Famous quotes
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“Christ did not die for the good and beautiful. It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt.”
Shūsaku Endō (1923–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Listen to me: Is he the only Gambian who died? Is he better than Gambians who die in accidents, Gambians who die at sea, Gambians who die on their way to Europe?”
Yahya Jammeh (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But I believe that God is overhead; And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead.”
Mary Mapes Dodge (1831–1905) said by 1905 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the day long after childhood when I suddenly heard of his death, the sky grew dark above my head. I was walking on a Southern highway, and a friend driving in a pony carriage passed me, stopped and said, "Have you heard that Charles Dickens is dead?" It was as if I had been robbed of one of the dearest of friends.”
Margaret Elizabeth Sangster (1838–1912) said by 1912 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do you believe that the dead can influence the living?... Could you conceive of a superhuman mentality influencing someone from the other side of death?... There is such a one.... Someone, something that reaches out from beyond the grave and fills me with horrible impulses.”
Garrett Fort (1900–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think that it will be a great success, that all this painting [of Edouard Manet, shortly after his death], so fresh, so vital, will electrify the 'Palais des Beaux Arts' [in Paris], which is accustomed to dead art. It will be the revenge for so many rebuffs, but a revenge that the poor boy only in his grave.”
Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in a letter to her sister Edma Morisot, c. Jan 1884; as cited in: Impressionist quartet, ed. Jeffrey Meyers; publishers, Harcourt, 2005, p. 124
“When hope lies dead—ah, when 'tis death to live, And wrongs remembered make the heart still bleed, Better are Sleep's kind lies for Life's blind need Than truth, if lies a little peace can give.”
Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Agathon: But all that talk about death being the same as sleep. Socrates: Yes, the difference is that when you're dead and somebody yells, "Everybody up, it's morning," it's very hard to find your slippers.”
Woody Allen (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The remedies for all our diseases will be discovered long after we are dead; and the world will be made a fit place to live in, after the death of most of those by whose exertions it will have been made so. It is to be hoped that those who live in those days will look back with sympathy to their known and unknown benefactors.”
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) first seen 1854 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary, April 15, 1854, in The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Toronto, 1988, vol. 27, p. 668
“Death will come when thou art dead, Soon, too soon — Sleep will come when thou art fled; Of neither would I ask the boon I ask of thee, beloved Night — Swift be thine approaching flight, Come soon, soon!”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) first seen 1821 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Night (1821), st. 5
“What softer voice is hushed over the dead? Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown? What form leans sadly o'er the white death — bed, In mockery of monumental stone, The heavy heart heaving without a moan?”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He lives, he wakes — 'tis Death is dead, not he; Mourn not for Adonais. — Thou young Dawn, Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee The spirit thou lamentest is not gone.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For some time now the impression has been growing upon me that everyone is dead. It happens when I speak to people. In the middle of a sentence it will come over me: yes, beyond a doubt this is death. There is little to do but groan and make an excuse and slip away as quickly as one can.”
Walker Percy (1916–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who hath bent him o'er the dead Ere the first day of death is fled,— The first dark day of nothingness, The last of danger and distress, Before decay's effacing fingers Have swept the lines where beauty lingers.”
Lord Byron (1788–1824) said by 1824 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For I am every dead thing, In whom love wrought new alchemy. For his art did express A quintessence even from nothingness, From dull privations, and lean emptiness He ruined me, and I am re-begot Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not.”
John Donne (1572–1631) said by 1631 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jubal," the face said, "I am thy loved Past, The soul that makes thee one from first to last. I am the angel of thy life and death, Thy outbreathed being drawing its last breath. Am I not thine alone, a dear dead bride Who blest thy lot above all men's beside?”
George Eliot (1819–1880) said by 1880 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The great characters of fiction live as truly as the memories of dead men. For the life after death it is not necessary that a man or woman should have lived.”
Samuel Butler (novelist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'Tis this which makes The best assurance of our promised heaven: This triumph intellect has over death— Our words yet live on others' lips; our thoughts Actuate others. Can that man be dead Whose spiritual influence is upon his kind?”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A letter then, breathing of home and affection, is a treasure ; it is like a memento from the dead, for absence is as death in all but that its resurrection is in this life.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Deep-hearted man, express Grief for thy dead in silence like to death; Most like a monumental statue set In everlasting watch and moveless woe, Till itself crumble to the dust beneath. Touch it: the marble eyelids are not wet— If it could weep, it could arise and go.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) said by 1861 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Th' immortal mind of mortal man!" we hear yon loud-lunged Zealot cry; Whose mind but means his sum of thought, an essence of atomic "I." Thought is the work of brain and nerve, in small-skulled idiot poor and mean; In sickness sick, in sleep asleep, and dead when Death lets drop the scene.”
Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) said by 1890 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Too much consistency is as bad for the mind as it is for the body. Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead. Consistent intellectualism and spirituality may be socially valuable, up to a point; but they make, gradually, for individual death.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud — and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word. But in the night of Death Hope sees a star and listening Love can hear the rustling of a wing.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Tribe to Eban C. Ingersoll" (1879)
“I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and yet I wish to take from every grave its fear. Here in this world, where life and death are equal kings, all should be brave enough to meet what all the dead have met. The future has been filled with fear, stained and polluted by the heartless past.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then forth he came, his both knees falt'ring, both His strong hands hanging down, and all with froth His cheeks and nostrils flowing, voice and breath Spent to all use, and down he sunk to death. The sea had soaked his heart through; all his veins His toils had rack'd t'a labouring woman's pains. Dead weary was he.”
George Chapman (1559–1634) said by 1634 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Animals whom we have made our slaves we do not like to consider our equals. — Do not slave holders wish to make the black man other kind? — animals with affections, imitation, fear of death, pain, sorrow for the dead. — respect.”
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) first seen 1837 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notebook B" (1837-1838) page 231
“I just don't get it. The pigeon was already dead, we found it in the road. And no other censor has objected. What is the problem with you, English? You killed millions of Indians and Africans, and yet you go nuts about the circumstances of the death of a single Serbian pigeon. I am touched you hold the lives of Serbian birds so dear, but you are crazy. I will never understand how your minds work.”
Emir Kusturica (born 1954) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In an interview in The Guardian (4 March 2005) about a British censor demanding that a shot of a cat pouncing on a pigeon be cut from his film Life is a Miracle
“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “The dead cannot hurt you. They give you no pain, except that of seeing your own death in their faces. And one can face that, I find.” Yes, he thought, the good face pain. But the great—they embrace it.”
Lois McMaster Bujold (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And what goes on in the head of a walking dead man? Miles wondered. What personal failure could he possibly fear more than death itself?”
Lois McMaster Bujold (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The trouble with oaths of the form, death before dishonor, is that eventually, given enough time and abrasion, they separate the world into just two sorts of people: the dead, and the forsworn.”
Lois McMaster Bujold (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, Death lies dead.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The dead bodies of their parents they cut up with their sheep, and devour at their feasts. They who have not died so as to become food for others, are thought to have died an accursed death. Their women are not by their sex softened to modesty. They uncover the breast, from which they suspend their battle-axes, and prefer warfare to marriage.”
Tertullian (160–240) said by 240 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The hand that signed the paper felled a city; Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; These five kings did a king to death.”
Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Hand that Signed the Paper Felled a City", st. 1 (1936)
“Fellowship depends on appreciation while manipulation is the cause of alienation: objects and I apart, things stand dead, and I am alone. What is more decisive: a life of manipulation distorts the image of the world. Reality is equated with availability: What I can manipulate is, what I cannot manipulate is not. A life of manipulation is the death of transcendence.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As to the second mode, that of leaving wealth at death for public uses, it may be said that this is only a means for the disposal of wealth, provided a man is content to wait until he is dead before it becomes of much good in the world.”
Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) said by 1919 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is kind of complex, because Jesus did identify with the victims. But Jesus was not a victim. He was a conqueror…Jesus conquered death. He wasn’t victimized. He chose to give his life….If he was a victim, and this theology was true, then Jesus would’ve come back from the dead and made the Jews pay for what they did. That’s an abomination.”
Glenn Beck (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He read at wine, he read in bed, He read aloud, had he the breath, His every thought was with the dead, And so he read himself to death.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The death of Che Guevara places a responsibility on all revolutionaries of the World to redouble their decision to fight on to the final defeat of Imperialism. That is why in essence Che Guevara is not dead, his ideas are with us.”
Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in (1967), as quoted in Andrew Sinclair's Viva Che!: The Strange Death and Life of Che Guevara
“Censors are dead men set up to judge between life and death. For no live, sunny man would be a censor, he'd just laugh.”
D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Censors (1929)
“Outside the street's on fire in a real death waltz Between flesh and what's fantasy and the poets down here Don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be. And in the quick of the night they reach for their moment And try to make an honest stand but they wind up wounded, not even dead Tonight in Jungleland.”
Bruce Springsteen (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The dead are friends whom death is powerless to take from us. Great writers are immortal companions who can embellish our old age as they enchanted our young days. Music, too, is an extraordinarily faithful friend. To those of us who have lost our faith in human nature, it offers refuge in other pleasant worlds.”
André Maurois (1885–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me. And that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground. And that no sexton be asked to toll the bell. And that nobody is wished to see my dead body. And that no murners walk behind me at my funeral. And that no flours be planted on my grave. And that no man remember me.”
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) said by 1928 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not myself find it agreeable to be 90, and I cannot imagine why it should seem so to other people. It is not that you have any fears about your own death, it is that your upholstery is already dead around you.”
Rebecca West (1892–1983) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "There is nothing like a dame: Dame Rebecca West at ninety," Vogue (February 1983)
“I can't shake off the idea that after death you keep being alive. That to be dead is to live an endless nightmare.”
Milan Kundera (1929–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But it pleased God to visit us then with death daily, and with so general a disease that the living were scarce able to bury the dead.”
William Bradford (Plymouth Colony governor) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Through the window I can see Rooks above the cherry-tree, Sparrows in the violet bed, Bramble-bush and bumble-bee, And old red bracken smoulders still Among boulders on the hill, Far too bright to seem quite dead. But old Death, who can't forget, Waits his time and watches yet, Waits and watches by the door.”
Robert Graves (1895–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I started in to cry and call his name, Asking forgiveness of his tongueless head. ... I dreamt the past was never past redeeming: But whether this was false or honest dreaming I beg death's pardon now. And mourn the dead.”
Richard Wilbur (1921–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who give way to great anger are like the dead: Those who are free from anger are free from death.”
Thiruvalluvar wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beneath our feet and o'er our head Is equal warning given: Beneath us lie the countless dead, Above us is the heaven! Death rides on every passing breeze, And lurks in every flower; Each season has its own disease, Its peril every hour.”
Reginald Heber (1783–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At a Funeral", No. I (1827)
“The old notion that the savage is the freest of mankind is the reverse of the truth. He is a slave, not indeed to a visible master, but to the past, to the spirits of his dead forefathers, who haunt his steps from birth to death, and rule him with a rod of iron.”
James Frazer (1854–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source