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“It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1769 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (26 October 1769) p. 174
“They were brutes, no doubt, but brutes who could not read, and who were dying of hunger.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 5, ch. 3 (tr. Havelock Ellis, 1885)
“People living with AIDS should not be dying from preventable and treatable diseases.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yet it was the impression that the unknown master has set out to create, Phoenix-like, from the dying embers of a great legend. He had captured, and held for all future ages to see, that beauty whose service is the purpose of life, and it sole justification.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sharon's father was a gangster manager, so she's a great businesswoman. I remember saying to her once, "What's always amazed me is that you've been in the music business most of your life, but when you sing, you sound like a fucking dying wildebeest." She said, "What's always amazed me is how you've been in the music business most of your life and you don't know the ass end of a contract.”
Ozzy Osbourne (1948–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sweetheart we're alone And you are mine. Let's make this night a night to remember. Don't make our love a cold dying ember, For with the dawn, you'll be gone.”
Elvis Presley (1935–1977) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: , written by Elvis Presley, Red West and (1961)
“I'm dying for you just to touch me, And feel all the energy rushing right up-a-me. L'amour looks something like you.”
“My terrible fear of dying No longer plays with me, for now I know that I'm needed For the symphony.”
“I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, "Do not weep for me, This is not my true country, I have lived banished from my true country—I now go back there, I return to the celestial sphere where every one goes in his turn.”
Walt Whitman (1819–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wavering between the profit and the loss In this brief transit where the dreams cross The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying (Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things From the wide window towards the granite shore The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying Unbroken wings.”
T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is the time of tension between dying and birth The place of solitude where three dreams cross Between blue rocks.”
T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O young Mariner, You from the haven Under the sea-cliff, You that are watching The gray Magician With eyes of wonder, I am Merlin, And I am dying, I am Merlin Who follow The Gleam.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Merlin and the Gleam", st. 1 (1889)
“And on her lover's arm she leant, And round her waist she felt it fold, And far across the hills they went In that new world which is the old: Across the hills, and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, And deep into the dying day The happy princess follow'd him.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Authority forgets a dying king, Laid widow’d of the power in his eye That bow’d the will.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, — Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn, — mud from a muddy spring, — Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, But leech-like to their fainting country cling, Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) first seen 1819 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: England in 1819" (1819), l. 1
“Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift — A Love in desolation masked; — a Power Girt round with weakness; — it can scarce uplift The weight of the superincumbent hour; It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, A breaking billow; — even whilst we speak Is it not broken? On the withering flower The killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For more than five years, I'd made little progress with my efforts at quiet diplomacy — for one thing, the Soviet leaders kept dying on me.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1744 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pope's reply when told by his physician that he was better, on the morning of his death (30 May 1744), as quoted by Owen Ruffhead in The Life of Alexander Pope; With a Critical Essay on His Writings and Genius (1769), p…
“Vital spark of heav'nly flame! Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying, Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned, By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Good, to forgive; Best, to forget! Living, we fret; Dying, we live.”
Robert Browning (1812–1889) said by 1889 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wonder, indeed, is, on all hands, dying out: it is the sign of uncultivation to wonder.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment,—Independence now and Independence forever.”
Daniel Webster (1782–1852) said by 1852 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wish, sir, you would practice this without me. I can't stay dying here all night.”
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) said by 1816 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wish sir, you would practise this without me. I can’t stay dying here all night. O Lord, Sir—when a heroine goes mad she always goes into white satin.”
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) first seen 1779 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ‘The Critic’ (1779) act 3, sc. 1
“Yet living and dying, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil.”
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) said by 180 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn't matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored. Dying . . . or busy with other assignments. (Hays translation)”
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) said by 180 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life begins perpetually. Gathered together at last under the leadership of man, the student-teacher of the universe... unified, disciplined, armed with the secret powers of the atom, and with knowledge as yet beyond dreaming, Life, forever dying to be born afresh, forever young and eager, will presently stand upon this earth as upon a footstool, and stretch out its realm amidst the stars.”
H. G. Wells (1866–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dying is only bad when it takes a long time and hurts so much that it humiliates you.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Romans disapproved of Greek sports because the athletes competed nude. That was shocking. On the other hand, people dripping with blood and dying for entertainment was fine. This is strangely similar to the moral standards of today's commercial television and family movies.”
John Ralston Saul (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The example of a revolution and the lessons it applies for Latin America have destroyed all coffee house theories; we have demonstrated that a small group of men supported by the people without fear of dying can overcome a disciplined regular army and defeat it.”
Che Guevara (1928–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the first time in the history of the world, your young men are dying in a war that — despite all its horrors — is for them an experience of love. Do not betray them. Let them dictate their peace when the time comes! Let that peace reassemble them! This war is honorable; may their spiritual faith make peace as honorable.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) said by 1944 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be it granted me to behold you again in dying, Hills of home!”
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) said by 1894 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Warmth, warmth, more warmth! for we are dying of cold and not of darkness. It is not the night that kills, but the frost.”
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I tried to hang myself with bungie cords. I kept almost dying.”
Steven Wright (born 1955) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Conversations with Willie (1978) by Robin Maugham
“The Rainbow is making room for the young Americans. Twenty years ago, our young people were dying in a war for which they could not even vote. Twenty years later, young America has the power to stop a war in Central America and the responsibility to vote in great numbers. Young America must be politically active in 1984. The choice is war or peace. We must make room for young America.”
Jesse Jackson (1941–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are so lonely in life that we must ask ourselves if the loneliness of dying is not a symbol of our human existence.”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it; hence the mind feels more comfortable in the society of a braggart than in that of a martyr; and nothing is more repugnant to it than the spectacle of dying for an idea.”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is only this swarm of dying creatures stricken with longevity, all the more hateful in that they are so good at organizing their agony.”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 120, first American edition (1970)
“We have lost, being born, as much as we shall lose, dying. Everything.”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To think that so many have succeeded in dying!”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world begins and ends with us. Only our consciousness exists, it is everything, and this everything vanishes with it. Dying, we leave nothing. Then why so much fuss around an event that is no such thing?”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.”
William Faulkner (1897–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime.”
Samuel Butler (novelist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What flocks of critics hover here to-day, As vultures wait on armies for their prey, All gaping for the carcase of a play! With croaking notes they bode some dire event, And follow dying poets by the scent.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The soft complaining flute, In dying notes, discovers The woes of hopeless lovers.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Exalted Socrates! divinely brave! Injured he fell, and dying he forgave; Too noble for revenge.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How sweet on the breeze of the evening swells The vesper call of those soothing bells, Borne softly and dying in echoes away, Like a requiem sung to the parting day.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) first seen 1821 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (22nd September 1821) Bells