Quotes about die (3809 quotes, page 28)

“I cannot allow all you people to die. Many of you are Jews, and our constitution clearly states that neither the religion nor the political beliefs of foreigners can be used as a pretext for refusing to allow them to stay in Portugal. I've decided to be faithful to that principle, but I shan't resign for all that. The only way I can respect my faith as a Christian is to act in accordance with the dictates of my conscience.”

Aristides de Sousa Mendes (1885–1954) Portuguese diplomat

Quoted in The Independent, Sunday 17 October 2010 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/sousa-mendes-saved-more-lives-than-schindler-so-why-isnt-he-a-household-name-too-2105882.html

People , Faith , Religion , Way

“One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head that only I can hear.”

Maurice Jarre (1924–2009) French composer

This quote was actually crafted by University College Dublin student Shane Fitzgerald. Shortly after Jarre's death, Fitzgerald uploaded https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maurice_Jarre&type=revision&diff=280558491&oldid=280527998 the false quote to Wikipedia to test "how our globalised, increasingly internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news," according to the Associated Press. "The sociology major's made-up quote…flew straight on to dozens of US blogs and newspaper websites in Britain, Australia and India. They used the fabricated material, Fitzgerald said, even though administrators at the free online encyclopedia quickly caught the quote's lack of attribution and removed it, but not quickly enough to keep some journalists from cutting and pasting it first. A full month went by and nobody noticed the editorial fraud. So Fitzgerald told several media outlets in an email and the corrections began." The Guardian and The Herald "are among the only publications to make a public mea culpa," the Associated Press continues. See " Student hoaxes world's media with fake Wiki quote http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/web/student-hoaxes-worlds-media-with-fake-wiki-quote/2009/05/12/1241893953955.html," The Sydney Morning Herald (12 May 2009).
Misattributed

Life , Music

“Such desire is in him
merely to see the hearthsmoke leaping upward
from his own island, that he longs to die.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

I. 58–59 (tr. Robert Fitzgerald).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

“I dream I am the chosen Poet,
Who knows all there is to know on Earth,
The one whose inspiration’s pure and perfect,
And captures infinity in a verse!I dream a verse of mine has all the brightness
To light the whole world! And it will please
Even those who long and die of sadness!
And even wise, unhappy souls it will appease.”

Florbela Espanca (1894–1930) Portuguese poet

Sonho que sou a Poetisa eleita,
Aquela que diz tudo e tudo sabe,
Que tem a inspiração pura e perfeita,
Que reúne num verso a imensidade!<p>Sonho que um verso meu tem claridade
Para encher todo o mundo! E que deleita
Mesmo aqueles que morrem de saudade!
Mesmo os de alma profunda e insatisfeita!
Quoted in Trocando olhares (1994), p. 131
Translated by John D. Godinho
Book of Sorrows (1919), "Vaidade"

World , Sadness , Dreams , Soul

“This is where we get into the information war - that speculative blood became more important than the actual blood. We already can see all that terrible stuff – we know about that. Let's focus on your nightmares, how all these people might die because the government's secrets have been unleashed.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Attributed, "We Steal Secrets" 2013 Movie

War , People , Secret

“It is the duty of the humor of any given nation in time of high crisis to attack the catastrophe that faces it in such a manner as to cause the people to laugh at it in such a way that they cannot die before they are killed.”

Lord Buckley (1906–1960) American actor and comedian

Lord Buckley, "H-Bomb" (comic monologue), 1960. Reported in Stephen Holden, It's Comedy! From Skit To Song To Satire http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE7DB173EF934A15753C1A96F948260 (October 27, 1989) The New York Times.

People , Way , Time

“This aspis was my father's and his father's before him. I have sworn before God to die before another man took this from my hand. He crossed to the ranks of Thespians, to a man, an obscure warrior among them. Into the fellow's grasp he placed the shield.”

Steven Pressfield Gates of Fire

Polynikes p. 405
Gates of Fire (1998)

God

“I’m southern born, and southern bred, and when I die, I’ll be southern dead.”

Zell Miller (1932–2018) Politician and United States Marine Corps officer

Following death of former Democratic Georgia state House Speaker Tom Murphy in December 2007. Zell Miller: Murphy death ends era of individual power player | ajc.com http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/12/18/zellmiller_1219.html

Dead

“The sun has only ever shone for me in France (it certainly did that!). I have got used to beating the streets of Paris, happy beyond words dreaming of a life 125 years long - with the Louvre radiant in the distance. (Chagall couldn't go back to Paris because of the outbreak of the first World War in 1914). Having ended up in the Russian provinces, << I have decided to die >>.”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

Quote from a letter to Sergei K. Markovsky, 1915; as quoted in Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1991, p. 149
1910's

Life , War , World , Dreams

“Short-lived people, people who could die, did not know what enemies loneliness and boredom could be.”

Octavia E. Butler Wild Seed

Source: Wild Seed (1980), Chapter 6 (p. 100)

People , Loneliness

“I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self- government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to John Holmes (22 April 1820)
1820s

World , Faith , Hope , Suicide

“Get well soon, Castro. [pause] Actually, no, don't; die, you bastard!”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)

“At a certain point I came to the conclusion that one of the murderous aspects of the AIDS crisis was that people were used to not talking about sexual experiences in detail. Gay sex for instance does not cause AIDS. There are certain acts that transmit a virus and there are certain other acts that don’t transmit a virus. If you don’t talk about what goes on in sexuality, so that you know what particular acts you’re dealing with, then I think you're, possibly in an indirect way but never-the-less in a very real way, contributing to an atmosphere of ignorance which the result is people die.”

Samuel R. Delany (1942) American author, professor and literary critic

Spoken Arts interview on WBFO 88.7, 20th April 2000.

People , Sex , Way , Thinking

“I'd say — "I used to know his father well;
Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap."
And when the war is done and youth stone dead
I'd toddle safely home and die — in bed.”

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) English poet, diarist and memoirist

"Base Details"
The Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918)

War , Youth , Home , Dead

“He spoke, and deep a lengthened sigh he drew,
A doleful sound, and vanished from the view:
The frightened billows gave a rolling swell,
And, distant far, prolonged the dismal yell;
Faint and more faint the howling echoes die,
And the black cloud dispersing leaves the sky.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Stanza 60, lines 1–4 (tr. William Julius Mickle)-->
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto V

Distant

“Leaves become most beautiful when they're about to die
When they're about to fall from trees
When they're about to dry”

Regina Spektor (1980) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Time Is All Around
Far (2009)

Beauty , Tree

“We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Il faut rire avant que d'être heureux, de peur de mourir sans avoir ri.
Aphorism 63; Variant translation: We should laugh before being happy, for fear of dying without having laughed.
Les Caractères (1688), Du Coeur

Fear , Happiness

“I believe in revelation, but not in revelation which each religion claims to possess… but in the living revelation which surrounds us on every side — mighty, eternal, unceasing, incorruptible, clear, distinct, universal as is the being from whom it proceeds, in that revelation which speaks to us and penetrates us from the moment we are born until we die.”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

Letter to Fr. Pastells (4 April 1893)

Religion , Universe

“Yamanaka: "The first thing I want you to know is about dodo's. 'Dodo' is the name of an extinct bird which is big but cannot fly. I made the song likening the 'bird' to bands I like, such as 'a great musician who passed away' or 'the split-up band'. Life is mortal, all things die. The last day will psychically also come to a band. However, I sing this song lightly to oppose these themes, something like "even if I die, I'll be back!" or "Only the pillows won't break up, right!?" It's not a very serious song, more a positive one. This song has an alternative sound, which I really like lately."”

Sawao Yamanaka (1968) Japanese singer-songwriter

Source: http://www.jame-world.com/us/articles-2700-wake-up-the-pillows-interview.html

Life , Bird , Singing , Flying

“"No man is an island — " Much as we may feel and act as Individuals, our race is —a single organism, always growing and branching —which must be pruned regularly to be healthy.
This necessity need not be argued; anyone with eyes can see that any organism which grows without limit always dies in its own poisons. The only rational question is whether pruning is best done before or after birth.
Being an incurable sentimentalist I favor the former of these methods —killing makes me queasy, even when it's a case of "He's dead and I'm alive and that's the way I wanted it to be."
But this may be a matter of taste. Some shamans think that it is better to be killed in a war, or to die in childbirth, or to starve in misery, than never to have lived at all. They may be right.
But I don't have to like it —and I don't.”

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love

Time Enough for Love (1973)

War , Way , Feeling , Birth

“War loses a great deal of its romance after a soldier has seen his first battle. I have a more vivid recollection of the first than the last one I was in. It is a classical maxim that it is sweet and becoming to die for one's country; but whoever has seen the horrors of a battlefield feels that it is far sweeter to live for it.”

John S. Mosby (1833–1916) Confederate Army officer

War Loses Its Romance (1887), as quoted at the Veterans Memorial at the Lackawanna County Courthouse in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

War , Feeling , Country

“"We (Muslims) are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them." - Oct. 16, 2003, in speech to a summit of 57 Islamic countries.”

Mahathir bin Mohamad (1925) Prime Minister of Malaysia

People , World , Strong , Fight

“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”

Jerome David Salinger (1919–2010) American writer

Quoted by Salinger as a statement of the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel in The Catcher in the Rye, this has often been attributed to Salinger, and it may actually be a paraphrase by him of a statement of the German writer Otto Ludwig (1813-1865) which Stekel himself quotes in his writings:
Das Höchste, wozu er sich erheben konnte, war, für etwas rühmlich zu sterben; jetzt erhebt er sich zu dem Größern, für etwas ruhmlos zu leben.
The highest he could raise himself to was to die gloriously for something; now he rises to something greater: to live humbly for something.
Gedanken Otto Ludwigs : Aus seinem Nachlaß ausgewählt und herausgegeben von Cordelia Ludwig (1903), p. 10 http://archive.org/stream/gedankenottolud00ludwgoog#page/n39/mode/2up; this is quoted by Stekel in "Die Ausgänge der psychoanalytischen Kuren" in Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse : Medizinische Monatsschrift für Seelenkunde (1913), p. 188 http://archive.org/stream/ZB_III_1913_4_5_k#page/n19/mode/2up, and in Das liebe Ich : Grundriss einer neuen Diätetik der Seele (1913), page 38 http://books.google.de/books?id=PgFAAAAAIAAJ&q=r%C3%BChmlich.
Disputed

“Always before in moments of crisis I called on that power we call God to help me through. This time, having lost faith in others and my faith in myself, I had lost my hope in God too. Now that hope returned. I really believed that He hadn't wanted me to die.”

Lana Turner (1921–1995) American actress

On the aftermath of her suicide attempt, p. 160.
Autobiography

God , Faith , Hope , Time

“Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.”

Stephen Crane (1871–1900) American novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist

Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War is Kind, p. 4
War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899)

Men , Lie

“The tragedy happens—yesterday at a school in Oregon, and then as it will again—exactly as predicted, and uniquely here. It hardly seems worth the energy to once again make the same essential point that the President—his growing exasperation and disbelief moving, if not effective, as he serves as national mourner—has now made again: we know how to fix this. Gun control ends gun violence as surely an antibiotics end bacterial infections, as surely as vaccines end childhood measles—not perfectly and in every case, but overwhelmingly and everywhere that it’s been taken seriously and tried at length. These lives can be saved. Kids continue to die en masse because one political party won’t allow that to change, and the party won’t allow it to change because of the irrational and often paranoid fixations that make the massacre of students and children an acceptable cost of fetishizing guns.”

Adam Gopnik (1956) American journalist

The Second Amendment Is a Gun-Control Amendment, The New Yorker (2015)

Children , School , Change , Childhood

“Kill if you must, but never hate:
Man is but grass and hate is blight,
The sun will scorch you soon or late,
Die wholesome then, since you must fight.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"Hate Not, Fear Not".
Country Sentiment (1920)

Hate , Grass , Sun , Fight

“Happy people die whole, they are all dissolved in a moment,
they have had what they wanted”

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) American poet

"Post Mortem" in The Women at Point Sur (1927)

People , Happiness

“Sweet the rose which lives in Heaven,
Although on earth ’tis planted,
Where its honours blow,
While by earth’s slaves the leaves are riven
Which die the while they glow.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Untitled (1810); titled "Love's Rose" by William Michael Rossetti in Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1870)

“You think you are dying for your country; you die for the industrialists.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

On croit mourir pour la patrie; on meurt pour les industriels.
L'Humanité (18 July 1922)

Thinking , Country

“We may have pledged to support the freedom of the people so that we ourselves may enjoy the results. We are working for the sake of God and for the sake of the people. We do not need to be known, nor do we need propaganda. We work for the sake of God and we know that how long we may live, we will ultimately die and the people will remain. The absolute rule is by the people and not by individuals.”

Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq

The historical extempore speech at the Reserve Officers' College (1959)

God , People , Support , Freedom

“Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die?
At least they could be decent enough to put just a tear in their eyes.”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

The News.
Song lyrics, Brushfire Fairytales (2001)

People , Tear , Reading , Cry

“There was a small crucifix above the door to his room; it had been there since he’d been a little boy. He stared up at the tiny Jesus—but there was no point in praying. The die was cast; what was done was done.”

Robert J. Sawyer book Frameshift

Source: Frameshift (1997), Chapter 3 (p. 30)

Boy

“I am afraid, dear Edwin and Angelina, you expect too much from love. You think there is enough of your little hearts to feed this fierce, devouring passion for all your long lives. Ah, young folk! don't rely too much upon that unsteady flicker. It will dwindle and dwindle as the months roll on, and there is no replenishing the fuel. You will watch it die out in anger and disappointment. To each it will seem that it is the other who is growing colder. Edwin sees with bitterness that Angelina no longer runs to the gate to meet him, all smiles and blushes; and when he has a cough now she doesn't begin to cry and, putting her arms round his neck, say that she cannot live without him. The most she will probably do is to suggest a lozenge, and even that in a tone implying that it is the noise more than anything else she is anxious to get rid of.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Love , Smile , Disappointment , Thinking

“I’ll not have you bleeding to death on me. That would be just like you, to die and leave me the work of burying you. You have no consideration.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Faile Bashere
(15 September 1992)

Death

“Okay bear with me this'll be a little tough. You should know this isn't the first time I thought about leaving. I thought about it some twenty years ago when a check that would soon become a part of Cincinnati folklore, made me see life from the bottom. To be honest, a thought about ending it all crossed my mind, but a more reasonable alternative seemed to be 'hey how about just leaving town? Running away? Starting life over, some place else?' You see, in political terms as well as human, here in Cincinnati, I was dead. But then in the, probably, the luckiest decision I ever made, I decided 'No! I'm staying put!' I would withstand all the jokes, all the ridicule. I'd pretend it didn't hurt, and I would give every ounce of my being to Cincinnati. 'Why in time,' I was thinking, 'you'd have to like me. Or if not like me, at least respect me.' And I'd run for council even unendorsed. And I'd prove to you I could be the best public servant you ever had, or I'd die trying. Be it as a mayor, an anchor, or a commentator, whatever it took, I was determined to have you know that I was more than a check and a hooker on a one night stand. But something happened along the way. Maybe it's God's way of teaching us. I don't know, but you see? In trying to prove something to you, I learned something about me. I learned that I had fallen in love with you. With Cincinnati. With you who taught me more about life, and caring, and forgiving, and also most importantly, giving. Giving something back. Which is part of the reason… I have been… Excuse me. So sad this week. why… Why it's so hard to say goodbye. God bless you, and goodbye.”

Jerry Springer (1944) American television presenter, former lawyer, politician, news presenter, actor, and musician

his final commentary at NBC's WLWT in Ohio, January 1993
This American Life http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/04/258.html, Ep. 258, 01/30/04, Leaving the Fold; Act One.

Love , Life , God , Sadness

“A lot of people still like Solaris, but I'm in active competition with them, and so I hope they die.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Torvalds: Waiting To See Sun's Open Solaris, 2005-02-01, Rooney, Paula, CRN, 2006-08-28 http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/59300278/torvalds-waiting-to-see-suns-open-solaris.htm,
2000s, 2005

People , Hope

“To love oneself is to struggle to rediscover and maintain your uniqueness. It is understanding and appreciating the idea that you will be the only you to ever live upon this earth, that when you die so will all of your fantastic possibilities. It is the realization that even you are not totally aware of the wonders which lie dormant within yourself.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

LOVE (1972)

Love , Lie , Idea , Understanding

“People die. That’s true in novels, and it’s true in life. Dying is one of the very few things we all do. To deny or ignore the omnipresent reality of death seems to me a disservice to human beings. That said, acknowledging in my novels that death exists does not make me a murderer any more than acknowledging that cancer can be treated makes me an oncologist.”

John Green (1977) American author and vlogger

Hey, some people on tumblr are wondering if writers feel upset or get a thrill when they kill their characters. Care to enlighten us?, John Green's tumblr, Tumblr, January 1, 2013, July 15, 2014 http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com/post/39363824562/hey-some-people-on-tumblr-are-wondering-if-writers,

Life , Death , People , Reality

“While the politicians espouse their rhetoric designed to preserve their reputations and their political power, our soldiers die!”

Ricardo Sanchez (1953) United States Army Lieutenant General

Reporters and editors luncheon address (2007)

“Communities now find themselves in possession of improvements [resulting from the WPA] which even in 1929 they would have thought themselves presumptuous to dream of… [but] everywhere there had been an overhauling of the word presumptuous. We are beginning to wonder if it is not presumptuous to take for granted that some people should have much, and some should have nothing; that some people are less important than others and should die earlier; that the children of the comfortable should be taller and fatter, as a matter of right, than the other children of the poor.”

Harry Hopkins (1890–1946) American politician, 8th United States Secretary of Commerce, assistant to President Franklin Delano Roosev…

Spending to Save: The Complete Story of Relief (1936), p. 184

Children , People , Dreams , Communication

“When I die, my epitaph or whatever you call those signs on gravestones is going to read: "I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn't like." I am so proud of that I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved. And when you come to my grave you will find me sitting there, proudly reading it.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

"One of his most famous and most quoted remarks. First printed in the Boston Globe, June 16, 1930, after he had attended Tremont Temple Baptist Church, where Dr. James W. Brougher was minister. He asked Will to say a few words after the sermon. The papers were quick to pick up the remark, and it stayed with him the rest of his life. He also said it on various other occasions" ~ Paula McSpadden Love 
Variant: I joked about every prominent man in my lifetime, but I never met one I didn't like.
John D. [Rockefeller] sure carried out my old saying, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” Nationally syndicated column number 219, Rogers Gets Six Shiny Dimes From Oil King (1927).
The earliest dated citation of such a remark thus far found in research for Wikiquote is the one from 1926 about Leon Trotsky from the Saturday Evening Post (6 November 1926).
The Will Rogers Book (1972)

Time , Waiting , Reading

“The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.

And even the books that do not last long, penetrate their own times at least, sailing farther than Ulysses even dreamed of, like ships on the seas. It is the author’s part to call into being their cargoes and passengers,—living thoughts and rich bales of study and jeweled ideas. And as for the publishers, it is they who build the fleet, plan the voyage, and sail on, facing wreck, till they find every possible harbor that will value their burden.”

Clarence Day (1874–1935) American writer

The Story of the Yale University Press Told by a Friend (1920), pp. 7–8.

Men , Books , World , Dreams

“But if there be an hereafter,
And that there is, conscience, uninfluenc'd
And suffer'd to speak out, tells every man,
Then must it be an awful thing to die;
More horrid yet to die by one's own hand.”

Robert Blair The Grave

Part I, line 398.
The Grave (1743)

“I hear if you make friends with Jesus Christ, you will get right up from that chalk outline. And then you'll get dolled up, and you'll dress in white all to take your place in his chorus line. And then in you'll come with those marching drums in a saintly compromise. No more whiskey slurs, no more blonde-haired girls for your whole eternal life. And you'll do the dance that was choreographed at the very dawn of time. Singing "I told you son, the day would come you would die, you'd die you'd die you'd die you'd die."”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Arc Of Time
Digital Ash in a Digital Urn (2005)

Life , Girl , Singing , Time

“It is one of the problems we have; people die of stigma.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2014, U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit Spousal Program (August 2014)

People , Problem

“I have always been a proponent of a national health care system. It just seemed eminently fair and right. How can we call this a civilized society when the children or parents of the rich get the medical attention they need in order to stay alive, while members of working-class families, who lack health insurance, have to die or needlessly suffer--or go hopelessly into debt to get the care they need? This is an outrageous injustice and it cannot be rationally defended.”

Bernie Sanders book Outsider in the House

Outsider in the House (1997), p.175
1990s

Children , Health , Family , Parent

“Because we don't want the first bit of sad, we put it away with phone,*beep*, for the food, you get a little fell kind of. You're never feel completely sad or completely happy, just feel kind of satisfied with your product. And then you die.”

Louis C.K. (1967) American comedian and actor

Conan show, Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c/

Sadness , Food , Feeling , Happiness

“Let's meet and either do or die.”

John Fletcher The Island Princess

The Island Princess (c. 1620; published 1647), Act II, scene 2. Compare: "Let us do or die", Robert Burns, Bannockburn; same in Thomas Campbell, Gertrude of Wyoming, part iii. stanza 37.

“Well I wasn't going to die. You didn't die of a broken heart, it just felt like you were going to. I knew from personal experience that if you just kept moving, acting as if you weren't bleeding inside you didn't die, and eventually you stopped wanting to.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Unidentified page
Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, Incubus Dreams (2004)

Heart , Personality

“I cannot write in Minsk. Firstly, I have a cold apartment. I will die there with my sick lungs soon. Because the presidential decree introduced the maximum temperature in Minsk… He [Lukashenka] does not need Bykau. He has a close-knit and strong cohort of own writers, who write his biographies. They write about him, describe his life. And it's enough for Lukashenka. He does not perceive anything else. The things that Lukashenko is doing are aimed at the complete elimination of the sovereignty of Belarus. He completely enslaves the people.”

Vasil Bykaŭ (1924–2003) Belarusian writer

“Ён Прыехаў, Сам Памёр, Усё Спакойна…” Апошнія Тыдні Васіля Быкава https://www.svaboda.org/amp/24853764.html // svaboda.org
(in Belarusian)

Life , People , Strong

“We feel much sorrow for you, the elm tree had said. But what kind of sorrow—a real and sincere sorrow, or the superficial and pedantic sorrow of the immortal for a frail and flickering creature that was about to die?”

Clifford D. Simak book All Flesh is Grass

Source: All Flesh is Grass (1965), Chapter 24 (p. 247)

Feeling , Tree , Sincerity

“Let the rose fall, another rose
Will bloom upon the self-same tree;
Let the bird die, ere evening close
Some other bird will sing for me.
It is for the beloved to love,
'Tis for the happy to be kind;
Sorrow will more than death remove
The associate links affections bind.”

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

(2nd April 1831) Lines Supposed to be the Prayer of the Supplicating Nymph in Mr. Lawrence Macdonald’s Exhibition of Sculptures
The London Literary Gazette, 1831

Love , Death , Bird , Tree

“[T]hat's how a language grows. Old words die - or take on a new life. New words appear. Language wordstock is replenished, refreshed, and the language remains vibrant and serviceable, ready to describe new concepts, ideas, and objects. Many language purists object to this way of growth. But we have to remember that just as yesterday's liberal is often tomorrow's conservative, in many cases, what was considered slang in the past, eventually acquires respectability.”

Anu Garg (1967) Indian author

Life , Way , Idea , Appearance

“The hook is in deep boys,
there is no more time.
So you can struggle in the water
and be too stubborn to die,
or you could just let go and be lifted to the sky.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

The Big Picture
Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

Boy , Water , Time

“When we find what we have been looking for, we don't have time to say it. We must die.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Time

“Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"Gods and Greens" (1989)
1990s, A View from the Diner's Club (1991)

Thinking

“He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book I, Ch. 20
Essais (1595), Book I
Variant: He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.

Men

“A "new" language that differs from the rest of the crop by one or a couple features is proof positive that both what it came from and what it has become are mutations about to die. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of such "languages" that people have invented over the years, for all sorts of weird purposes where they just could not use whatever language they were already using, could not extend it, and could not fathom how to modify its tools without making a whole new language. They never stopped to think about how horribly wasteful this is, they just went on to create yet another language called Dodo, the Titanic, Edsel, Kyoto-agreement …”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: Representing code as XML: the Flare Programming Language http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/ecea40eb1602ce7c (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

People , Thinking

“Who saves his country, saves himself, saves all things, and all things saved do bless him! Who lets his country die, lets all things die, dies himself ignobly, and all things dying curse him!”

Benjamin Harvey Hill (1823–1882) American politician

Reported in Benjamin H. Hill, Jr., Senator Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia; His Life, Speeches and Writings (1893), epigraph, p. 594. From "Notes on the Situation", a series of articles appearing in the Chronicle and Sentinel, Atlanta, Georgia.

Country

“It may be that without a vision men shall die. It is no less true that, without hard practical sense, they shall also die. Without Jefferson the new nation might have lost its soul. Without Hamilton it would assuredly have been killed in body.”

James Truslow Adams (1878–1949) American writer and historian

Jeffersonian Principles and Hamiltonian Principles, p. xvii (1932)

Men , Soul , Sense

“Water, Loo! water, Loo! fetch me some water!
There isn't a drop for a mile and a quarter!
The ground is so hard and the ground is so dry
I'm frightened my little red rose-bush will die.”

Eleanor Farjeon Nursery Rhymes of London Town

Waterloo
Nursery Rhymes of London Town (1916)

Water

“Have not many of us, in the weary way of life, felt, in some hours, how far easier it were to die than to live?
The martyr, when faced even by a death of bodily anguish and horror, finds in the very terror of his doom a strong stimulant and tonic. There is a vivid excitement, a thrill and fervor, which may carry through any crisis of suffering that is the birth-hour of eternal glory and rest.
But to live, — to wear on, day after day, of mean, bitter, low, harassing servitude, every nerve dampened and depressed, every power of feeling gradually smothered, — this long and wasting heart-martyrdom, this slow, daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by drop, hour after hour, — this is the true searching test of what there may be in man or woman.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Ch. 38 The Victory

Life , Death , Way , Feeling

“If I die tonight, then I guess I die tonight
Let me go on.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Falling Out Of Love At This Volume
A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997 (1998)

“The soft seduction of consumer global capitalism reduce the nations of the West to a rootless mass of Americanised consumers, without identity, without pride and without a future. Children identify with the grotesque and vulgar instead of noble heroes and beautiful princesses in castles. Teenagers ape the antics of degenerate pop-stars whose example leads hundreds of thousands into the living death of drug addiction, not to mention the tragedy of the image conscious girls (mainly) who feel compelled to starve themselves to get "the look" and of course the spiralling number of abortions. Adults perform meaningless jobs, in conditions of mind-destroying boredom, to earn enough money to buy the latest needlessly created want to be pushed on television as the thing without which their neighbours will regard them as worthless failures. Old folk die unnoticed and lie rotting for weeks, even months, in barred and bolted flats in inhuman tower blocks, unofficial prisons which become tombs for those who no longer have any economic value. Do not be fooled by the glossy packaging of the consumer society. Where state socialism was a creed of terror and stagnation, capitalism is one of apathy and death.”

Nick Griffin (1959) British politician

Nick Griffin, The Deadly Twins.

Death , Money , Children , Lie

“I don’t know the why of anything, even when I pretend most diligently I do. The truth is the last time I had any idea why or what I was supposed to do I was lying in a shell hole, looking up at the sky. My mind was filled with a Bach keyboard sonata, which was one of the last I’d learned, I forget which one now. I absolutely knew I was about to die and I was completely happy and at peace, in a way I never was before or since, not even with you, in our best moments. It was so easy, you see, a kind of absolute joy and peace, because I knew it was all done and I was all square with life. Nothing left to do but let things take their course. And when I didn’t die, I didn’t know what to do. So I thought, I’ll take my revolver, go out and blow a hole through my head. Only I knew it wouldn’t work. I knew, I just knew you couldn’t do it that way. You couldn’t make it happen, not if you wanted to find peace. So, I thought, then, a sniper can do it for me. But no matter how I tried to let them no sniper ever found me. And all the other times I went out and lay in shell holes in No Man’s Land it wasn’t the same, and I knew I wouldn’t die this time, and of course I never did. I had this mad feeling I’d become some sort of Wandering Jew. And everything for so long afterwards was about dragging this living corpse of myself around, giving it things to do, because here it was, alive. And nothing made any sense and I didn’t even hope it would. I followed paths that were there to be followed, I did what others said to do.”

Basil Rathbone (1892–1967) British actor

Letter https://thegreatbaz.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/fuller-text-of-letter-quoted-in-a-life-divided/

Life , Truth , Peace , Hope

“"Even if some details of dogma aren't true—or even all of 'em—think what a consolation religion and the church are to weak humanity!"
"Are they? I wonder! Don't cheerful agnostics, who know they are going to die dead, worry much less than good Baptists, who worry lest their sons and cousins and sweethearts fail to get into the Baptist heaven—or what is even worse, who wonder if they may not have guessed wrong—if God may not be a Catholic, maybe, or a Mormon or Seventh-day Adventist instead of a Baptist, and then they'll go to hell themselves. Consolation? No!"”

Sinclair Lewis book Elmer Gantry

Elmer Gantry (1927)

God , Religion , Hell , Thinking

“2911. It is as natural to die, as to be born.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Nature

“God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.”

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961) Swedish diplomat, economist, and author

Markings (1964)

God , Personality

“You better save regularly if you intend to play this, 'cause you will just…die. From anything! At random! With no prior warning!”

TotalBiscuit (1984–2018) British game commentator

WTF Is…? series, Day One: Garry's Incident (October 1, 2013)

“Letting men die is a money-saving device. Safety costs money… as one safety official put it, ‘When everything is hurry, hurry, hurry, when you start pressuring people and taking shortcuts, things can go wrong. And then people die.’ No. And then men die.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 119.

Men , Money , People

“As for myself, my course is clear. A British subject I was born — a British subject I will die. With my utmost effort, with my latest breath, will I oppose the ‘veiled treason’ which attempts by sordid means and mercenary proffers to lure our people from their allegiance.”

John A. Macdonald (1815–1891) 1st Prime Minister of Canada

February 3, 1891 as the 1891 election was called, fought largely over the issue of free trade with the United States; reported at Historic Canada http://www.histori.ca/prodev/article.do;jsessionid=8D3831D48EE489EBCF46813C8427E685.tomcat1?id=15356.
Dated

People , Effort

“E'en though I would not, die I must;
Why stray I thus through life?”

Anacreon (-570–-485 BC) Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and hymns

XLV. (XLIII.), 5.

Life

“Fair is his end who loving well doth die.”

Bernardo Dovizi (1470–1520) Italian cardinal and playwright

Act I, scene II. — (Lidio).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 254.
La Calandria (c. 1507)

Love

“All love affairs are tragedies in the end unless the lovers die at the same moment.”

Katharine Kerr (1944) American writer

[Snare, 2003, Macmillan, ISBN 0312890451, p. 557]

Love , Lovers

“To die before being painted by Sargent is to go to Heaven prematurely.”

Saki (1870–1916) British writer

"Reginald on the Academy"
Reginald (1904)

Painting

“Oh, ever thus, from childhood's hour,
I 've seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree or flower
But 't was the first to fade away.
I never nurs'd a dear gazelle,
To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well
And love me, it was sure to die.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

Lalla Rookh http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/lallarookh/index.html (1817), Part V-VIII: The Fire-Worshippers

Love , Hope , Flowers , Tree

“Bin Laden is dead. Al-Qaida eventually will die. But the model that al-Qaida has created of an asymmetric terror group that has enormous consequences in the world well beyond the size of the group, that's going to endure. Other groups are going to try to follow that model.”

Lawrence Wright (1947) American writer

[Terry Gross, Lawrence Wright : Bin Laden's Death 'Long In Coming', Fresh Air, National Public Radio, May 2, 2011]

World , Dead

“I agree. When I hear a player talking about how he "needs" to know about all the other details, I hear a player who is being adversarial to the GM and simply not trusting him to "get it right." Players like that make baby seals die and cause cancer with prolonged exposure. I don't write books for them.”

Sean Punch (1967) Canadian editor

Steve Jackson Games Forums http://forums.sjgames.com

Books , Baby

“We [the artists of Die Brücke ] were overjoyed to discover our complete unison in the urge for liberation, for an art surging forward, unrestricted by convention.”

Max Pechstein (1881–1955) German artist

from a note of Pechstein; as quoted in Expressionism, a German Intuition, 1905-1920, [exhibition-catalogue 1980-81]; Paul Vogt, Horts Keller, Martin Urban, Wolf-Dieter Dube, and Eberhard Roters; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1980, p. 5

Art

“I was carrying out my duty, as the Japanese high commander of the Japanese Army in the Philippine Islands, to control my army with the best of my ability during wartime. Until now, I believe that I have tried my best for my army. As I said in the Manila Supreme Court that I have done everything with all my capacity, so I wouldn't be ashamed in front of the Gods for what I have done when I have died. But if you say to me "you do not have any ability to command the Japanese Army," I should say nothing in response, because it is my own nature. Now, our war criminal trial is going on in the Manila Supreme Court, so I wish to be justified under your kindness and righteousness. I know that all your American military affairs always have had tolerant and rightful judgment. When I had been investigated in the Manila court, I have had good treatment, a kind attitude from your good-natured officers who protected me all the time. I will never forget what they have done for me even if I die. I don't blame my executioners. I'll pray that the Gods bless them. Please send my thankful word to Col. Clarke and Lt. Col. Feldhaus, Lt. Col. Hendrix, Maj. Guy, Capt. Sandburg, Capt. Reel, at Manila court, and Col. Arnard. I thank you. I pray for the Emperor's long life and prosperity forever.”

Tomoyuki Yamashita (1885–1946) general in the Imperial Japanese Army

Last words. Quoted in "Yamashita Hanged Near Los Banos" - "New York Times" article - February 23, 1946.

Life , God , War , Guy

“Mantle played ball almost under a shroud of depression, because he always thought he was going to die an early death. But Mays probably thinks he's going to live forever. Mantle acted like a man who was doomed. Mays never did, even though he played long beyond his ability. I talked to Willie after the 1973 World Series, in which he looked terrible. I said, "What were you doing out there, Willie?" "Oh, I was having fun!" he told me. Mantle never had fun. Mays, on the other hand, seemed to be inoculated from all the pressure. He simply went beyond the usual frames of reference. If I were writing this, I'd say that he went beyond the usual frames of reverence. That's the way we all felt, and I think it was true for not only the press, but also for managers and other players. And this bled into the other pages of the newspaper.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

As quoted in "In Willie's time, he was No. 1" http://static.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/neyer_rob/1191263.html
Sports-related

Death , World , Way , Thinking

“I reject that number completely, that people die in America because of lack of health insurance. People die in America because people die in America. And people make poor decisions with respect to their health and their healthcare. And they don’t go to the emergency room or they don’t go to the doctor when they need to.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

2011-12-06
Santorum: No One Has Ever Died Because They Didn’t Have Health Care
David
Badash
The New Civil Rights Movement
http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/santorum-no-one-has-ever-died-because-they-didnt-have-health-care/politics/2011/12/06/31304

People , Health , Decision

“As far as God's concerned, he knows the end from the beginning and He sees a little baby and that little baby could grow up to be Adolf Hitler, he could grow up to be Joseph Stalin, he could grow up to be some serial killer, or he could grow up to die of a hideous disease. God sees all of that, and for that life to be terminated while he's a baby, he's going to be with God forever in Heaven so it isn't a bad thing.”

Pat Robertson (1930) American media mogul, executive chairman, and a former Southern Baptist minister

Answering a viewer asking how to respond to a coworker who asked "Why did God allow my baby to die?" about their dead three-year-old child.
2015-06-09
Pat Robertson
The 700 Club
Television, quoted in * 2015-06-09
Pat Robertson: Tell Bereaved Mother Her Dead Baby Could've Been The Next Hitler
Brian
Tashman
Right Wing Watch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/pat-robertson-tell-bereaved-mother-her-dead-baby-couldve-been-next-hitler

Life , God , Disease , Baby

“If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!”

Claude McKay If We Must Die

If We Must Die, l. 5-8 (1919)

Dead

“Geoffrey Robertson: You don't think that this man deserves to die?
Yusuf Islam: Who, Salman Rushdie?
Robertson: Yes.
Islam: Yes, yes.
Robertson: And do you have a duty to be his executioner?
Islam: Uh, no, not necessarily, unless we were in an Islamic state and I was ordered by a judge or by the authority to carry out such an act — perhaps, yes.”

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

Hypotheticals : "A Satanic Scenario" Granada Television (5 May 1989)

Thinking

“If we can remember the feeling of love we once had, we can die without ever going away.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie (1997)

Love , Feeling

“I opened the door, and there he stood, a telegraph boy. I signed for the telegram, sat on the bed, and wondered if the wine had finally got the Old Man's heart. The telegram said: your book accepted mailing contract today. Hackmuth. That was all. I let the paper float to the carpet. I just sat there. Then I got down on the floor and began kissing the telegram. I crawled under the bed and just lay there. I did not need the sunshine anymore. Nor the earth, nor heaven. I just lay there, happy to die. Nothing else could happen to me. My life was over.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Life , Books , Boy , Kiss

“I indicate to the Leader of the Opposition that the government is not dying of shame—my father did not die of shame. What the Leader of the Opposition should be ashamed of is his performance in this parliament and the sexism he brings with it.”

Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia

Misogyny speech

“To die is to become like a child, at last one knows nothing, nothing of death and nothing of life, only that all distances are equally long and all words unintelligible but beautiful.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 251

Life , Death , Beauty

“I can but die… and I believe in God. Let me try and wait His will in silence.”

Charlotte Brontë book Jane Eyre

Jane (Ch. 28)
Jane Eyre (1847)

God , Silence , Waiting

“Let me die in this old uniform in which I fought my battles. May God forgive me for ever having put on another.”

Benedict Arnold (1741–1801) Continental and later British Army general during the American Revolutionary War

Unverified, but reportedly said by Arnold on his deathbed in 1801, requesting to wear the uniform of the Colonial Army from before his defection to the British, as quoted in The Picturesque Hudson http://www.kellscraft.com/PicturesqueHudson/PicturesqueHudson08.html (1915) by Clifton Johnson

God , Forgiveness