quotations about death
People walk along the streets the day after our deaths just as they did before, and the crowd is not diminished. While we were living, the world seemed in a manner to exist only for us, for our delight and amusement, because it contributed to them. But our hearts cease to beat, and it goes on as usual, and thinks no more about us than it did in our lifetime.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
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Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners
Whether or not enlightenment is possible at the moment of death, the practices that prepare one for this possibility also bring one closer to the bone of life.
JOAN HALIFAX
Being with Dying
Death is the side of life which is turned away from us.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
letter to W. von Hulewicz, The Duino Elegies
Oh, sure, I've come close to dying a few times, but usually I was having so much fun at the time that I barely noticed the danger.
BUZZ ALDRIN
No Dream Is Too High: Life Lessons From a Man Who Walked on the Moon
The dead body makes the living one obscene. It's why we close the eyes, too. The dead shouldn't have to look on the lewd aliveness of things.
GLEN DUNCAN
By Blood We Live
This flesh and the other will be consumed,
the flower will doubtless perish without residue,
when death--sterile dawn, desiccated dust--
comes one day into the girdle of the haughty island,
and you, statue, daughter of man, will remain
gazing with the empty eyes that rose
up through one and another hand of the absent immortals.
PABLO NERUDA
"The Builders of Statues"
When Death puts out our Flame, the Snuff will tell,
If we were Wax, or Tallow by the smell.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1739
I don't necessarily view death as something negative. Death gives meaning to life. Living in fear of death is living in denial. Actually, it's not really living at all, because there is no life without death. It's two sides of the one. You can't pick up one side and say, "I'm just going to use the 'heads' side." No. It doesn't work like that. You have to pick up both sides because nothing is promised to anyone in this world besides death.
50 CENT
From Pieces to Weight
It seemeth such a little way to me
Across to that strange country -- the Beyond;
And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be
The home of those of whom I am so fond,
They make it seem familiar and most dear,
As journeying friends bring distant regions near.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Beyond"
Numbing rumble, countless medicine,
Depleted from years of abuse
Death rattle shaking
And there's no faking, undertaking
PANTERA
"Death Rattle", Reinventing the Steel
There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven.
ISAAC ASIMOV
I, Asimov
By protracting life, we do not deduct one jot from the duration of death.
LUCRETIUS
De Rerum Natura
Death is when the monsters get you.
STEPHEN KING
Salem's Lot
The gate of death is never at rest.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
There is a time in a patient's life when the pain ceases to be, when the mind slips off into a dreamless state, when the need for food becomes minimal and the awareness of the environment all but disappears into darkness. This is the time when the relatives walk up and down the hospital hallways, tormented by the waiting, not knowing if they should leave to attend the living or stay to be around for the moment of death. This is the time when it is too late for words, and yet the time when the relatives cry the loudest for help--with out without words.... It is the hardest time for the next of kin as he either wishes to take off, to get it over with; or he desperately clings to something that he is in the process of losing forever.
ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS
On Death and Dying
Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Heartbreak House
Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life.
CHARLES FROHMAN
his last words before going down on the Lusitania
Death unites as well as separates; it silences all paltry feeling.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
I don't know what's waiting for us when we die--something better, something worse. I only know I'm not ready to find out yet.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
I shall soon be laid in the quiet grave--thank God for the quiet grave--O! I can feel the cold earth upon me--the daisies growing over me--O for this quiet--it will be my first.
JOHN KEATS
attributed, letter from Joseph Severn to John Taylor, Mar. 6, 1821