Death Quotes - Page 81

Since every death diminishes us a little, we grieve - not so much for the death as for ourselves.

If we really believed that those who are gone from us were as truly alive as ourselves, we could not invest the subject with such awful depth of gloom as we do. If we could imbue our children with distinct faith in immortality, we should never speak of people as dead, but passed into another world. We should speak of the body as a cast-off garment, which the wearer had outgrown; consecrated indeed by the beloved being that used it for a season, but of no value within itself.

[Death:] The one inexorable thing!

'Tis very certain the desire of life prolongs it.

Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die. But, once realise what the true object is in life — that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds' — but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man — and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!

Go, stranger, and tell the Lacedaemonians that here we lie, obedient to their commands.

The possibility of killing one's self is a safety valve. Having it, man has no right to say life is unbearable.

Suddenly I heard the words of Christ and understood them, and life and death ceased to seem to me evil, and instead of despair I experienced happiness and the joy of life undisturbed by death.

Life is going forth; death is returning home.

If you would behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one.

There are so many little dyings How do we know which one of them is death?

Death is the opening of a more subtle life. In the flower, it sets free the perfume; in the chrysalis, the butterfly; in man, the soul.

Sex, love and death are universal and timeless dramatic themes.

Death is the great adventure beside which moon landings and space trips pale in insignificance.

The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.

Death ... doesn't take her eyes off us for a minute, so much so that even those who are not yet due to die feel her gaze pursuing them constantly.

Life and death have been lacking in my life.

It's true, I am afraid of dying. I am afraid of the world moving forward without me, of my absence going unnoticed, or worse, being some natural force propelling life on. Is it selfish? Am I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that ends when I do? I don't mean the world ending with respect to me, but every set of eyes closing with mine.

McVeigh's lawyer got him the death penalty, which, quite frankly, I could have done.

He went up to heaven, located his dog. Not only that, but he rejoined his arm.

I found myself thinking about President William McKinley, the third American president to be assassinated. He lived for several days after he was shot, and towards the end, his wife started crying and screaming, "I want to go too! I want to go too!" And with his last measure of strength, McKinley turned to her and spoke his last words: "We are all going.

You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.

You never think you're as old as you're ever going to get.

The more we sink into the infirmities of age, the nearer we are to immortal youth. All people are young in the other world. That state is an eternal spring, ever fresh and flourishing. Now, to pass from midnight into noon on the sudden, to be decrepit one minute and all spirit and activity the next, must be a desirable change. To call this dying is an abuse of language.

He thought of the mouldering child, which laid its withered thin arms around his soul, as if it were his own, and to whom Death had given as much as a god gave to Endymion, — sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.