“When we dead awaken. … We see that we have never lived.”
Irene, in Act II
When We Dead Awaken (1899)
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Henrik Ibsen 69
Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet 1828–1906Related quotes

Light (1919), Ch. XIX - Ghosts
Context: In those former times we lived. Now we hardly live any more, since we have lived. They who we were are dead, for we are here. Her glances come to me, but they do not join again the two surviving voids that we are; her look does not wipe out our widowhood, nor change anything. And I, I am too imbued with clear-sighted simplicity and truth to answer "no" when it is "yes." In this moment by my side Marie is like me.
The immense mourning of human hearts appears to us. We dare not name it yet; but we dare not let it not appear in all that we say.

Ancient Work
Source: The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XII - The Enfant Terrible of Literature

“Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them.”
Source: Adam Bede (1859)

“We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.”
Source: 11/22/63