Thoughts Of Death Quotes

• Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Inspirational, Death, Rest In Peace

  185 Copy quote

• Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Death, Running

  'Julius Caesar' (1599) act 2, sc. 2, l. 30

  77 Copy quote

  Show source

• One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it's worth watching

  Gerard Way

  Inspirational, Life, Change

  389 Copy quote

• The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.

  Irving Berlin

  Positive, Music, Death

  Title of song (1927)

  109 Copy quote

  Show source

• Death, a necessary end, will come when it will come

  William Shakespeare

  Death, Fate, Ides Of March

  'Julius Caesar' (1599) act 2, sc. 2, l. 30

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.

  William Wordsworth

  Sympathy, Grief, Condolences

  'Ode. Intimations of Immortality' (1807) st. 10

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It is as though they were traveling abroad.

  Marcel Proust

  Death, Thinking, People

  Marcel Proust (1982). “Remembrance of Things Past: The captive. The fugitive. Time regained”, Vintage

  43 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.

  William Shakespeare

  Success, Death, Veterans Day

  'Julius Caesar' (1599) act 2, sc. 2, l. 30

  161 Copy quote

  Show source

• The grave itself is but a covered bridge,
  Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Death, Grieving, Light

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1861). “The poetical works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, including his translations and notes”, p.217

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• True love makes the thought of death frequent, easy, without terrors; it merely becomes the standard of comparison, the price one would pay for many things.

  Stendhal

  Love, Pay, Easy

  "De L'Amour (On Love)". Book by Stendhal, Fragments, sec. 46, 1822.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• She laughed and danced with the thought of death in her heart.

  Hans Christian Andersen

  Heart, Laughed

  Hans Christian Andersen (1999). “Fairy Tales from Hans Andersen”, p.67, Oxford University Press, USA

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• We should think more about it, and accustom ourselves to the thought of death. We can't allow the fear of death to creep up on us unexpectedly. We have to make the fear familiar, and one way is to write about it. I don't think writing and thinking about death is characteristic only of old men. I think that if people began thinking about death sooner, they'd make fewer foolish mistakes.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Mistake, Struggle, Writing

  27 Copy quote

• A life-worshipper's philosophy is comprehensive. He is at one moment a positivist and at another a mystic: now haunted by the thought of death and now a Dionysian child of nature; now a pessimist and now, with a change of lover or liver or even the weather, an exuberant believer that God's in his heaven and all's right with the world.

  Aldous Huxley

  Love, Children, Philosophy

  Aldous Huxley (1970). “Collected Works: Do what you will”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows the brim - objects press around us, filling the mind with the throng of desires that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.

  Oscar Wilde

  Life, Death, Waiting

  8 Copy quote

• Bonhoeffer thought of death as the last station on the road to freedom.

  Eric Metaxas

  Lasts, Bonhoeffer, Stations

  Eric Metaxas (2011). “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy”, p.358, Thomas Nelson Inc

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are moments of despair that come sometimes, when night sets in and a white fog presses against the windows. Then our house changes its shape, rears up and becomes a place of despair. Then fear and rage run simply--and the thought of Death as a friend. This is the simplest of thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god.

  Stevie Smith

  Running, Night, Fog

  9 Copy quote

• The 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 Riesman

  May, Novelty, Preoccupation

  David Riesman (1955). “Selected essays from Individualism reconsidered”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• We do not know whether it is good to live or to die. Therefore, we should not take delight in living, nor should we tremble at the thought of death. We should be equiminded towards death. This is the ideal. It may be long before we reach it, and only a few of us can attain it. Even then, we must keep it constantly in view, and the more difficult it seems of attainment, the greater should be the effort we put forth.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Death, Views, Long

  Mahatma Gandhi (1993). “Gandhi on Nehru”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Death is the most misunderstood phenomenon. People have thought of death as the end of life. That is the first, basic misunderstanding.

  Rajneesh

  Death, People, Misunderstood

  4 Copy quote

• The thought of death leaves me in perfect peace, for I have a firm conviction that our spirit is a being of indestructible nature; it works on from eternity to eternity, it is like the sun, which though it seems to set to our mortal eyes, does not really set, but shines on perpetually.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Spiritual, Eye, Shine On

  9 Copy quote

• The whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of death.

  Samuel Johnson

  Life Is, Whole

  Samuel Johnson, Robert ARMITAGE (1850). “Doctor Johnson: his religious life and his death. By the author of “Dr. Hookwell,” etc. [Robert Armitage].”, p.456

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself.

  Will Durant

  Suffering

  Will Durant (1991). “The Story of Philosophy”, p.423, Simon and Schuster

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I felt the same lassitude, and a languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself a changed girl. A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholy that I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not unwelcome possession of me. If it was sad, the tone of mind which this induced was also sweet. Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it.

  Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  Girl, Sweet, Morning

  Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (2013). “Carmilla: A Critical Edition”, p.50, Syracuse University Press

  47 Copy quote

  Show source

• To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Daughter, Running, Atheist

  "Hitch-22: A Memoir". Book by Christopher Hitchens, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 20, 2010.

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• She thought of death like the seam of a hem: each time you lose someone close, it unraveled a little. You could still go along with your life, but you'd be forever tripping over something you previously took for granted.

  Jodi Picoult

  Forever, Hem, Littles

  Jodi Picoult (2012). “The Jodi Picoult Collection #2: Perfect Match, Second Glance, and My Sister's Keeper”, p.721, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source