“You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.”
Victor Hugo book Les Misérables
Source: Les Misérables
“You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.”
Victor Hugo book Les Misérables
Source: Les Misérables
Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet
Letter One (17 February 1903)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)
Context: No one can advise or help you — no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
“The most important thing you do in your life is to die.”
Timothy Leary (1920–1996) American psychologist
Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist
Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography
José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist
Letter to Mariano Ponce, (1890)
“The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live.”
Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist
“If people would know how little brain is ruling the world, they would die of fear.”
Ivo Andrič (1892–1975) novelist, short story writer
“If you was bleach and I was hair, I wouldn't die (dye) fo' ya!”
Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor
"That's All She Wrote"
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
Bible Series V: Cain and Abel: The Hostile Brothers
Concepts
“Whoever lives as he sees fit will not die as he sees fit.”
Shams-i Tabrizi (1185–1248) 1185-1248, spiritual instructor of Mewlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi.
Me & Rumi (2004)
“May everyone live,
And may everyone die.
Hello, my love,
And my love, Goodbye.”
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter
"Here It Is"
Ten New Songs (2001)
“I've had enough, this is my prayer.
That I'll die living just as free as my hair.”
Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress
Hair, written by Lady Gaga and RedOne
Song lyrics, Born This Way (2011)
Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin
Quoted in: Honor Books, W. B. Freeman (2004), God's Little Devotional Book for Girls, p. 205
2000s
Sitting Bull (1831–1890) Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man
Recorded by Charles Larpenteur at Fort Union in 1867. Published in Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1993. p. 73.
“We're waiting for the dinosaurs to die out. They will die. And then we'll move into their homes.”
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist
1992-02-14 at Kokusai Koryu Centre, Osaka, Japan
Stage banter
Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer
?
Books, The Beggar, Volume IV: Die Before Dying (Hari-Nama Press, 2005)
Suleiman (1494–1566) Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
Mansel, Philip, Constantinople: city of the world's desire 1453-1924 (1995), p. 84
Written to his wife - see the article Hurrem for another translation of this verse.
Poetry
Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer
http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm
“Let us live – we must die.”
Vivamus, moriendum est.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca (-54–39 BC) Roman scholar
Book II, Chapter VI; translation from Michael Winterbottom, Declamations of the Elder Seneca (London: Heinemann, 1974) vol. 1 p. 349
Some editions of Seneca prefer the reading Bibamus, moriendum est (Let us drink – we must die).
Controversiae
Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS
Our concern, our duty, is our people and our blood. We can be indifferent to everything else. I wish the S.S. to adopt this attitude towards the problem of all foreign, non-Germanic peoples, especially Russians....
The Posen speech to SS officers (6 October 1943)
1940s
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter
"In my Secret Life"
Ten New Songs (2001)
Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor
Quote from Bevridge translation of the Baburnama https://archive.org/stream/baburnama017152mbp#page/n663/mode/2up
Magic Johnson (1959) American basketball player
Then & Now: Magic Johnson http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/01/17/cnn25.tan.johnson/index.html
“If we can't live in peace, then let's die in peace.”
Jim Jones (1931–1978) founder and the leader of the Peoples Temple
" Death Tape http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/Tapes/Tapes/DeathTape/Q042fbi.html" FBI No. Q042 (18 November 1978)
Emily Dickinson Love — thou art high
453: Love — thou art high —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)
“Most people die at 25 and aren’t buried until they’re 75.”
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …
“There are three things you do only once in your life: born, die and voting on PT!”
Luiz Carlos Alborghetti (1945–2009) Italian-Brazilian radio commenter, showman and political figure
Original: (pt) Existem três coisas que você só faz uma vez na vida: nascer, morrer e votar no PT!
“Truth never triumphs—its opponents just die out.”
Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist
Variant: Science advances one funeral at a time.
Pavel Durov (1984) Russian entrepreneur
" Why WhatsApp Will Never Be Secure https://telegra.ph/Why-WhatsApp-Will-Never-Be-Secure-05-15" 2019-05-15 <br class="br">In reference to his expatriation from Russia after refusing to breach the privacy of VK users for the government
Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician
Song lyrics, A Day Without Rain (2000)
Source: da Pilgrim, n.° 9
“I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you.”
Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead
Source: The Fountainhead
Cheryl Strayed book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Source: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
“To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.”
Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) British writer
Hallowed Ground (1825)
Variant: To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
“It's better to die in pursuit of your dreams than to live a life without hope.”
Terry Brooks (1944) American writer
Source: Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace
“Good to know that if I ever need attention all I have to do is die.”
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
“If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.”
George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer
Spoken on his deathbed to his sister-in-law, Sophie Weber (5 December 1791), from Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words by Friedrich Kerst, trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel (1906)
Variant: The taste of death is on my tongue, I feel something that is not from this world (Der Geschmack des Todes ist auf meiner Zunge, ich fühle etwas, das nicht von dieser Welt ist).
William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet
Variant: When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Source: Romeo and Juliet
“My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.”
Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician
“Use your blood to paint. Keep painting until you faint. Keep painting until you die.”
Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist
Robert Jordan The Shadow Rising
al'Lan Mandragoran to Nynaeve al'Meara
(15 September 1992)
Source: The Shadow Rising
“We are born sad and we die sad, but meanwhile we love bodies whose sad beauty is a miracle.”
Mario Benedetti (1920–2009) Uruguayan journalist, novelist, and poet
Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter
Variant: I always read the last page of a book first so that if I die before I finish I'll know how it turned out.
Source: When Harry Met Sally
“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.”
William Shakespeare Julius Caesar
Caesar, Act II, scene ii.
Source: Julius Caesar (1599)
Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer
Source: How to Kill a Rock Star
“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
“You think it's so great to die and make everyone cry and carry on. Well it ain't.”
Katherine Paterson book Bridge to Terabithia
Source: Bridge to Terabithia
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author
As quoted in "Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'" by Ian Sample, in The Guardian (15 May 2011) http://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/may/15/stephen-hawking-interview-there-is-no-heaven <br class="br">Context: I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first... I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
“We are born from a quiet sleep, and we die to a calm awakening”
Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher
Kristin Cast book Marked
Source: Marked
Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer
Stuttgart. After 8th September 1831.
Source: "Selected Correspondence Of Fryderyk Chopin"; http://archive.org/stream/selectedcorrespo002644mbp/selectedcorrespo002644mbp_djvu.txt
“people can die of mere imagination”
Geoffrey Chaucer book The Canterbury Tales
Source: The Canterbury Tales
“I must be gone and live, or stay and die.”
William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet
Source: Romeo and Juliet
“Better to die than to live in fear.”
Christopher Paolini book Inheritance
Roran, on the cause of the Varden
Inheritance (2011)
“Fortunate those who, born before science, were privileged to die of their first disease!”
Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist
Drawn and Quartered (1983)