Quotes about die
page 22

“Martin, rather than step into the spotlight, would prefer to die in an unarmed attack on the power station supplying its electric current. His genuine modesty is the main reason for the fateful discrepancy between him and the journalistic literary sexton beetles who make copy out of him: they would like to receive the degree of attention that he would like to avoid, and the clearer it becomes that he would like to avoid it, the more they resent him for failing to appreciate their generosity.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

On Martin Amis, p. 205
Memoirs, North Face of Soho (2006)

Fate

“Life is a magic garden. With wondrous softly shining flowers, but between the flowers there are the little gnomes, they frighten me so much, they stand on their heads, and the worst is, they call out to me that I should also stand on my head, every once in a while I try, and I die of embarrassment; but sometimes the gnomes shout that I am doing very well, and that I’m indeed a real gnome myself after all. But on no account I will ever fall for that.”

L. E. J. Brouwer (1881–1966) Dutch mathematician and logician

To C.S. Adama van Scheltema (1906); in Dirk van Dalen (ed.) The Selected Correspondence of L.E.J. Brouwer (2011), p. 23

Life, Flowers

“If I were a dictator, religion and state would be separate. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The State has nothing to do with it. The State would look after secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everybody’s personal concern.”

Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904–1966) The second Prime Minister of the Republic of India and a leader of the Indian National Congress party

Religion

Health, Religion, Communication, Personality

“I am not for reconciliation, I am for justice. There is no reconciliation without justice and justice is the return of land. […] AfriForum is a boeremag. It’s a group of Afrikaners who still wish for apartheid. They will never see it. Afrikaner boys, die poppe sal dans. The EFF is coming for you boys. Afrikaner boys, the ANC has made you to think this thing is still Orange Free State. This thing is not Orange Free State. This is Free State. When we take over power, Afrikaner males, you will know your place. Just pray, pray to [your] ancestors, pray to Malan, pray to Verwoerd, pray and ask them for EFF not to come into power. Because [if] we come into power, Afrikaner men, this side! This is where you belong, this is how you are going to behave. They must know, these Afrikaner males, they must know, we are not scared of them ideologically, politically and otherwise. We can take each other toe to toe.”

Julius Malema (1981) South African political activist

To EFF supporters after appearing in the Bloemfontein Magistrate's Court for allegedly contravening the Riotous Assemblies Act, 14 November 2016, Watch: “When we take over power, Afrikaner males, you will know your place.” Malema [video http://www.thesouthafrican.com/watch-when-we-take-over-power-afrikaner-males-you-will-know-your-place-malema-video/], Ezra Claymore, The South African, 14 November 2016. See also: http://citizen.co.za/news/news-national/1344722/afrikaner-boys-die-poppe-sal-dans-malema/, http://sandtonchronicle.co.za/lnn/226059/afrikaner-boys-die-poppe-sal-dans-malema, http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/de-klerk-must-suffer-malema-20161114

Men, Justice, Boy, Thinking

“To himself every one is an immortal: he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Ignorance of Death
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXIII - Death

Dead

“Live Freaky! Die Freaky! will be, without a shadow of a doubt, the single greatest film of all time about Charles Manson being the savior to all humanity in the year 3069.”

John Roecker (1966) American film director

An Epic Interview with John Roecker, FilmJerk, www.filmjerk.com, Kristopher, Terrell, August 23, 2003 http://www.filmjerk.com/interviews/article.php?id_int=12, About

Time

“The Second came to my mind with contrition; Freely desiring that sickness so hard as to death, that I might in that sickness receive all my rites of Holy Church, myself thinking that I should die, and that all creatures might suppose the same that saw me: for I would have no manner of comfort of earthly life. In this sickness I desired to have all manner of pains bodily and ghostly that I should have if I should die, (with all the dreads and tempests of the fiends) except the outpassing of the soul. And this I meant for I would be purged, by the mercy of God, and afterward live more to the worship of God because of that sickness. And that for the more furthering in my death: for I desired to be soon with my God.”

Julian of Norwich book Revelations of Divine Love

Revelations of Divine Love (c. 1393), Chapter 2

Life, Death, God, Pain

“Though love repine, and reason chafe,
There came a voice without reply, —
"'Tis man's perdition to be safe,
When for the truth he ought to die."”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Sacrifice
1860s, May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)
Variant: Though love repine, and reason chafe,
There came a voice without reply, —
"'Tis man's perdition to be safe,
When for the truth he ought to die."

Love, Truth

“If I should die think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.”

Rupert Brooke (1887–1915) British poet

"The Soldier" (1914)

Thinking

“The best of men cannot suspend their fate:
The good die early, and the bad die late.”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

Character of the Late Dr. S. Annesley (1715).

Men, Fate

“If someone were to expound that godliness is to belong to childhood in the temporal sense and thus dwindle and die with the years as childhood does, is to be a happy frame of mind that cannot be preserved but only recollected; if someone were to expound that repentance as a weakness of old age accompanies the decline of one’s powers, when the senses are dulled, when sleep no longer strengthens but increases lethargy-this would be ungodliness and foolishness.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong p. 12
1840s

Happiness, Age, Sense, Sleep

“Easing the passing of a dying person isn't all that wicked. She wanted to die. That can't be murder. It is impossible to accuse a doctor.”

John Bodkin Adams (1899–1983) general practitionar, fraudster and suspected serial killer

To police on being told of the investigation into his actions.
Source: Cullen, Pamela V., "A Stranger in Blood: The Case Files on Dr John Bodkin Adams", London, Elliott & Thompson, 2006, ISBN 1-904027-19-9

Personality

“Slowly he rose, mechanically wiping his hands upon his cloak. A dark scowl had settled on his somber brow. Yet he made no wild, reckless vow, swore no oath by saints or devils.
"Men shall die for this," he said coldly.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Red Shadows" (1928)

Men

“Remember we had a big debate about partial birth abortion? Well, here is a guy, who, in the Senate of Illinois, voted against a bill that was aimed at making sure that hospitals could no longer take babies who were born alive after a botched abortion — these are living babies, wholly separate from the mother, and are there in a nurse's arms, and in a case that I know of, the nurse is begging the doctors to please help, to do something for this child. And she is told to put the child aside, and let it die. That's not abortion. That is infanticide. That is the taking of a child's life. That is simply murder, by neglect. And there was a bill to stop it. And the United States Senate, in a similar bill, passed ninety-eight to zero. Even Teddy Kennedy and Barbara Mikulski could not find it in their abortion-seared consciences to vote for this practice. But Barack Obama voted to let it continue.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

National Federation of Republican Assemblies, NYC, August 31, 2004. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/04_08_31nfra.htm. 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate race

Life, Guy, Birth, Help

“Neurosis is no worse than a bad cold; you ache all over, and it's made you a mess, but you won't die from it.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Neurotics and neurosis

“A summer isle, one over which the wind
Hath ever pass'd in melody,— such airs
As are born in the rose's breast, and die
Like singing on the waters.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Water, Singing, Summer

“I read Wuthering Heights when I was seven. I stole a copy from the library. We weren’t allowed books in the house because they’re ‘dirty and dusty’. My mum had a shelf of fake leather books which my dad used to hide whisky behind. I used to die of embarrassment every time a visitor tried to pick up a book and realized it was fake.
The library was forbidden so it became exotic and sexy in my imagination. I was dying to get in there and read a book!”

Carole Morin British writer

Trivial and Profound (2013)

Books, Imagination, Time, Reading

“And you speak of a fever, that burns you inside,
as you explain to your mother, how you've wanted to die.
So she kisses your fingers, and says "My darling, but why?
When there is so much more. There is so much more."”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Insound Tour Support No.12 (2000)

Kiss

“Even to have come forth is something, since I see that being able to conquer is placed in the hands of fate. However, there was in me, whatever I was able to do, that which no future century will deny to be mine, that which a victor could have for his own: Not to have feared to die, not to have yielded to any equal in firmness of nature, and to have preferred a courageous death to a noncombatant life.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

On the Monad, Number, and Figure (1591)

Life, Death, Fate, Fear

“Small creatures die because
larger creatures are hungry.
How superior to this
human confusion of greed
and creed, blood and fire.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Given (2005), Sabbaths 2001

“(Sylvia driving to nervous passenger Venusian Gernif) Don't be silly. You're not going to be the first interplanetary traveler to die in a Chevy.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 134

Travel

“"The yellow star? So what? It's not lethal…"
(Poor Father! Of what then did you die?)”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Night (1960)

Star

“I could never really make the connection between Christian and Catholic. I always imagined that Christ would look down upon the Catholic church and totally disassociate himself from it. I went to severe schools, working class schools, where they would almost chop your fingers off for your own good, and if you missed church on Sunday and went to school on a Monday and they quizzed you on it, you'd be sent to the gallows. It was like 'Brush you teeth NOW or you will DIE IN HELL and you will ROT and all these SNAKES will EAT you'. And I remember all these religious figures, statues, which used to petrify every living child. All these snakes trodden underfoot and blood everywhere. I thought it was so morbid. I mean the very idea of just going to church anyway is really quite absurd. I always felt that it was really like the police, certainly in this country at any rate, just there to keep the working classes humble and in their place. Because of course nobody else but the working class pays any attention to it. I really feel quite sick when I see the Pope giving long, overblown, inflated lectures on nuclear weapons and then having tea with Margaret Thatcher. To me it's total hypocrisy. And when I hear the Pope completely condemning working class women for having abortions and condemning nobody else… to me the whole thing is entirely class ridden, it's just really to keep the working classes in perpetual fear and feeling total guilt.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

from "All men have secrets and these are Morrissey’s", interview by Neil McCormick,Hot Press (4 May 1984)
In interviews etc., About life and death

Women, Fear, School, Feeling

“His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine - it was as the burning sun to my taper light - mine was bounded by time, his stretched away to the boundless shores of eternity. I could live for the slave, but he could die for him.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Regarding John Brown, address at the 14th anniversary of Storer College http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/bbspr05-0032.html (30 May 1881) 1880s, Address at the Anniversary of Storer College (1881)

Light, Time, Sun

“I have nothing and therefore nothing to lose. I have conditioned myself for every conceivable shock and strain – physically, mentally, and emotionally. I fear nothing. No threat or prospect of danger deters me; I’ve faced them all, continuously and by choice. I am willing to suffer with those who suffer, to die with those who die, and to struggle in the most extreme manner for their liberation. I’ve lived the past decade with no pleasures, no amenities, and no entertainment. I’ve conditioned myself for every extreme. This is the level of commitment that our struggle demands, and the level of commitment that I have, and those who share this commitment have my complete loyalty.”

Kevin Rashid Johnson (1971) American prisoner and social activist

Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin Rashid Johnson (2010)

Pleasure, Fear, Suffering, Past

“The corpses of water-dwelling animals often sink to the bottom and become covered with sediment. The sediment tends to protect the dead body and even at times retain an impression of its shape and external anatomical details. This environment then provides the means by which the bones of the skeleton are mineralized. …most land animals die and fall to the ground, without any chance of a freak flood casting them into an environment more favorable to fossilization.”

Jeffrey H. Schwartz (1948) American anthropologist

What the Bones Tell Us (1997)

Water, Chance, Time, Animals

“As a physician I am embarrassed by the lack of initiative and obstructionist policies of my own medical profession toward healthier lifestyles. This is not surprising. Physicians lack training and knowledge of nutrition and are self-serving when they proclaim “patients won't follow plant-based nutrition.” Having counseled patients with severe coronary artery heart disease for over twenty years, I find the opposite to be true. Patients sent home to die by expert cardiologists after failing bypass or stents rejoice as they lose weight, eliminate angina chest pains, lessen their medication, lower their blood sugars, decrease or come off their insulin, revert their positive stress test back to normal, selectively diminish the plaque plugging their arteries, and resume a fully active life empowered by the knowledge that they, not their physicians, have become the locus of control for the disease that was destroying them.”

Caldwell Esselstyn (1933) American physician, author and rower

Foreword https://books.google.it/books?id=6Aosc1wlAXcC&pg=PA1 to No More Bull! by Howard Lyman (New York: Scribner, 2005).

Life, Pain, Disease, Home

“I can think of no moral objection to eating human road kills except for the ones that you mentioned like 'what would the relatives think about it?' and 'would the person themselves have wanted it to happen?', but I do worry a bit about slippery slopes; possibly a little bit more than you do.There are barriers that we have set up in our minds and certainly the barrier between Homo sapiens and any other species is an artificial barrier in the sense that its a kind of 'accident' that the evolutionary intermediates happen to be extinct. Never the less it exists and natural barriers that are there can be useful for preventing slippery slopes and therefore I think I can see an objection to breaching such a barrier because you are then in a weaker position to stop people going further.Another example might be suppose you take the argument in favour of abortion up until the baby was one year old, if a baby was one year old and turned out to have some horrible incurable disease that meant it was going to die in agony in later life, what about infanticide? Strictly morally I can see no objection to that at all, I would be in favour of infanticide but I think i would worry about/I think I would wish at least to give consideration to the person who says 'where does it end?'”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

"
Peter Singer - The Genius of Darwin: The Uncut Interviews (2009)

Life, People, Disease, Nature

“He caught a glimpse of that extraordinary faculty in man, that strange, altruistic, rare, and obstinate decency which will make writers or scientists maintain their truths at the risk of death. Eppur si muove, Galileo was to say; it moves all the same. They were to be in a position to burn him if he would go on with it, with his preposterous nonsense about the earth moving round the sun, but he was to continue with the sublime assertion because there was something which he valued more than himself. The Truth. To recognize and to acknowledge What Is. That was the thing which man could do, which his English could do, his beloved, his sleeping, his now defenceless English. They might be stupid, ferocious, unpolitical, almost hopeless. But here and there, oh so seldome, oh so rare, oh so glorious, there were those all the same who would face the rack, the executioner, and even utter extinction, in the cause of something greater than themselves. Truth, that strange thing, the jest of Pilate's. Many stupid young men had thought they were dying for it, and many would continue to die for it, perhaps for a thousand years. They did not have to be right about their truth, as Galileo was to be. It was enough that they, the few and martyred, should establish a greatness, a thing above the sum of all they ignorantly had.”

T. H. White book The Book of Merlyn

The Book of Merlyn (1977)

Death, Men, Truth, Stupidity

“I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer's morning; I have a conscience void of offense toward God, and toward all men. I SHALL DIE INNOCENT, AND IT SHALL YET BE SAID OF ME — HE WAS MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805–1844) American religious leader and the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement

1840s

Men, God, Summer

“Faith is a powerful thing to have in your repertory. … Certainly, I'd felt despair, sometimes so much that I thought it would be easier to die. But my family and my faith have sustained me until, when I least expected it, life picked me up again.”

Debbie Reynolds (1932–2016) American actress, singer, and dancer

Source: Unsinkable : A Memoir (2013), Chapter 18. Family and Faith

Life, Family, Faith, Despair

“Lulu made most of his telephone calls. He made this one himself, on a special line that didn't pass through her desk. It went straight from his office to the War Department. Men checked twice a day to make sure the damnyankees didn't tap it. It rang only once before the Chief of the General Staff picked it up. "Forrest speaking." "Featherston," Jake said, and then, "Blackbeard." He hung up. There. It was done. The die was cast. Whatever was going to happen would happen… starting tomorrow morning, early tomorrow morning. Summer had just come in. Jake worked through the rest of June 21. He ate supper, then went right on working through the night. Lulu brought him cup after cup of coffee. After a while, yawning, she went home to bed. He worked on, behind blackout curtains that kept light from leaking out of the Gray House and showing where it was from the air. June 21 passed through to June 22. All that coffee made Jake's eart thud and soured his stomach. He gulped a Bromo-Seltzer and went on. At a quarter past three, the drone of airplane engines and the thunder of distant artillery- not distant enough; damn those Yankee robbers!”

Harry Turtledove book American Empire: The Victorious Opposition

made him whoop for sheer glee. He'd waited so long. Now his day was here.
Source: American Empire: The Victorious Opposition (2003), p. 534.

Men, War, Home, Coffee

“Great Carthage low in ashes cold doth lie,
Her ruins poor the herbs in height scant pass,
So cities fall, so perish kingdoms high,
Their pride and pomp lies hid in sand and grass:
Then why should mortal man repine to die,
Whose life, is air; breath, wind; and body, glass?”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Giace l'alta Cartago; appena i segni
Dell'alte sue ruine il lido serba.
Muojono le città, muojono i regni;
Copre i fasti e le pompe arena ed erba;
E l'uomo d'esser mortal par che si sdegni:
O nostra mente cupida e superba!
Canto XV, stanza 20 (tr. Fairfax)
Max Wickert's translation:
: Exalted Carthage lies full low. The signs
of her great ruin fade upon the strand.
So dies each city, so each realm declines,
its pomp and glory lost in scrub and sand,
and mortal man to see it sighs and pines.
(Ah, greed and pride! when will you understand?)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Life, Lie, Grass

“Most of the people who get sent to die in wars are young men who've got a lot of energy and would probably rather, in a better world, be putting that energy into copulation rather than going over there and blowing some other young man's guts out.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

"The Craft" - interview with Daniel Whiston, Engine Comics (January 2005)

Men, War, People, World

“The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are. History would forget these latter despicable beings, and speak, in later ages of the glory of these grand Kings of forest and plain that Cooper loved to heroism.
We cannot honestly regret their extermination, but we at least do justice to the manly characteristics possessed, according to their lights and education, by the early Redskins of America.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

Saturday Pioneer (20 December 1890)
The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (1890 and 1891)

Love, War, Age, Education

“I was number one on the Who's Likely To Die list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

NME; reported in " In quotes: Keith Richards http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6526133.stm", BBC (April 4, 2007).

Disappointment

“Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, "Where is that marvelous ape?"”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Allegedly said in March 1986 during the U.S. senate race. The above quotation was pieced together by a journalist from the recollection of one or more sources, and prived in the Tucson Citizen on October 27, 1986 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/15/sources-recall-mccains-jo_n_112955.html http://www.rumromanismrebellion.net/2008/07/15/the-comedy-stylings-of-shecky-mccain/ Disputed

“There is absolutely no point in being healed in our bodies, then dying in our sins and spending an eternity in hell. It would be better to die of cancer and go to heaven because of that cancer, then to live in perfect health and end up in hell.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

More Than Just Comfort: An Answer to Cancer (c. 1979)

Health, Hell, Perfection

“Of the eternal incorporeal substance nothing is changed, is formed or deformed, but there always remains only that thing which cannot be a subject of dissolution, since it is not possible that it be a subject of composition, and therefore, either of itself or by accident, it cannot be said to die.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

As translated by Arthur Imerti (1964)
The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast (1584)

Change

“Men die but sorrow never dies.”

Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (1835–1905) writer

The Cradle Tomb in Westminster Abbey (1975).

Men

“I am in this same river. I can't much help it. I admit it: I'm racist. The other night I saw a group (or maybe a pack?) or white teenagers standing in a vacant lot, clustered around a 4x4, and I crossed the street to avoid them; had they been black, I probably would have taken another street entirely. And I'm misogynistic. I admit that, too. I'm a shitty cook, and a worse house cleaner, probably in great measure because I've internalized the notion that these are woman's work. Of course, I never admit that's why I don't do them: I always say I just don't much enjoy those activities (which is true enough; and it's true enough also that many women don't enjoy them either), and in any case, I've got better things to do, like write books and teach classes where I feel morally superior to pimps. And naturally I value money over life. Why else would I own a computer with a hard drive put together in Thailand by women dying of job-induced cancer? Why else would I own shirts made in a sweatshop in Bangladesh, and shoes put together in Mexico? The truth is that, although many of my best friends are people of color (as the cliche goes), and other of my best friends are women, I am part of this river: I benefit from the exploitation of others, and I do not much want to sacrifice this privilege. I am, after all, civilized, and have gained a taste for "comforts and elegancies" which can be gained only through the coercion of slavery. The truth is that like most others who benefit from this deep and broad river, I would probably rather die (and maybe even kill, or better, have someone kill for me) than trade places with the men, women, and children who made my computer, my shirt, my shoes.”

Derrick Jensen book The Culture of Make Believe

Source: The Culture of Make Believe (2003), p. 69

Life, Women, Men, Money

“When you reach your peak its time to die.”

GG Allin (1956–1993) American singer-songwriter

GG Allin on The Jane Whitney Show July 16. 1993.
On The Jane Whitney Show

Time

“Here's what we're not taught [about the Declaration and Constitution]: Those words at the time they were written were blazingly, electrifyingly subversive. If you understand them truly now, they still are. […] You are not taught—and it is a disgrace that you aren't—that these men and women were radicals for liberty; that they had a vision of equality that was a slap in the face of what the rest of their world understood to be the unchanging, God-given order of nations; and that they were willing to die to make that desperate vision into a reality for people like us, whom they would never live to see.”

Naomi Wolf (1962) American writer

In The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1603580115, Wolf, Chelsea Green Publishing (2007), Chapter One, 'The Founders and the Fragility of Democracy,' p. 27

Women, Men, God, People

“Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a "halter" intimidate. For, under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men.”

Josiah Quincy II (1744–1775) American lawyer

Observations on the Boston Port Bill, 1774.

Men, God

“And I think, in the end, that is the best definition of journalism I have heard; to challenge authority - all authority - especially so when governments and politicians take us to war, when they have decided that they will kill and others will die.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

Preface (page XXIII)
The Great War for Civilization (2005)

War, Thinking

“All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.”

John Arbuthnot

Quoted in [Garnett, Richard, Life of Emerson, 1888, http://www.poemhunter.com/john-arbuthnot/quotations/poet-32922/page-1/, 1888, Chapter 7]

“Remember what we once were and what we thought we'd be. And now this. And it's all we have, Allan, it's us. Every step we've taken -- every tick of the clock -- making everything worse. If this is all life is, what's the use? Better to die, like carol, before you find it out, before Time gets to work on you. I've felt it before, Allan, but never as I've done tonight. There's a great devil in the universe, and we call it Time.”

J.B. Priestley Time and the Conways

Time and the Conways, p. 59-60.

Life, Universe, Time

“When I cannot stand alone, it will be time to die," he mumbled, through mashed lips. "But I'd like a flagon of wine.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Rogues in the House" (1934)

Wine, Time

“The Politician's goal is to build a fortune, ours is to build our homeland flowering and strong. For her we will work and we will build. For her we will make each Romanian a hero, ready to fight, ready to sacrifice, ready to die.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

The Nest Leader's Manual (1933)

Flowers, Strong, Fight

“Svenson taught me how to speak German in this film! I didn't know anything, and this guy, who used to be a Swedish ice-hockey player who went to Vietnam as a Marine, he stood there with me, coaching me things like `Bringen Sie die Gefangenen in mein Buro!' Williamson also was a very nice person. I had one wonderful scene in this movie, where I…I was outranking them, they are my prisoners, I walk in front of the prisoners, and I have to say something like, in a very contemptuous way: `Americans…Italians…Jews…Irish!”

Donald O'Brien (actor) (1930–2003) Italian film and TV actor

I felt like a traitor!
Euro Trash Cinema magazine interview (March 1996)

Way, Guy, Personality, Hockey

“Kandinsky was connected with Die Brücke and the Blue Rider: they had a concept and created a reality. But I prefer Jean Fautrier [French painter-artist; 1898 - 1965] with his suffering and self-absorption. And his purpose on bringing about changes was just as strong. As a result I see in Fautrier a stronger paradigm than in Kandinsky..”

Anselm Kiefer (1945) German painter and sculptor

(1986) n.p.
Structures are no longer valid', in "Ein Gespräch..."

Reality, Strong, Suffering, Change

“Now God be praised, I die contented.”

James Wolfe (1727–1759) British Army officer

Source: Last words, on hearing of the defeat of the French at Quebec. Quoted in Francis Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe

God

“Who says that we shall pass, or the fame of us fade and die,
While the living stars fulfil their round in the living sky?”

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English poet, critic and editor

Source: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, III

Star

“It is better for a man to die at peace with himself than to live haunted by an evil conscience.”

James Fenimore Cooper book The Last of the Mohicans

The Last of the Mohicans (1826), Ch. 8

Peace, Evil

“One individual may die for an idea, but that idea will, after his death, incarnate itself in a thousand lives.”

Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945) Indian nationalist leader and politician

"Quotations by 60 Greatest Indians" at Institute of Information and Communication Technology http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/quotations.html

Death, Idea

“Looking at this immensely swollen face in front of him the doctor gently consoled the patient, "Comrade, don't worry and you will recover." As a matter of fact, he was thinking quite the opposite, "You will die. I can be of no more help."”

Ba Jin (1904–2005) Chinese novelist

A Battle For Life (July 1958)

Thinking, Help

“The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is — to die.”

Oliver Goldsmith book The Vicar of Wakefield

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 29, Song, st. 2.

Art, Lovers

“The battle will decide whether Germany is to live or die. Your soldiers must fight hard and ruthlessly. There must be no pity. The enemy must be beaten, now or never. Thus will live our Germany! Forward to and over the Meuse!”

Wilhelm Mohnke (1911–2001) German general

Quoted in "The Longest Winter" - Page 71 - by Alex Kershaw - History - 2004.

Fight

“I have applied for a pass and I am going to travel through Western Europe for 5 days. [I] start in Cologne and will probably end in Paris. Who cares. In Cologne there is a large exhibition of German painters [especially Die Brücke-artists]. Jan W. [= Jan Wiegers, who knew Kirchner very well since 1920] has been there and animated so much that I'm going there for a while.... it seems that Jan wants to come with me. He was so enthusiastic that I suspect to be able to note him as my traveling companion.”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Ik heb een pas aangevraagd en ga West-Europa in 5 dagen afreizen. Begin in Keulen en eindig vermoedelijk in Parijs. Wie doet je wat. In Keulen is een groote tentoonstelling van Duitse schilders [met name van Die Brücke]. Jan W. [= nl:Jan Wiegers] is er geweest en animeerde zoodanig dat ik er even heen ga.. ..'t schijnt dat Jan met me mee wil. Hij was zo enthousiast dat ik vermoed hem als reisgezel te kunnen noteren.
Quote van Werkman, in his letter to Cor Spruit, 14 August, 1929; as cited in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 110
After this trip Werkman made a series of prints from the Paris' metro: 'D-67' and 'D-69'
1920's

Travel, Animals

“One of the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die.”

Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790–1867) American writer

Marco Bozzaris.

“Those who ignore history’s lessons in the ultimate folly of war are forced to do more than relive them…they may be forced to die by them.”

Dan Simmons book The Fall of Hyperion

Source: The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Chapter 12 (p. 94)

War, History

“I don't want to get so lost in thinking about me and talking about me all the time in interviews. It's so nice to unwind and just look at other things and get out of yourself. It's hard to detach myself from myself without neglecting myself. You know what I mean? I don't want to get in to the habit of thinking about my career because when it comes down to it, it's not really that important. I could die tomorrow and the world would go on.”

River Phoenix (1970–1993) American actor, musician, and activist

Sky Magazine (1988)

World, Thinking, Time

“"And when we die,
All’s over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips," said I
—"Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"
"We are earth’s best, that learnt her lesson here,
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said.”

Rupert Brooke (1887–1915) British poet

"The Hill" (1910)

Life, Faith, Lovers, Heart

“Okay, we will divide the first [of two questions] and let the second die a crib death.”

Tony Snow (1955–2008) American White House Press Secretary

White House Press Briefing http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060706-2.html (2006-07-06).

Death, Question

“That's the state to live and die in!…R-r-rich!”

Charles Dickens book Our Mutual Friend

Bk. III, Ch. 5
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)

“Another test came slightly later in Jammu and Kashmir which a Hindu prince had managed to save from the Islamic monster in spite of machinations by Mountbatten and British die-hards, and in the face of undisguised hostility from a Soviet stooge masquerading as the Prime Minister of India. But a large part of that precious patrimony was soon surrendered to Islamic imperialism in order to demonstrate India’s ‘democratic’ credentials before an international opinion which wondered for quite some time why India was smitten with such a grave sense of guilt. The rest of the region, which had been saved by a brave soldiery at the cost of so much blood and toil, was handed over to a haughty sheikh who had never hidden his intention of setting up a separate sultanate. The Valley was very soon barred even to the sons of the soil who had to flee from their homes in the Pakistan-occupied parts of Jammu and Kashmir.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987)

Hostility, Home, Sense, Time

“In the progress of the work he founded a Collegium Biblieum, or Bible club, consisting of his colleagues Melanchthon, Bugenhagen (Pommer), Cruciger, Justus Jonas, and Aurogallus. They met once a week in his house, several hours before supper. Deacon Georg Rörer (Rorarius), the first clergyman ordained by Luther, and his proof-reader, was also present; occasionally foreign scholars were admitted; and Jewish rabbis were freely consulted. Each member of the company contributed to the work from his special knowledge and preparation. Melanchthon brought with him the Greek Bible, Cruciger the Hebrew and Chaldee, Bugenhagen the Vulgate, others the old commentators; Luther had always with him the Latin and the German versions besides the Hebrew. Sometimes they scarcely mastered three lines of the Book of Job in four days, and hunted two, three, and four weeks for a single word. No record exists of the discussions of this remarkable company, but Mathesius says that "wonderfully beautiful and instructive speeches were made."
At last the whole Bible, including the Apocrypha as "books not equal to the Holy Scriptures, yet useful and good to read," was completed in 1534, and printed with numerous woodcuts.
In the mean time the New Testament had appeared in sixteen or seventeen editions, and in over fifty reprints.
Luther complained of the many errors in these irresponsible editions.
He never ceased to amend his translation. Besides correcting errors, he improved the uncouth and confused orthography, fixed the inflections, purged the vocabulary of obscure and ignoble words, and made the whole more symmetrical and melodious.
He prepared five original editions, or recensions, of his whole Bible, the last in 1545, a year before his death.
The edition of 1546 was prepared by his friend Rörer, and contains a large number of alterations, which he traced to Luther himself. Some of them are real improvements, e. g., Die Liebe höret nimmer auf, for, Die Liebe wird nicht müde (1 Cor. 13:8). The charge that he made the changes in the interest of Philippism (Melanchthonianism), seems to be unfounded.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Luther's Bible club

Death, Books, Beauty, Error

“And though love has brought me down
Love is still around
Finding all its ways to those whose hearts are brave enough to try
Coz love is always ready to defy,
All unwilling things that this life may bring.
Though at times may seem to lose its faith
And die when things turn wrong
But love is still my reason to go on.”

Sophia Montecarlo (1986) Filipino musician

Reason to go on, 2004
Song Quotations

Love, Life, Faith, Way

“Thank you. I guess a fellow like me has to die to get voted in by the writers.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

In Cooperstown, New York, July 22, 1968, for the annual Hall of Fame Game; replying to a fellow Museum patron (who, upon seeing him photographing various exhibits, had informed Clemente, "Some day they will be taking pictures of your shrine here"), as quoted in "Sidelight on Sports: I Remember Roberto" by Al Abrams, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Tuesday, January 2, 1973), p. 14
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1968</big>

“If I fuckin' die without having written two, three, or four brilliant rock songs… I don't know why I lived my life.”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

Remarks about her ambitions early in her career (1991), Not Bad for a Girl documentary (1995)
1991–1995

Life

“Immediate reality is outside that window; so big it is, so much of it, everything entangled in everything else… What large thought Sabbath was struggling to express? Is he asking, "Whatever did happen to my own true life?" Was it taking place elsewhere? But how then can looking out of this window be so gigantically real? Well, that is the difference between the true and the real. We don't get to live in the truth. That's why Nikki ran away. She was an idealist, an innocent, touching, talented illusionist who wanted to live in the truth. Well, if you found it, kid, you're the first. In my experience the direction of life is toward incoherence—precisely what you would never confront. Maybe that was the only coherent thing you could think to do: die to deny incoherence.”

Philip Roth book Sabbath's Theater

Sabbath's Theater (1995)

Life, Truth, Thinking, Reality

“Death induces the sensual person to say: Let us eat and drink, because tomorrow we shall die – but this is sensuality’s cowardly lust for life, that contemptible order of things where one lives in order to eat and drink instead of eating and drinking in order to live.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (1845), p. 83

Life, Death, Drink, Personality

“What use to covet loot, when even stars must die?”

Lin Carter (1930–1988) American fantasy writer, editor, critic

Source: Tower at the Edge of Time (1968), Chapter 13, “The Scarlet Tower” (p. 124)

Star

“They held us in San Antonio … We had tents and blankets but no arms. We had food. But every minute we expected to be taken out and shot. Nobody said it aloud. Geronimo had been promised that he would not die by bullets (by Usen, the Apache God), but the rest had not.”

Geronimo (1829–1909) leader of the Bedonkohe Apache

Jasper Kanseah, a fellow captive, as quoted in Geronimo and the End of the Apache Wars (1990), by Charles Leland Sonnichsen, p. 101.
About

God, Food

“The hope of the nation and of Christendom, and of the lands called heathen, alike is to be found in the indoctrination of little children in the knowledge of God's truth; for the missionaries will tell you that the adult heathen population of to-day are to die heathen; the minister will tell you that the adult, virtually heathen population of Christian lands to-day are to die in that condition, unless God showers down altogether unprecedented grace — with only such occasional exceptions as confirm this general and terrible law. If this be so, the hope of Christianity is in childhood. Towards childhood must be directed the work of the sappers and miners of the church. Here is the weak point of the enemy's fortress. Here let the breach be made, and his topmost turret shall be laid low.”

Cyrus David Foss (1834–1910) American bishop

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 570.

God, Children, Truth, Law

“Head like a hole,
Black as your soul.
I'd rather die than give you control.
Head like a hole,
Black as your soul.
I'd rather die than give you control.Bow down before the one you serve;
You're going to get what you deserve.”

Trent Reznor (1965) American musician

Head Like a Hole.
Song lyrics

Soul

“"But I can't devote myself entirely to a child," said she; "it may die — which is not at all improbable."
"But, with care, many a delicate infant has become a strong man or woman."
"But it may grow so intolerably like its father that I shall hate it."
"That is not likely; it is a little girl, and strongly resembles its mother."”

Anne Brontë book Agnes Grey

Source: Agnes Grey (1847), Ch. XXIII : The Park

Hate, Girl, Strong

“Unborn eternity does not die; existence is dying and falls asleep in the eternity beyond existence.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

“Eternity and Existence,” p. 31
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “Skywalking”

“Every time you go away, I always say
This time it's goodbye, dear
Loving you the way I do
I take you back, without you I'd die dear
Knowing I love you so.”

Hal David (1921–2012) American lyricist

Song Anyone Who Had A Heart

Love, Way, Time

“Everybody thought Barack Obama was going to [inspire people] when he came to Washington, but, you know, the Senate seems like the place where smart people go to die.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Originally spoken, reprinted in Mr. Obama Goes to Washington http://davidsirota.com/index.php/mr-obama-goes-to-washington/ By David Sirota in The Nation, June 7, 2006.

People

“Where dost thou careless lie,
Buried in ease and sloth?
Knowledge that sleeps, doth die;
And this security,
It is the common moth,
That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.”

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English writer

XXIII, An Ode, to Himself, lines 1-6
The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640), Underwoods

Lie, Art, Knowledge, Sleep

“"I really was sick. I swear. I almost died back there on the ship, you know."
"I know. Every time you almost die, I almost die myself."”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Clary and Jace, pg.449
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Time

“Please, know that for as long as I live I will be haunted with the sorrow for what I did and when I die I will have counted it more mercy than I deserved to have lived the life I did. Until that day, I want you to also know, I will spend my life trying to do things that will touch the world in a good way, to give back for all I took from you. That’s the only thing I can offer with my hands and my heart. It’s simply all I have.”

Sean Sellers (1969–1999) American murderer

The Confession of My Crimes

Life, World, Way, Heart

“Historians now debate whether Britain had a ‘managed economy’ by 1939, the very term—die gelenkte wirtschaft—adopted by German economists in the 1930s to describe the Nazi economy.”

Richard Overy (1947) British historian

Source: War and Economy in the Third Reich (1994), p. 17

“Twenty kilometers. At an average speed of 120 klicks per hour, we should cover the distance in ten minutes. Ten freezing, adrenaline-pumping, gorge-rising, terror-beating-against-the-ribs, react-in-a-microsecond-or-die seconds.”

Dan Simmons book The Rise of Endymion

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 15 (p. 297)

Speed

“Then legionaries wrote down several maxims I collected either from the Gospels or from other writings. They embelished our walls. Here are some of them: "God carries us on His victorious chariot." "Whoever wins…. I shall be his God." "He who does not have a sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one." "Fight bravely for faith." "Avoid carnal pleasures, for they kill the soul." "Be vigilant." "Do not destroy the hero that is in you." "Brothers in fortune… as in misfortune." "Whoever knows how to die, will never be a slave."”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

"I await the resurrection of my Fatherland and the destruction of the hordes of traitors," etc.
For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), The Legion

God, Pleasure, Faith, Soul

“"Mrs. M., you seem to be very sick." " Yes," said she, "I am dying." "And are you ready to die?" "Sir, God knows I have taken Him at His word, and I am not afraid to die."”

Ichabod Spencer (1798–1854) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 601.

God

“I die with a clear conscience, I die fighting, not like a coward.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Said while being taken to his execution, as quoted in Philip Foner, The Case of Joe Hill (International Publishers Co., 1966), p. 108

Fight

“Greece expects you not merely to die for her, for that is little, indeed; she expects you to conquer. That is why each one of you, even in dying, should be possessed by one thought alone – how to conserve your strength to the last so that those who survive may conquer.
And you will conquer, I am more than sure of this.”

Eleftherios Venizelos (1864–1936) Greek politician

Venizelos speaking to Greek sailors at the beginning of the First Balkan War.
Source: [Chester, S. M., Life of Venizelos, with a letter from His Excellency M. Venizelos, Constable, 1921, London, http://www.archive.org/download/lifeofvenizelosw00chesuoft/lifeofvenizelosw00chesuoft.pdf], p. 162

“God doesn't make mistakes. So if I'm supposed to die, there's a very good reason for it. I'm not going to question him. I'm just going to enjoy all these beautiful things that God created.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 168

God, Beauty, Question

“Even today, I would fight and die for you. I say that without any hesitation because that is what I stood for when I joined the struggle. I will stand for it until the end.”

Jacob Zuma (1942) 4th President of South Africa

After his rape acquittal on 8 May 2006, Zuma castigates media after acquittal http://mg.co.za/article/2006-05-08-zuma-castigates-media-after-acquittal, M&G, 8 May 2006

Fight

“When we have become free, we need not go mad and throw up society and rush off to die in the forest or the cave; we shall remain where we were but we shall understand the whole thing. The same phenomena will remain but with a new meaning.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Understanding, Madness

“I'm a good friend, but I'm a hell of an enemy. As your enemy, I want your demise. When I feel that in my heart it burns till I die.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml;jsessionid=CEDUJVE3P05PLQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/sport/2002/05/01/sotys02.xml&page=2
On himself

Feeling, Hell, Heart

“If God in his wisdom have brought close
The day when I must die,
That day by water or fire or air
My feet shall fall in the destined snare
Wherever my road may lie.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) English poet, illustrator, painter and translator

The King's Tragedy, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Wisdom, God, Lie, Water

“Oh, what is worth this lore of age
If time shall never bring us back
Our battle with the gods to wage
Reeling along the starry track.
The battle rapture here goes by
In warring upon things that die.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

By Still Waters (1906)

God, War, Age, Time

“It is sweet and honorable to die for one's country.”
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

Horace book Odes

Book III, ode ii, line 13
Odes (c. 23 BC and 13 BC)

Country

“I can die when I wish to: that is my elixir of life.”

Ernest Renan (1823–1892) French philosopher and writer

The Republic.
Ernest Renan: a Critical Biography (1964)

Life

“Searching for a cure for aging is not just a nice thing that we should perhaps one day get around to. It is an urgent, screaming moral imperative. The sooner we start a focused research program, the sooner we will get results. It matters if we get the cure in 25 years rather than in 24 years: a population greater than that of Canada would die as a result. In this matter, time equals life, at a rate of approximately 70 lives per minute. With the meter ticking at such a furious rate, we should stop faffing about.”

Nick Bostrom (1973) Swedish philosopher

The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html (2005)

Life, Age, Search, Time

“Government commissions are where accountability goes to die.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Make me Thankful: Don’t Enlist!” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=523 WorldNetDaily.com, November 27, 2009. 2000s, 2009

“I can’t die, [he most famously liked to say]. It would ruin my image.”

Jack LaLanne (1914–2011) American exercise instructor

In "Jack LaLanne, Founder of Modern Fitness Movement, Dies at 96, New York Times."

Quotes about die page 22

Quotes about die
page 22