Death Quotes

The first condition of immortality is death.

Stanislaw J. Lec, "Unkempt Thoughts".

If I die a violent death, as some fear and a few are plotting, I know that the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassins, not in my dying. Handwritten statement found in her residence.

Indira Nehru Gandhi

There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman.

Woody Allen

When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence, and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.

John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?

Plato, Dialogues, Phaedo

Courage is being scared to death - But saddling up anyway.

John Wayne

I was court - Martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.

Brendan Francis Behan

If the radiance of a thousand sunsWere to burst at once into the skyThat would be like the splendor of the Mighty one - - I am become Death, The shatterer of Worlds.

Hindu Spiritual

Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage.

Jean Anouilh

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

Robert Maynard Hutchins

The ass will carry his load, but not a double load ride not a free horse to death.

Miguel de Cervantes

Death tugs at my ear and says: Live, I am coming.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.

J. R. R. Tolkien

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colors of life in all their purity.

George Santayana

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

Don Delillo

We believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not for death.

Albert Einstein, on atomic energy, Jan. 22, 1947

I am convinced that it is not the fear of death, of our lives ending that haunts our sleep so much as the fear... that as far as the world is concerned, we might as well never have lived.

Rabbi Harold Kushne

Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon

Yea, though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death, i will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me... Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me throughout the rest of my life and i will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Bible, Psalm 23, New Testament

I am against using death as a punishment. I am also against using it as a reward.

Stanislaw J. Lec, Unkempt Thoughts

If I think more about death than some other people, it is probably because I love life more than they do.

Angelina Jolie

Give death a better name or die trying.

Timothy Leary

Of course we can keep this going, in principle, forever. In practice we will keel over from exhaustion, boredom, or death.

David Adger, Core Syntax: A Minimalist Approach

War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied.

Sun Tzu

The Fear of Death often proves Mortal, and sets People on Methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.

Joseph Addison

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. N. B. This quote is commonly attributed to Voltaire, but it is not found in his writing.

S. G. Tallentyre

It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.

Epicurus

Between two groups of men that want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds I see no remedy except force... It seems to me that every society rests on the death of men.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

It is entirely seemly for a young man killed in battle to lie mangled by the bronze spear. In his death all things appear fair. But when dogs shame the gray head and gray chin and nakedness of an old man killed, it is the most piteous thing that happens among wretched mortals.

Homer, The Iliad

Life is a series of little deaths out of which life always returns.

Charles Feidelson, Jr.

Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat, we say we have had our day.

John Donne

Death is the enemy. I spent 10 years of my life singlemindedly studying, practicing, fighting hand to hand in close quarters to defeat the enemy, to send him back bloodied and humble and I am not going to roll over and surrender.

Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, First Snow, 1993

When we have lost everything, including hope, life becomes a disgrace, and death a duty.

Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

Buddha

California is the only state in the union where you can fall asleep under a rose bush in full bloom and freeze to death.

William Claude Dunkenfield (W. C. Fields)

Life is unbearable, but death is not so pleasant either.

Assyrian Prove

Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.

Carl Sagan