“Seize the day. Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold and die.”

—  movie Dead Poets Society

John Keating character

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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James Baldwin photo

“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States
Ray Charles photo

“You better live every day like your last because one day you're going to be right.”

Ray Charles (1930–2004) American musician

As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul of Black Folk (2007) by Larry Chang and Roderick Terry, p. 365

Bob Marley photo

“Every day the bucket a-go a well, one day the bottom a-go drop out.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

I Shot The Sheriff, from the album Burnin (1973)
Song lyrics

Barack Obama photo

“You're the ones who are going to have to seize freedom, because a true revolution of the spirit begins in each of our hearts.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2012, Yangon University Speech (November 2012)

Paulo Coelho photo

“to die tomorrow was no worse than dying on any other day. Every day was there to be lived or to mark one’s departure from this world.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Emil M. Cioran photo

“"You really should come to the house - one of these days we might die without having seen each other again." - "Since we have to die in any case, what's the use of seeing each other again?"”

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

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

“The cities in which we live in are schools of death, because they are dishuman. Each one of them has become a den of noise and of stench, for each of one has became a chaos of buildings, in which we ammass ourselves in millions, losing our life’s reasons. Unfortunates without escape, we feel to have put ourselves, willing or not, in the labyrinth of the absurd, from which we will leave only when we will die, for our destiny is to continue to multiply ourselves, only to die in great numbers. At every turn of the wheel, the cities in which we live in advance slowly one against the other, desiring only to confuse with each other: it’s a run towards the absolute chaos, in the noise and in the stench. At every turn of the wheel the price of the grounds go up, and in the labyrinth which devours the free space the revenue of the investiments builds up, day after day, hundreds of walls. It’s necessary that money give revenues and that the cities in which we live in advance, so it’s right that the houses double their height at every generation, even if the water is missing half of the days. The builders only desire to escape the destiny that they prepare for us, moving towards the countryside.”

Albert Caraco (1919–1971) French-Uruguayan philosopher

Translation from: Albert Carao (1919-1917) http://illusioncity.net/albert-caraco/ at illusioncity.net by Snake June 17, 2012
Ma confession (1975)

Terry Pratchett photo

“One day all of us will die but - and this is the important thing - we are not dead yet.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

Ray Bradbury photo

“The days of the Long Cold are done. Because of this one brave, new-thinking man, summer lives in the winter cave.”

Ray Bradbury book The Halloween Tree

Source: The Halloween Tree (1972), Chapter 10 (p. 73)

Imre Kertész photo

“It only has to be accepted temporarily — temporarily, but every day afresh. And every day ever more. Temporarily. Until we have lived to the end of our temporary lives, and one fine day we temporarily die.”

Imre Kertész (1929–2016) Hungarian writer

Source: Detective Story (2008), p. 66.
Context: "You mustn’t forget about your future, Enrique."
"I’m living for the present, Dad."
"Ah!" he waved that aside. "The present is just temporary."
‘ I boiled up. "I know," I burst out. ‘It only has to be accepted temporarily — temporarily, but every day afresh. And every day ever more. Temporarily. Until we have lived to the end of our temporary lives, and one fine day we temporarily die.

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