“Never grieve for me if it is my good fortune to die with my boots on. That's what I most hope for.”
in a letter to Gilbert Grosvenor, editor of the National Geographic (1948)
On his deathbed (March 08, 1855).
Unsourced
“Never grieve for me if it is my good fortune to die with my boots on. That's what I most hope for.”
in a letter to Gilbert Grosvenor, editor of the National Geographic (1948)
6 August 1947,. (Hindustan Times, 8-8-1947, CWoMG, vol. LXXXIX, p. 11) Quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2018). Why I killed the Mahatma: Uncovering Godse's defence. New Delhi : Rupa, 2018. App. 4
1940s
“What am I? I am the desire not to die.”
The Inferno (1917), Ch. XIV
Context: What am I? I am the desire not to die. I have always been impelled — not that evening alone — by the need to construct the solid, powerful dream that I shall never leave again. We are all, always, the desire not to die. This desire is as immeasurable and varied as life's complexity, but at bottom this is what it is: To continue to be, to be more and more, to develop and to endure. All the force we have, all our energy and clearness of mind serve to intensify themselves in one way or another. We intensify ourselves with new impressions, new sensations, new ideas. We endeavour to take what we do not have and to add it to ourselves. Humanity is the desire for novelty founded upon the fear of death. That is what it is.
On being surrounded by friends taken by the opioid epidemic and his quest to be the breadwinner for his family in “Ocean Vuong: ‘As a child I would ask: What’s napalm?’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/09/ocean-vuong-on-earth-we-are-briefly-gorgeous-interview in The Guardian (2019 Jun 9)
“The parts of me that used to think I was different or smarter or whatever, almost made me die.”
"R. S. Thomas in conversation with Molly Price-Owen" in The David Jones Journal R. S. Thomas Special Issue (Summer/Autumn 2001)
Context: True Christianity at its most profound is as good as you get. … I think I've been lucky in the period which I've lived through because obviously I would have been for the chop in earlier days. The Inquisition would have rooted me out; even in the 19th century I would probably have been had up by a Bishop and asked to change my views, or to keep them to myself etc.... I think that so much of our Christian beliefs … are an attempt to convey through language something which is unsayable.
“I was born an American, I live like an American, I will die an American.”
“I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American!”
Speech (July 17, 1850); reported in Edward Everett, ed., The Works of Daniel Webster (1851), p. 437
upon being wounded in the head at Stony Point
Attributed