Popular quotes about Death! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 23
Death is not as terrible as you think. It comes to you as a healer. Sleep is nothing but a counterfeit death. What happens in death we can picture in sleep. All our sufferings vanish in sleep. When death comes, all our mortal tortures cease; they cannot go beyond the portals of death.
Paramahansa YoganandaFor Death must be somewhere in a society; if it is no longer (or less intensely) in religion, it must be elsewhere; perhaps in this image which produces Death while trying to preserve life. Contemporary with the withdrawal of rites, Photography may correspond to the intrusion, in our modern society, of an asymbolic Death, outside of religion, outside of ritual, a kind of abrupt dive into literal Death.
Roland BarthesAnd I am bored to death with it. Bored to death with this place, bored to death with my life, bored to death with myself.
Charles DickensIf a general and his men fear death and are apprehensive over possible defeat, then they will unavoidably suffer defeat and death. But if they make up their minds, from the general down to the last footsoldier, not to think of living but only of standing in one place and facing death together, then, though they may have no other thought than meeting death, they will instead hold on to life and gain victory.
Yoshida ShoinEveryone knows you can't see death cooties. Take my word for it, that couch has the biggest, fattest death cooties that ever existed. That couch has the mother of all death cooties. โ Lula
Janet EvanovichThrough the air floated only important words, and Flajsman said to himself that love has but one true measure, and that is death. At the end of true love is death, and only the love that ends in death is love.
Milan KunderaAgain, somehow, one saw life, a pure bead. I lifted the pencil again, useless though I knew it to be. But even as I did so, the unmistakable tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and instantly grew stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now knew death. As I looked at the dead moth, this minute wayside triumph of so great a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange.
Virginia WoolfIt's beautiful," said Mort softly. "What is it?" THE SUN IS UNDER THE DISC, said Death. "Is it like this every night?" EVERY NIGHT, said Death. NATURE'S LIKE THAT. "Doesn't anyone know?" ME. YOU. THE GODS. GOOD, ISN'T IT? "Gosh!" Death leaned over the saddle and looked down at the kingdoms of the world. I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, he said, BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY.
Terry PratchettDeath is as unexpected in his caprice as a courtesan in her disdain; but death is truer โ Death has never forsaken any man
Honore de BalzacI was living my own future and my brother's lost one as well. I represented him here just as he represented me there, in some unguessable other place. His move from life to death might resemble my stepping into the kitchen - into its soft nowhere quality and foggy hum. I breathed the dark air. If I had at that moment a sense of calm kindly death while my heart beat and my lungs expanded, he might know a similar sense of life in the middle of his ongoing death.
Michael CunninghamWe pull out of the ground death, we burn death in our power plants, and then we act shocked when we get death in the form of oil spills and global warming.
Van JonesDo not fear death, but welcome it, since it too comes from nature. For just as we are young and grow old, and flourish and reach maturity, have teeth and a beard and grey hairs, conceive, become pregnant, and bring forth new life, and all the other natural processes that follow the seasons of our existence, so also do we have death. A thoughtful person will never take death lightly, impatiently, or scornfully, but will wait for it as one of life's natural processes.
Marcus AureliusLife will be wonderful when men no longer fear dying. When the last superstitions are thrown out and we meet death with the same equanimity as life. No longer will children's minds be twisted by evil gods whose fantastic origin is in those barbaric tribes who feared death and lightning, who feared life. That's it: life is the villain to to those who preach reward in death, through grace and eternal bliss, or through dark revenge.
Gore VidalLove is strong as death; but nothing else is as strong as either; and both, love and death, met in Christ. How strong and powerful upon you, then, should that instruction be, that comes to you from both these, the love and death of Jesus Christ!
John DonneWhatsoever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer.
EpicurusOh and I thought, as i was dressing, how interesting it would be to describe the approach of age, and the gradual coming of death. As people describe love. To note every symptom of failure: but why failure? To treat age as an experience that is different from the others; and to detect every one of the gradual stages towards death which is a tremendous experience, an not as unconscious, at least in its approaches, as death is.
Virginia WoolfChange the emphasis, turn your attention around. If you become concerned with death, your life comes to be revealed to you for the first time, because the moment you become at ease with death you have gained a life that cannot die. The moment you have known death, you have known that life which is eternal.
RajneeshDon't hate life and death or love life and death. Keep your every thought free of delusion, and in life you'll witness the beginning of nirvana, and in death you'll experience the assurance of no rebirth.
BodhidharmaThe premonition of death may for many be a stimulus to novelty of experience: the imminence of death serves to sweep away the inessential preoccupations for those who do not flee from the thought of death into triviality.
David RiesmanWhat's wrong with death sir? What are we so mortally afraid of? Why can't we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity, and decency, and God forbid, maybe even humor. Death is not the enemy gentlemen. If we're going to fight a disease, let's fight one of the most terrible diseases of all, indifference.
Robin WilliamsOf death, my father has always said that the best conditions are the ones in which you have plenty of time to prepare - to say what you need to say; to arrange your estate - and the ones in which you get to choose, or at least have some knowledge of, how and when it might happen. One can't elude death, but one can have a good death.
Hanya YanagiharaEspecially for those of us living in the Western culture, death to a large extent is still a taboo subject. It's considered something dreadful that shouldn't be happening. It's usually denied. The fact of death is not faced. What we don't realize in Western culture is that death has a redemptive dimension.
Eckhart TolleWater, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it.
Michel de MontaigneHow to forgive a murderer? First, by differentiating his sufferings from his exploitation of death to ease them. For his sufferings - greed, jealousy, frustration - he will need reeducation, support and, compassion. For our outrage about murder, we need to examine deeply our faith in death. As long as we collectively believe that death has power over life, we will spawn deluded, self-appointed little gods who want that power.
D. Patrick MillerWe all owe life a death, an inevitable death which we can meet. But the unnecessary death that wastes life denies all consolation.
Laura BohannanTo die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brightly and cheerfully accomplished amid children and witnesses: then a real farewell is still possible, as the one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has wished, drawing the sum of one's life--all in opposition to the wretched and revolting comedy that Christianity has made of the hour of death.
Friedrich NietzscheI think of death only with tranquility, as an end. I refuse to let death hamper life. Death must enter life only to define it.
Jean-Paul SartreBushido is realised in the presence of death. In the case of having to choose between life and death you should choose death. There is no other reasoning.
Yamamoto TsunetomoFor the first time in my life I tasted death, and death tasted bitter, for death is birth, is fear and dread of some terrible renewal.
Hermann HesseIn the face of death, especially violent death, things don't make sense anymore. So death is the dissolution of either physical form or psychological form. And when a form dissolves, always something shines through that had been obscured by the form. This is the formless One Life, the formless One Consciousness.
Eckhart TolleThe hour of death waits for no order. Death does not even come from the front. It is ever pressing on from behind. All men know of death, but they do not expect it of a sudden, and it comes upon them unawares. So, though the dry flats extend far out, soon the tide comes and floods the beach.
Yoshida KenkoIf the denial of death is self-hatred, as it is to deny our freedom and live in fear of death (which is to say, to live in a form of bondage), then the acceptance and affirmation of death is indeed a form of self-love. But I'd want to make a distinction between a form of self-love which is essential to what it means to be human, and a narcissism of self-regard, like Rousseau's distinction between amour de soi and amour propre, self-love and pride.
Simon CritchleyDeath isn't funny." "Then why are there so many jokes about death? Jill, with us โ us humans โ death is so sad that we must laugh at it.
Robert A. HeinleinIn Spain, however, people have found a way of cheating death. They summon it to appear in the afternoon in the bull ring, and they make it face a man. Death - a fighting bull with horns as weapons - is killed by a bullfighter. And the people are there watching death being cheated of its right.
Maia WojciechowskaDeath is not earnest in the same way the eternal is. To the earnestness of death belongs precisely that remarkable capacity for awakening, that resonance of a profound mockery which, detached from the thought of the eternal, is an empty and often brash jest, but together with the thought of the eternal is just what it should be, utterly different from the insipid solemness which least of all captures and holds a thought with tension like that of death.
Soren KierkegaardThough I canโt help feeling a sudden death cheats you of something. Death is an experience of life. You only get one death. I would like to be aware it was happening, even if that did mean enduring pain and fear.
Trudi CanavanThe father hesitated only a moment. He felt the vague pain in his chest. If I run, he thought, what will happen? Is Death important? No. Everything that happens before Death is what counts. And we've done fine tonight. Even Death can't spoil it.
Ray BradburyFor those who seek to understand it, death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death.
Elisabeth Kubler-RossSay anything you want against The Seventh Seal. My fear of death - this infantile fixation of mine - was, at that moment, overwhelming. I felt myself in contact with death day and night, and my fear was tremendous. When I finished the picture, my fear went away. I have the feeling simply of having painted a canvas in an enormous hurry - with enormous pretension but without any arrogance. I said, 'Here is a painting; take it, please.'
Ingmar BergmanModern thought has transferred the spectral character of Death to the notion of time itself. Time has become Death triumphant over all.
John BergerThe word โholidayโ comes from โholy dayโ and holy means โexalted and worthy of complete devotion.โ By that definition, all days are holy. Life is holy. Atheists have joy every day of the year, every holy day. We have the wonder and glory of life. We have joy in the world before the lord is come. Weโre not going for the promise of life after death; weโre celebrating life before deathโฆFor atheists, everything in the world is enough and every day is holy. Every day is an atheist holiday. Itโs a day that weโre alive.
Penn JilletteIt is written that the last enemy to be vanquished is death. We should begin early in life to vanquish this enemy by obliterating every trace of the fear of death from our minds. Then can we turn to life and fill the whole horizon of our souls with it, turn with added zest to all the serious tasks which it imposes and to the pure delights which here and there it affords.
Felix AdlerAs for death, one gets used to it, even if it is only other people is death you get used to.
Enid BagnoldThe advent of DNA testing, and the number of convictions thrown out, has confirmed that we've put LOTS of innocent people to death. There need not be any other argument against death penalty.
Gene WeingartenWhenever you are ready, or if you never are, my heart is yours, until Death do us part. Whatever that may mean when consorting with one of Deathโs handmaidens.
R.L. LaFeversHowever contradictory the coroner's report โ whether he pronounces Consumption or Loneliness or Suicide to be the cause of death โ isn't it plain how the true artist-seer actually dies? I say that the true artist-seer, the heavenly fool who can and does produce beauty, is mainly dazzled to death by his own scruples, the blinding shapes and colors of his own sacred human conscience.
J. D. Salinger