Quotes about last
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“The product of paper and printed ink, that we commonly call the book, is one of the great visible mediators between spirit and time, and, reflecting zeitgeist, lasts as long as ore and stone.”

Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788) German philosopher

Books, Time

“I want to think and at the same time that's the last thing in the world I want to do.”

Erich Maria Remarque book The Black Obelisk

Source: The Black Obelisk

World, Thinking, Time

“Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Learning

“The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Passion

“Damien,” Shaunee said. “Again you are getting on my damn—”

—last nerve with your unending vocab bullshit,” Erin finished for her.”

Kristin Cast book Betrayed

Source: Betrayed

“Adiyogi’s legacy offers you the licence to believe in the god of your choice, or not to believe at all. And if you do not find a god to your taste, it allows you the freedom to create one. That is how the Indian subcontinent arrived at an exuberant 330 million gods and goddesses at last count! To see the divine in a tree, rock or elephant is not considered absurd because every speck of creation is seen as a portal to the ultimate reality. These”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Source: Adiyogi: The Source of Yoga

God, Reality, Tree, Freedom

“Last night there seemed to be a chance. Anything was possible last night. That was the trouble with last nights. They were always followed by this mornings.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

Chance, Night

“From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

World, Feeling, Selfishness

“If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

BBC obituary (2004)

World

“Master, go on, and I will follow thee
To the last gasp with truth and loyalty.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

Truth, Loyalty

“Last night I had a peace dream…”

Ringo Starr (1940) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Peace, Dreams, Night

“Love is the last light spoken.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

Love, Light

“The thing about stories is you have to pick the ones that last.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

“On the last day of the world
I would want to plant a tree”

W.S. Merwin (1927–2019) American poet

World, Tree

“You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded woman… I have been traveling over the old world during the last few years and have found new food for thought. What power is it that makes the Hindoo woman burn herself upon the funeral pyre of her husband? Her religion. What holds the Turkish woman in the harem? Her religion. By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their system of polygamy? By their religion/ Man, of himself, could not do this; but when he declares, 'Thus saith the Lord,' of course he can do it. So long as ministers stand up and tell us Christ is the head of the church, so is man the head of woman, how are we to break the chains which have held women down through the ages? You Christian women look at the Hindoo, the Turkish, the Mormon women, and wonder how they can be held in such bondage…

Now I ask you if our religion teaches the dignity of woman? It teaches us the abominable idea of the sixth century--Augustine's idea--that motherhood is a curse; that woman is the author of sin, and is most corrupt. Can we ever cultivate any proper sense of self-respect as long as women take such sentiments from the mouths of the priesthood?”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Women, Age, World, Religion

“Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Fools

“Many of us lead family lives. At most, the members of a family stay together for the duration of a lifetime, often much less. While that fleeting moment of being together still lasts, we should try to remain in perfect harmony with each other, while observing the Dharma as much as possible. Night and day, let us turn our minds toward goodness, love, and compassion.”

Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama

Source: The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most

Love, Family, Perfection, Night

“One is alone when the last one who remembers is gone.”

Agatha Christie book A Murder Is Announced

Source: A Murder Is Announced

“Genius lasts longer than beauty”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Beauty

“My 'morals' were sound, even a bit puritanic, but when a hidebound old deacon inveighed against dancing I rebelled. By the time of graduation I was still a 'believer' in orthodox religion, but had strong questions which were encouraged at Harvard. In Germany I became a freethinker and when I came to teach at an orthodox Methodist Negro school I was soon regarded with suspicion, especially when I refused to lead the students in public prayer. When I became head of a department at Atlanta, the engagement was held up because again I balked at leading in prayer. I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war..”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

Source: The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century

War, School, Religion, Color

“I am still in the land of the dying; I shall be in the land of the living soon. (his last words)”

John Newton (1725–1807) Anglican clergyman and hymn-writer

“As time goes on, you'll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn't, doesn't. Time solves most things. And what time can't solve, you have to solve yourself.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

Understanding, Time

“Conformity is the last refuge of the unimaginitive”

Oscar Wilde book Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young

Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)
Variant: Ambition is the last refuge of the failure
Context: Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

“I write and that way rid myself of me and then at last I can rest.”

Clarice Lispector (1920–1977) Brazilian writer

Way

“MRS ALLONBY Is she such a mystery?
LORD ILLINGWORTH She is more than a mystery - she is a mood.
MRS ALLONBY Moods don't last.
LORD ILLINGWORTH It is their chief charm.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance

Mood

“As the years pass, the number of those we can communicate with diminishes. When there is no longer anyone to talk to, at last we will be as we were before stooping to a name.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born

Communication

“The joys of love… last only a moment. The sorrows of love last all the life long.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: The Joys of Love

Love, Life, Joy

“Through their deeds, the dead of battle have spoken more eloquently for themselves than any of the living ever could. But we can only honor them by rededicating ourselves to the cause for which they gave a last full measure of devotion.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Dead

“Whoever you are, go out into the evening,
leaving your room, of which you know every bit;
your house is the last before the infinite,
whoever you are.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Housing

“Your twisting is done--you have the last thread of my heart. I wonder: when the thread grows slack, will you feel it?”

Sarah Waters Affinity

Source: Affinity

Feeling, Heart

“Briar: "So I guess I was the last to know."
Rosethorn: "Of course you are. You're a man, aren't you?”

Tamora Pierce book Street Magic

Source: Street Magic

“Last hopeless chances have got to work. Nothing makes sense otherwise. You might as well not be alive.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

Sense, Chance

“The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Hope, Funny

“The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Money, Friendship, Nature, Passion

“for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire

“I forgot my purse of laughter when I dressed this mornin'," she told me. "Have you not bought anythin' the last few days? Prices have gone up. Pay or starve, it's all one to me.”

Tamora Pierce book Bloodhound

Source: Bloodhound

Laughter

“She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Despair, Clothes, Night

“Some things are more precious because they don't last long.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Probably the last man who knew how it worked had been tortured to death years before. Or as soon as it was installed. Killing the creator was a traditional method of patent protection.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

Death

“There isn't so much to be afraid of, out there. I can remember thinking it was funny to find that out, on the last night of my life; I'd spent the rest of it being afraid of everything.”

Nick Hornby book A Long Way Down

Source: A Long Way Down

Life, Thinking, Night

“The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Variant: Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.
Source: Pensées

“Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?”

Terry Pratchett book Going Postal

Source: Going Postal

Night

“It is perfectly monstrous,' he said, at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

People, Way

“I'm doped and thick from my last sleeping pill.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

Sleep

“His cold eyes stared at me. At last, he said wearily: "I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night (1960)
Context: "Don't be deluded. Hitler has made it clear that he will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve."
I exploded:
"What do you care what he said? Would you want us to consider him a prophet?"
His cold eyes stared at me. At last, he said wearily:
"I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people."

People, Faith

“Let your beauty manifest itself
without talking and calculation.
You are silent. It says for you: I am.
And comes in meaning thousandfold,
comes at long last over everyone.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Beauty

“They realize at last that change does not mean reform, that change does not mean improvement.”

Frantz Fanon book The Wretched of the Earth

Source: The Wretched of the Earth

Change

“I quarreled with every word, every phrase and expression, every image and letter as if they were the last I was ever going to write. I wrote and rewrote every line as if my life depended on it, and then rewrote it again.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

Life, Dependency

“In all our contacts it is probably the sense of being really needed and wanted which gives us the greatest satisfaction and creates the most lasting bond.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Sense

“There's only one degree of freshness — the first, which makes it also the last”

Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940) Russian author primarily known for his novel "Master and Margarita"

“I’ve wrestled with alligators,
I’ve tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And throw thunder in jail.
You know I’m bad.
just last week, I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone, Hospitalized a brick.
I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

A poem about his match with George Foreman, known as the Rumble in the Jungle (1974)
Context: Last night I had a dream, When I got to Africa,
I had one hell of a rumble.
I had to beat Tarzan’s behind first,
For claiming to be King of the Jungle.
For this fight, I’ve wrestled with alligators,
I’ve tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And throw thunder in jail.
You know I’m bad.
just last week, I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone, Hospitalized a brick.
I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.
I’m so fast, man,
I can run through a hurricane and don't get wet.
When George Foreman meets me,
He’ll pay his debt.
I can drown the drink of water, and kill a dead tree.
Wait till you see Muhammad Ali.

“A person isn't who they are during the last conversation you had with them - they're who they've been throughout your whole relationship.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Personality, Relationship

“Now that I've won a slam, I know something very few people on earth are permitted to know. A win doesn't feel as good as a loss feels bad, and the good feeling doesn't last long as the bad. Not even close.”

Andre Agassi book Open. An Autobiography

Source: Open

People, Feeling, Loss

“The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no later than the last date shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

Books, Nature, Silence, Time

“Love is only a word, until we decide to let it possess us with all its force.
Love is only a word, until someone arrives to give it meaning.
Don't give up. Remember, it's always the last key on the key ring that opens the door.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Love

“When men yield up the exclusive privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, Common Sense (1776)

Men, Thinking

“Nothing can last forever. There isn't any memory, no matter how intense, that doesn't fade out at last.”

Juan Rulfo (1917–1986) Mexican writer

Memory

“So my last image was as the first. A sleeping youth cloaked in light, who opened his eyes with a smile of recognition for someone who had never been a stranger.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

Youth, Smile, Sleep, Light

“I act and react, and suddenly I wonder, ‘Where is the girl that I was last year? Two years ago? What would she think of me now?”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Girl, Thinking

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile — hoping it will eat him last.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

In Reader's Digest (December 1954).
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Variant: An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

Hope

“If Cape wasn't your last name, what was your real one?" I asked, deathly curious now. "Ahhhh," he complained. "Pincas Huckleburr.”

Tamora Pierce book Mastiff

Source: Mastiff

“Reported as Oscar Wilde's last words on his death bed…
This wallpaper is killing me. One of us has to go.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Death

“Your countenance perfectly informs me that you were in company last night with the person, whom you think the most agreeable in the world, the person who interests you at this present time, more than all the rest of the world put together.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

World, Thinking, Time, Personality

“For our last number, I'd like to ask your help. Would the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands. And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Royal Variety Performance in London (4 November 1963) attended by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret. Of this incident Mark Hertsgaard reports in A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles (1995): "The remark provoked warm laughter and applause, and was greeted with profound relief by Beatles manager Brian Epstein, who had feared Lennon would make good on his pre-performance threat to tell them to "rattle their fuckin' jewelry."

People, Help

“Sustaining faith is what sets you through those dark nights of the soul when you don’t know where to go or what to do, and it seems that you can’t last another day…but because of your faith in God, you do.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

God, Faith, Soul, Night

“My darling," she said at last, are you sure you don't mind being a mouse for the rest of your life?"
"I don't mind at all" I said.
It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like as long as somebody loves you.”

Roald Dahl book The Witches

Source: The Witches

Love, Life

“Last time I saw you, I said that it hurt too much to love you. But I was wrong about that. The truth is it hurts too much not to love you.”

P. C. Cast (1960) American writer

Love, Truth, Time, Hurt

“Lasting change is a series of compromises. And compromise is alright, as long your values don't change.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Subject: Jane Goodall, primatologist and conservationist http://www.dailysummit.net/says/interview260802.htm, interviewed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002)

Change

“The man who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life at last wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken.”

Bertrand Russell The Problems of Philosophy

Source: The Problems of Philosophy

Life, Nature

“For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Letter Seven (14 May 1904)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)
Variant: For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been given to us, the ultimate, the final problem and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation.
Source: The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
Context: People have (with the help of conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything alive holds to it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must hold to what is difficult is a certainty that will not forsake us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.
To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

Love

“When he kisses me again, the last part of me that could stand myself dies.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

Kiss, Parting

“I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Pleasure

“The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

“I began to think vodka was my drink at last. It didn’t taste like anything, but it went straight down into my stomach like a sword swallowers’ sword and made me feel powerful and godlike.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Feeling, Drink, Thinking

“Kayla Robinson, if you don't shut up I'll fly down there and suck every last bit of blood from your stupid cheating cow body!”

P. C. Cast book Marked

Source: Marked

Stupidity, Cheating, Flying

“Love moderately. Long love doth so.
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

*Love each other in moderation. That is the key to long-lasting love. Too fast is as bad as too slow.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Love

“What more could you want? How about dominion over this 'beautiful place'? Beauty doesn't last. Friends and family decay. Power is the only thing that goes on forever."
Jack answered with his gut. "No, love goes on forever.”

P. C. Cast book Awakened

Source: Awakened

Love, Family, Beauty

“What is love? Love is playing every game as if it's your last!”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Love, Game

“After all that I'd been through, after all that I'd learned and all that I'd been given, I was going to do what I had been doing every day for the last few years now: just show up and do the best that I could do with whatever lay in front of me.”

Michael J. Fox (1961) Canadian-American actor

Source: Lucky Man

Learning

“There is always time for another last minute”

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

Time

“The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

W.B. Yeats The Second Coming

The Second Coming (1919)
Context: p>Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?</p

Sleep

“Til shade is gone,
til water is gone
Into the shadow with teeth bared
Screaming defiance with the last breath
To spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day.”

Robert Jordan The Dragon Reborn

Source: The Dragon Reborn

Water

“She remained both girl and woman to the last day of her life. Under a grave and gentle exterior burned inextinguishable fires of sympathy, energy, devotion, enthusiasm, and absolutely limitless affection.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Life, Girl

“Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening.”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

Death, Sleep

“I cannot believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: The Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt
Source: letter to Harry Truman, 22 March 1948

War

“An uncertain evil causes anxiety because, at the bottom of one's heart, one goes on hoping till the last moment that it may not be true; a certain evil, on the other hand, instills, for a time, a kind of dreary tranquillity.”

Alberto Moravia (1907–1990) Italian writer and journalist

Un male incerto provoca inquietudine, perché, in fondo, si spera fino all'ultimo che non sia vero; ma un male sicuro, invece, infonde per qualche tempo una squallida tranquillità.
Source: Il Disprezzo (Milano: Bompiani, 1954) p. 77; Angus Davidson (trans.) Contempt (New York: New York Review of Books, 2005) p. 75.

Hope, Evil, Time, Heart