Quotes about the dead

„There are two kinds of people in the world—only two kinds. Not black or white, rich or poor, but those either dead in sin or dead to sin.“

—  Leonard Ravenhill British writer 1907 - 1994

„I think if you don't have some obsession in your life, you're dead.“

—  Neil Young Canadian singer-songwriter 1945

„Dead of night. No one, nothing but the society of the moments. Each pretends to keep us company, then escapes — desertion after desertion.“

—  Emil M. Cioran Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911 - 1995

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

„It is the saddest sight in the world. Sadder than destitution, sadder than the beggar is the man who eats alone in public. Nothing more contradicts the laws of man or beast, for animals always do each other the honour of sharing or disputing each other’s food. He who eats alone is dead“

—  Jean Baudrillard French sociologist and philosopher 1929 - 2007

New York (p. 15)
1980s, America (1986)
Context: Yet there is a certain solitude like no other - that of the man preparing his meal in public on a wall, or on the hood of his car, or along a fence, alone. You see that all the time here. It is the saddest sight in the world. Sadder than destitution, sadder than the beggar is the man who eats alone in public. Nothing more contradicts the laws of man or beast, for animals always do each other the honour of sharing or disputing each other’s food. He who eats alone is dead (but not he who drinks alone. Why is this?).

„A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.

I say it just
Begins to live
That day.“

—  Emily Dickinson, book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

„Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness.“

—  Marcus Aurelius, book Meditations

Source: Meditations

„Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit? Where there are medicines of sterility? Where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. Do you see that from drunkenness comes fornication, from fornication adultery, from adultery murder? Indeed, it is something worse than murder and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you contemn the gift of God, and fight with His laws? What is a curse, do you seek as though it were a blessing? Do you make the anteroom of birth the anteroom of slaughter? Do you teach the woman who is given to you for the procreation of offspring to perpetrate killing? That she may always be beautiful and lovable to her lovers, and that she may rake in more money, she does not refuse to do this, heaping fire on your head; and even if the crime is hers, you are the cause. Hence also arise idolatries. To look pretty many of these women use incantations, libations, philtres, potions, and innumerable other things. Yet after such turpitude, after murder, after idolatry, the matter still seems indifferent to many men–even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks, invocations of demons, incantations of the dead, daily wars, ceaseless battles, and unremitting contentions.“

—  John Chrysostom important Early Church Father 349 - 407

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 24 on the Epistle to the Romans [PG 60:626-27] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2017/10/contraception-early-church-teaching-william-klimon.html

„When I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick.“

—  George Burns American comedian, actor, and writer 1896 - 1996

„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

„Imitate the oak trees, stripped naked by the dark winter frost; who recover in the spring to resemble a powerful towering statue of emerald; and relate to its origin, consisting of soil, clouds, and dead plants.“

—  RJ Intindola (Gandolfo)

1979

„We went to the Opera to hear music of the vanguard, Maximilian by Darius Milhaud. We clutched our chair. But we were hurled out of it by such a hurricane of wrong notes that we found ourselves, half dead, on the stairway, without knowing how we could fall down quite so far. The composer knows the grammar, the spelling and the language; but he can speak only Esperanto and Volapuk. It is a work of a Communist traveling salesman.“

—  Darius Milhaud French composer and teacher 1892 - 1974

Anonymous reviewer, as quoted in Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time (1965) by Nicolas Slonimsky, p. 126
About

„I wasn't really dead.“

—  Paul McCartney English singer-songwriter and composer 1942

"The Chris Farley Show" sketch on Saturday Night Live, regarding the Paul is Dead hoax.

„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

„This, we have to say it, remember this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy, confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous, perhaps, of all of The Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, dead … on … arrival. Hard to go back to the game after that newsflash, which in duty bound, we had to take.“

—  Howard Cosell American sportscaster 1918 - 1995

Monday Night Football, December 8, 1980.

„Hidden in hollows and behind clumps of rank brambles were large tents, dimly lighted with candles, but looking comfortable. The kind of comfort they supplied was indicated by pairs of men entering and reappearing, bearing litters; by low moans from within and by long rows of dead with covered faces outside. These tents were constantly receiving the wounded, yet were never full; they were continually ejecting the dead, yet were never empty. It was as if the helpless had been carried in and murdered, that they might not hamper those whose business it was to fall to-morrow.“

—  Ambrose Bierce American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist 1842 - 1914

Source: What I Saw At Shiloh (1881), V

„Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.“

—  Ambrose Bierce, book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

„Peyton Fahrquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.“

—  Ambrose Bierce American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist 1842 - 1914

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1891)

„Non-combatant, n. A dead Quaker.“

—  Ambrose Bierce, book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

„Let us all, then, join their comrades who live, in spreading flowers over the graves of these dead Federal soldiers, before the whole American people, as a peace offering to the nation, as a testimonial of our respect for their devotion to duty, and as a tribute from patriots, as we have ever been, to the great Republic, and in honor of the flag against which we fought, and under which they fell, nobly maintaining the honor of that flag. It is our duty to honor the government for which they died, and if called upon, to fight for the flag we could not conquer.“

—  Nathan Bedford Forrest Confederate Army general 1821 - 1877

1870s, Letter to war veterans (1875)