Quotes about die
A collection of quotes on the topic of die, living, life, doing.
Quotes about die

Song The Brightside, Album: Come Over When You're Sober, Pt. 1

Song Life is Beautiful, Album: Come Over When You're Sober, Pt. 2

Variant: My Mama used to tell me if u can’t find something to live for, you best find something to die for.
Source: Resurrection, 1971-1996

Song Life is Beautiful, Album: Come Over When You're Sober, Pt. 2

Saturday Night Live (1993)

“You were born as an ordinary human, but make sure you die as an extraordinary human”

“I would rather die standing up to live life on my knees.”


“I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”

“We do not surrender — we win or die.”
As quoted in "New media emerge in 'liberated' Libya" at BBC News (25 February 2011) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12579451.

“We’re gonna stay together until we die, I’m sure of it.”
Context: You know something? There's been a lot of rumors lately about a certain band called Queen. The rumors are that... The rumors are that we're gonna split up. What do you think? [audience replies "No!"] [Pointing to his posterior] They're talking from here! [audience replies "Yes"! ] My apologies, but I say what I want. You know what I mean? So forget those rumors. We’re gonna stay together until we die, I’m sure of it. I keep — I must tell you — I keep wanting to leave, but they won’t let me. Also, I suppose we’re not... We're not bad for four aging queens, are we? Really, what do you think?
"Queen: Live at Wembley" (1986), shortly before performing "Who Wants To Live Forever." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GNJ1SQpxFI
Neil Perry character
Context: Modified passage from the book Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Full citation:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."

“Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.”

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.”
Variant: That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
Source: The Nameless City

“We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.”
As quoted in Wise Guys : Brilliant Thoughts and Big Talk from Real Men (2005) by Allan Zullo, p. 36
“you are my sun, and if the sun went out, the shadow would die.”

Source: "The Flaw in Paganism" in Death and Taxes (1931)

“I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?”
Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

“The desire to die was my one and only concern; to it I have sacrificed everything, even death.”
All Gall Is Divided (1952)

“You have to die a few times before you can really
live.”
Variant: You have to die a few times before you actually live.
Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey
Source: Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, Managing Teams in a Week (2013) https://books.google.ae/books?idqZjO9_ov74EC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIIDAB#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, Secrets of Success at Work – 50 techniques to excel (2014) https://books.google.ae/books?id4S7vAgAAQBAJ&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIJjAC#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, p.107

“God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Fear not, the child will not die.”
As quoted in the opening of The Chalice of Immortality - Page xi - Google Books Result https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1402215037
The Sheltering Sky (1949)
Context: Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.

As quoted in O<sub>2</sub> : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, Ch. 4 : Artisans of Hope: Stepping into God's Kingdom Story, p. 63; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote. It is also used in <i> The White Rose </i> (1991) by Lillian Garrett-Groag, a monologue during Sophie's interrogation.
Disputed
Context: The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don't like to make waves — or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. If you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

As quoted by Else Gebel, in letter to Robert Scholl (November, 1946). Original German text. http://www.mythoselser.de/texts/scholl-gebel.htm
“When I die I'm going to dance first in all the galaxies… I'm gonna play and dance and sing.”

“If you're born poor it's not your fault, but if you die poor it's your fault.”
Quoted in various publications, without any further sourcing. The quote is dubious in view of the Gates Foundation's public mission, "to lift people out of hunger and extreme poverty." Gates was born to an affluent family.
Misattributed

“A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.”
Variant: If a man hasn’t found something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
Source: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees.”
In Search of the Miraculous (1949)

“Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.”
This is usually attributed to Emiliano Zapata, but sometimes to Aeschylus, who is credited with expressing similar sentiments in Prometheus Bound: "For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life".
Misattributed

A speech after Bryant's last game, 13 April 2016, posted on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg0mxPXIpLY&t=5s.

“People are strange, they neither wish to live nor die.”

“I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.”

“No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.”

“There are some days when I think I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.”

“All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.”
"The Shore and the Sea", Further Fables for Our Time (first publication, 1956)
From Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time

“I'm not going to die, I'm going home like a shooting star.”

Daybreak http://books.google.com/books?id=Imte1JcsQ64C&q=%22You+don't+get+to+choose+how+you're+going+to+die+Or+when+You+can+only+decide+how+you're+going+to+live+Now%22&pg=PA135#v=onepage (1968)
Variant or paraphrase: You can't decide how you're going to die. Or when. What you can decide is how you're going to live now.

“Hokahey! Today is a good day to die.”
War cry of Crazy Horse in battle as quoted at "Setting the Record Straight About Native Languages: A Good Day To Die" http://www.native-languages.org/iaq21.htm
“I'd like to die like my old dad, peacefully in his sleep, not screaming like his passengers.”
Guardian obituary http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/dec/30/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries

Disputed
Original: (la) Qui se ultro morti offerant facilius reperiuntur quam qui dolorem patienter ferant.
Quoted in many works without citation

"Queen: Live at Wembley" (1986), shortly before performing "Who Wants To Live Forever." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GNJ1SQpxFI
Other sources
Source: Banksy In His Own Words- Interview At The Sun https://web.archive.org/web/20181102203920/http://graffart.eu/blog/2010/09/banksy-in-his-own-words-interview-at-the-sun/, Graffart.eu, Retrieved 2 November 2018

“I don't want to die as long as I can work; the minute I can not, I want to go.”

Source: Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers

The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors have taken over the Ship (1998)

Se, depois de eu morrer, quiserem escrever a minha biografia,
Não há nada mais simples.
Tem só duas datas—a da minha nascença e a da minha morte.
Entre uma e outra coisa todos os dias são meus.
Alberto Caeiro (heteronym), "Se, depois de eu morrer" (8 November 1915), trans. Jonathan Griffin.
Source: Poems of Fernando Pessoa

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories

“You are afraid to die, and you’re afraid to live. What a way to exist.”
Source: Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends

“I love you, and I will love you until I die, and if there’s a life after that, I’ll love you then.”
Jace to Clary, pg. 331
Variant: There is no pretending, I love you, and I will love you until I die, and if there is life after that, I'll love you then.
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Glass (2009)


“Son, are you happy?
I don't mean to pry,
but do you dream of Heaven?
Have you ever wanted to die?”
Source: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories

Source: The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967