothing more than bearing arms and making a big fuss – this would not be resistance, but suicide.”

Jibril Rajoub (1953) Palestinian sharamit

Fatah Revolutionary Council Member Jibril Rajoub: Merely Bearing Arms and Making a Big Fuss Is Suicide, Not Resistance http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1434 April 2007

Mohammed Hanif photo

“A debt-ridden farmer contemplating suicide in Maharashtra and a mother who abandons her children in Karachi because she can't feed them: this is what we have achieved in our mutual desire to teach each other a lesson.”

Mohammed Hanif (1964) Pakistani journalist

Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sunday_TOI/Ten_myths_about_Pakistan/articleshow/3932145.cms (4 January 2009)

“Most people in the West, certainly everyone in Israel, would agree that the Palestinian suicide bombers, who kill women and children, are terrorists. Not many people remember when Palestine, as the land of Israel was once called, was in that obscure state, a British Protectorate. Were the Jewish members of the Stern Gang, those who hanged a British sergeant with piano wire or organized the bomb in the King David Hotel with murderous results (the organization in which Prime Minister Begin started his political career), ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘terrorists’? What, looking at the matter from an entirely neutral standpoint, would we call them now?
A terrorist, the dictionary tells us, is ‘one who favours or uses terror-inspiring methods of governing or of coercing government or community’. This would certainly cover Russian activities in Chechnya and Israeli invasions into Palestinian territory, killing innocent men, women and children and even employees of the United Nations, in a prolonged attempt to fight ruthless terrorism with ruthless terrorism. The word ‘terrorist’ could certainly have been applied to Nelson Mandela before his trial. If it means the calculated mass killing of civilians to obtain an end, it must be applied to the destruction of Hamburg and Düsseldorf and, of course, to the dropping of H-bombs. So all these activities can be defined as ‘terrorism’ if they are committed by an enemy or ‘freedom-fighting’ if by a friend. If so, the conception of a ‘war’ against it calls for the most careful thought.”

John Mortimer (1923–2009) English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author

Source: Where There's a Will: Thoughts on the Good Life (2003), Ch. 15 : Interesting Times

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“A nation never falls but by suicide.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Essays, First Series

Robert Fisk photo
David Korten photo
Stig Dagerman photo
Antonin Artaud photo

“The race of armaments is nothing less than a race to mutual suicide.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

What Does God Want Us to Do About Russia? (1948)

Peter Greenaway photo
Dinesh D'Souza photo

“If we think of the Titanic as symbolizing the American era, Obama wants that ship to go down. Obama is the architect of American decline, and progressivism is the ideology of American suicide.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Source: Books, America: Imagine a World without Her (2014), Ch. 16

Christopher Hitchens photo
David Duke photo
Nas photo

“It's suicidal, high smokin' so much la', I saw a dead bird flyin through a broken sky”

Nas (1973) American rapper, record producer and entrepreneur

You're Da Man
On Albums, Stillmatic (2001)

Hendrik Verwoerd photo
Eric Clapton photo

“In my lowest moments, the only reason I didn't commit suicide was that I knew I wouldn't be able to drink anymore if I was dead.”

Eric Clapton (1945) English musician, singer, songwriter, and guitarist

"Clapton: The Autobiography", about his alcoholism in the 1980s

Ilan Halevi photo

“There is no comparison between the suicidal terrorism of the desperate and the reasoned terrorism of an overarmed state.”

Ilan Halevi (1943–2013) Jewish Palestinian journalist, politician

A History of the Jews (1987).

GG Allin photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Art Spiegelman photo

“A manifesto, a diary, a crumpled suicide note, and a still relevant love letter.”

Art Spiegelman (1948) cartoonist from the United States

On his work Breakdowns : A Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@?*! (1978; 2008) as quoted in "Art Spiegelman on ‘Breakdowns’ Redux and the Dark Side of Tina Fey" by Rebecca Milzoff in New York magazine (8 October 2008) http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/10/art_spiegelman_on_breakdowns_r.html.

Emil M. Cioran photo

“The refutation of suicide: is it not inelegant to abandon a world which has so willingly put itself at the service of our melancholy?”

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

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

Phil Collins photo

“I wouldn't blow my head off. I'd overdose or do something that didn't hurt. But I wouldn't do that to the children. A comedian who committed suicide in the Sixties left a note saying, 'Too many things went wrong too often.”

Phil Collins (1951) English musician, songwriter and actor

I often think about that.
On his suicidal thoughts in recent years — "Exclusive: Phil Collins Admits Suicidal Thoughts" http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/exclusive-phil-collins-admits-suicidal-thoughts-20101109, Rolling Stone (9 November 2010)

James Thomson (B.V.) photo
Bertie Ahern photo

“I don't know how people who engage in that don't commit suicide”

Bertie Ahern (1951) Irish politician, 10th Taoiseach of Ireland

commenting on people "talking the economy down", just before the crash. Speech at Irish Congress of Trade Unions conference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfjGSfuSQpA 2007-07-3.

“In keeping with the WXLT practice of presenting the most immediate and complete reports of local blood and guts news, TV 40 presents what is believed to be a television first. In living color, an exclusive coverage of an attempted suicide.”

Christine Chubbuck (1944–1974) American television news reporter

On July 15, 1974 at 9:38 AM, 8 minutes into her talk show, Suncoast Digest, on WXLT-TV. Moments later, Chubbuck produced a pistol from beneath her newsdesk and fatally shot herself in the head.

Cesare Pavese photo

“Suicides are timid murderers. Masochism instead of Sadism.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)