quotations about death
Feeling funny in my mind, Lord
I believe I'm fixing to die
Well, I don't mind dying
But I hate to leave my children crying
Well, I look over yonder to that burying ground
Look over yonder to that burying ground
Sure seems lonesome, Lord, when the sun goes down
BOB DYLAN
"Fixin' To Die"
So when the friends we love the best lie in their churchyard bed, we must not cry too bitterly over the happy dead; because, for our dear Saviour's sake, our sins are all forgiven; and Christians only fall asleep to wake again in Heaven.
CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER
"Child's Funeral"
Sweet lovely death
I am waiting for your breath
Come sweet death, one last caress
METALLICA
"Last Caress"
The grave itself is but a covered bridge,
Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The Golden Legend
When a great life sets it leaves an afterglow on the sky far into the night.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Who knows but life be that which men call death,
And death what men call life?
EURIPIDES
Phrixus [fragment]
Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
MACKEY MILLER
Mouse Attack 5!!!
Taunting Death ... means pitting oneself against a wily enemy who cannot lose.
J. K. ROWLING
The Tales of Beedle the Bard
The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Maxims
Unjustly men hate death, which is the greatest defence against their many ills.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
Death is a great revealer of what is in a man, and in its solemn shadow appear the naked lineaments of the soul.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means that life itself has become one.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
letter to Cecil Spring-Rice, Mar. 12, 1900
Death is an antidote for this life, and it makes another more stable form of life which is insoluble in everything.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Death is simply the soul's change of residence.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Death to the wicked is all loss, to the righteous all gain.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
Dying makes what is left of living seem precious. The dying, and those about to die, feel that these last moments must be made beautiful. The cannot be permitted to include the bitterness and the enmities of the living that seem so inexhaustible. So often we hear people who, in dying, resign the old enmities and ask and grant forgiveness. Through such forgiveness they help to make dying beautiful. And, incidentally, they offer a lesson to those who go on living the apparently inexhaustibel life.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"The Dead", Reactions and Other Essays
Give me to die like a beast, afar, alone
With but the hawk and crow
To watch beside me while I cast my soul,
And but the sky to know
What my racked lips have uttered, what last groan,
Or curse or prayer, I breathed to heaven above.
KENNETH RAND
"Straw-Death"
The body is placed under the earth, and after a certain period there remains no vestige even of its form. This is that contemplation of inexhaustible melancholy, whose shadow eclipses the brightness of the world. The common observer is struck with dejection of the spectacle. He contends in vain against the persuasion of the grave, that the dead indeed cease to be. The corpse at his feet is prophetic of his own destiny. Those who have preceded him, and whose voice was delightful to his ear; whose touch met his like sweet and subtle fire: whose aspect spread a visionary light upon his path -- these he cannot meet again.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The Necessity of Atheism
There is no god but death.
MAXWELL ANDERSON
Elizabeth the Queen
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.
THOMAS CAMPBELL
Hallowed Ground