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Death

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• “Öcalan resurrected a dead people. The people were dying, about to be finished, but Mr. Öcalan didn't allow that; he pulled the Kurd out of the wolf's mouth.”

  Salih Muslim (1951–2026) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Statement made on 1 April 2021 – quoted by Emrullah Acar, "Rojava halklarının özgürlüğüne adanan bir yaşam: Salih Müslim" (in Turkish), Mezopotamya Agency, 12 March 2026.

• “Falsch am Positivismus ist, daß er die nun einmal gegebene Arbeitsteilung, die der Wissenschaften von der gesellschaftlichen Praxis und die innerhalb der Wissenschaft, als Maß des Wahren supponiert und keine Theorie erlaubt, welche die Arbeitsteilung selbst als abgeleitet, vermittelt durchsichtig machen, ihrer falschen Autorität entkleiden könnte.”

  Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Nicht die Neugierde, nicht die Eitelkeit, nicht die Betrachtung der Nützlichkeit, nicht die Pflicht und Gewissenhaftigkeit, sondern ein unauslöschlicher, unglücklicher Durst, der sich auf keinen Vergleich einläßt, führt uns zur Wahrheit.”

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) first seen 1809 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Nürnberg, Sep. 30, 1809; Schrieb's zum Andenken (written to remember)

• “Die nächste Flut verwischt den Weg im Watt, und alles wird auf allen Seiten gleich; die kleine Insel draußen aber hat die Augen zu; verwirrend kreist der Deichum ihre Wohner, die in einem Schlaf geboren werden, drin sie viele Welten verwechseln schweigend, denn sie reden selten, und jeder Satz ist wie ein Epitaph”

  Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Ihr habt die kleinen Monopole vernichtet, um das EINE große Grundmonopol, das Eigentum, desto freier und schrankenloser wirken zu lassen; ihr habt die Enden der Erde zivilisiert, um neues Terrain für die Entfaltung eurer niedrigen Habsucht zu gewinnen, ihr habt die Völker verbrüdert, aber zu einer Brüderschaft von Dieben.”

  Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I always carry the Ethics of Spinoza with me. [Original in German: Ich führe, die Ethik von Spinoza immer bei mir; er hat die Mathematik in die Ethik gebracht, so ich in die Farbenlehre, das heißt: da steht nichts im Hintersatz, was nicht im Vordersatz schon begründet ist.]”

  Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) said by 1677 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in a conversation with Sulpiz Boisserée, 3 August 1815. As quoted in Julie D. Prandi's “Dare To Be Happy!”: A Study of Goethe's Ethics (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993)

• “Für die Romantiker und für die spekulative Philosophie bedeutete der Terminus kritisch: objektiv produktiv, schöpferisch aus Besonnenheit. Kritisch sein hieß die Erhebung des Denkens über alle Bindungen so weit treiben, daß gleichsam zauberisch aus der Einsicht in das Falsche der Bindungen die Erkenntnis der Wahrheit sich schwang.”

  Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Wohl kenn ich Weibes heil'ge Pflichten; sei drum gestrost, unsel'ger Mann! Lass über die das Schicksal richten, die seinem Spruche trotzen kann! In meines Herzens höchster Reine kenn ich der Treue Hochgebot. Wem ich sie weih, schenk ich die eine; die Treue bis zum Tod.”

  Richard Wagner (1813–1883) said by 1883 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Aber freilich für diese Zeit, welche das Bild der Sache, die Kopie dem Original, die Vorstellung der Wirklichkeit, den Schein dem Wesen vorzieht … denn heilig ist ihr nur die Illusion, profan aber die Wahrheit.”

  Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804–1872) first seen 1843 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Preface to Second Edition (1843)

• “Durch die Künstler wird die Menschheit ein Individuum, indem sie Vor welt und Nachwelt in der Gegenwart verknüpfen. Sie sind das höhere Seelenorgan, wo die Lebensgeister der ganzen 15 äussern Menschheit zusammentreffen und in welchem die innere zunächst wirkt.”

  Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Selected Ideas (1799-1800)”, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (Pennsylvania University Press:1968) #64 [cf. Heidegger]

• “Du wolltest die Philosophie zerstören, und die Poesie, um Raum zu gewinnen für die Religion und Moral, die du verkanntest: aber du hast nichts zerstören können als dich selber.”

  Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Selected Ideas (1799-1800)”, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (1968) #90

• “Es stände besser um die Welt, wenn die Mühe, die man sich gibt, die subtilsten Moralgesetze auszuklügeln, zur Ausübung der einfachsten angewendet würde.”

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Wenn Du durchaus nur die Wahl hast, zwischen einer Unwahrheit und einer Grobheit, dann wähle die Grobheit. Wenn jedoch die Wahl getroffen werden muß zwischen einer Unwahrheit und einer Grausamkeit, dann wähle die Unwahrheit.”

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Es handelt sich um meinen liebsten Jugendtraum, nämlich um den Nachweis, dass die Abel’schen Gleichungen mit Quadratwurzeln rationaler Zahlen durch die Transformations-Gleichungen elliptischer Functionen mit singularen Moduln grade so erschöpft werden, wie die ganzzahligen Abel’schen Gleichungen durch die Kreisteilungsgleichungen.”

  Leopold Kronecker (1823–1891) first seen 1880 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: from a letter to Richard Dedekind, Berlin, 15th March 1880. Leopold Kronecker's Werke, ed. Kurt Hensel, 5th volume, 1930, p. 455 books.google, See also Kronecker's Jugendtraum.

• “Die tiefsten Probleme des modernen Lebens quellen aus dem Anspruch des Individuums, die Selbständigkeit und Eigenart seines Daseins gegen die Übermächte der Gesellschaft, des geschichtlich Ererbten, der äußerlichen Kultur und Technik des Lebens zu bewahren - die letzterreichte Umgestaltung des Kampfes mit der Natur, den der primitive Mensch um seine leibliche Existenz zu führen hat.”

  Georg Simmel (1858–1918) said by 1918 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Sieh zu, die Grundsuppe des Wuchers, der Dieberei und Räuberei sein unser Herrn und Fürsten, nehmen alle Kreaturen zum Eigentum: die Fisch im Wasser, die Vögel in der Luft, das Gewächs auf Erden muß alles ihr sein (Jes. 5). Darüber lassen sie dann Gottes Gebot ausgehen unter die Armen und sprechen: »Gott hat geboten: Du sollst nicht stehlen.«”

  Thomas Müntzer (1489–1525) said by 1525 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Die Katastrophe ist da! Habe wit fast der Hälfte des Teams die Überquerung des Spaltes geschafft. Plötzlich... ein ekelhaft schmutzendes Geräusch, die Seile kuallen aus den Halterungen, hinter mir nehe ich Makrolin und Sylkat, misre beiden Träger, in einem riesigen Krater versch minden. Wir müssen die beiden retten... ist das das Ende? 7. Aug. 16 uhr 12”

  Willi Glasauer (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Die Mathematik ist doch die angenehmste Wissenschaft; sie und die Astronomie vertreten bei mir Tanzgesellschaften, Konzerte und andere derartige Belustigungen, die ich nur dem Namen nach kenne.”

  Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784–1846) first seen 1802 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Written in 1802 at the age of 18 as an apprentice in Bremen; as published in Bessel als Bremer Handlungslehrling: Aus den Jugendjahren eines großen Gelehrten, Hrsg. von der Gesellschaft "Union" (Kaufmännischer Verein) z…

• “To die, to be really dead, that must be glorious.... There are far worse things awaiting man than death.”

  Garrett Fort (1900–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand o'er your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead”

  Bob Dylan (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “What shall we know of our death? Either the soul is immortal and we shall not die, or it perishes with the flesh and we shall not know that we are dead. Live, then, as if you were eternal, and do not believe that your life has changed merely because it seems proved that the Earth is empty. You do not live in the Earth, you live in yourself.”

  André Maurois (1885–1967) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted in Will Durant, On the Meaning of Life (London: Williams & Norgate, 1933) p. 53

• “Mateo is dead. That was no way for him to go out. Mateo should've gone out saving someone, because he was such a selfless person. No, even if he didn't die a hero's death, he died a hero. Mateo Torrez definitely saved me.”

  Adam Silvera (born 1990) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The extraordinary and disastrous event, albeit pleasantly bizarre, is death. One day I will die silently, I will enter esoteric and synoptic spaces, moving in siderurgical and negotiable conditions. Farewell world, I will say then. I am dead forever.”

  Franco Battiato (1945–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I always tell people Achebe is not dead! He lives in the minds of people and that is not death. Through his works, as long as they are read and acclaimed, he cannot die. His passing on is not a sad thing to mourn, rather we should celebrate him. With his internationally acclaimed works, especially Things Fall Apart he has already immortalized himself”

  Gabriel Okara (1921–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Many people are familiar with the campaign to abolish the death penalty. In fact, it has already been abolished in most countries. Even the staunchest advocates of capital punishment acknowledge the fact that the death penalty faces serious challenges. Few people find life without the death penalty difficult to imagine.”

  Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I know death comes. I’ve seen too much death, young death.”

  Benazir Bhutto (1953–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Death penalty: The death penalty will not solve the problem of crime, but it is more than merely symbolic. There are some people who commit murder that so subvert society that they deserve nothing less than a death sentence. I believe, as does the Supreme Court, that some people will be deterred by it.”

  Ed Koch (1924–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There are only two subjects that matters, one is sex and the other is death, what else we could talk about it. And most the cinema talks all the time about sex and death. And my cinema deals with sex and death so... ¿what's the problem?".”

  Peter Greenaway (born 1942) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Interview with El Tiempo in Bogotá, Colombia. October 2008

• “As Being and Life are one and the same, so are Death and Nothingness one and the same. But there is no real Death and no real Nothing ness, as we have already said. There is, however, an Apparent Life, and this is the mixture of life and death, of being and nothingness.”

  Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) said by 1814 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “My fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning. I wanted my death to be something the people could relate to, a basis for further mobilization of the community.”

  Huey P. Newton (1942–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Sex without death gets you single-celled algae and fungi; sex with a mortal soma gets you the rest of the eukaryotic creatures. Death is the price paid to have trees, and clams and birds and grasshoppers, and death is the price paid to have human consciousness, to be aware of all that shimmering awareness and all that love.”

  Ursula Goodenough (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Buddhists and Christians contrive to agree about death Making death their ideal basis for different ideals. The Communists however disapprove of death Except when practical.”

  William Empson (1906–1984) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Ignorance of Death" (1940), line 3

• “Death comes, they whispered. Death comes to all. But life comes first. Cherish it. Death is the destination. But the journey, that is life. That is what matters.”

  Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The bedrock of doubt is the total nothingness of death. Death is a leveler, not because everybody dies, but because nobody understands what death means.”

  Northrop Frye (1912–1991) said by 1991 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I support the protection of life from conception to natural death. But a natural death for a murderer is a death on the gallows.”

  Janusz Korwin-Mikke (born 1942) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Blog of author, 9 IX 2007 AD

• “Science is life-oriented. ...[A]rmies and armaments are death-oriented. Armies are instruments of organized manslaughter... All its tools are the tools of death... instruments of killing. ...[A] society dominated by the military is death-centered, as pointed out by in his famous Moratorium Speech.”

  Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893–1986) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Ref: George Wald - A Generation in Search of a Future, Vietnam Moratorium Speech (March 4, 1969)

• “Death is not the end. Death can never be the end. Death is the road. Life is the traveller. The soul is the guide.”

  Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I think of death only with tranquility, as an end. I refuse to let death hamper life. Death must enter life only to define it.”

  Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes: those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Have You a Hobby?, Answers, 21 April 1934

• “And so I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Actually, make that "I run through the valley of the shadow of death" - in order to get OUT of the valley of the shadow of death more quickly, you see.”

  Woody Allen (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It is hard to have patience with people who say 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter.”

  C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “And our latest project was Death. It's one of the hard ones—one of the big ones, too, I suspect. Possibly it may even become the attribute that's going to define the Creation for the Created: If not for Death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with Death, well, their lives will have meaning—a boundary beyond which the living cannot cross...”

  Neil Gaiman (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “She said she would tell our fortunes from the lines in our palms, if we had coins to cross her palm. I gave the old biddy a clipped lowland groat, and she looked at the palm of my right hand. She said, “I see death in your past and death in your future.” “Death waits in all our futures,” I said.”

  Neil Gaiman (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “How sweet! You still believe in death... that's just so... quaint. Well, sorry to pop your death bubble, but there's no such thing. So make the best of things. Any real belief in death is just wishful thinking. Don't waste good drugs on killing yourself. Share them with friends and have a party. Or send them to me.”

  Chuck Palahniuk (born 1962) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: You Ask The Questions," The Independent Review (2004-03-25)

• “You resent death. You regret death. But as for your own life, you know perfectly well that no one can threaten it at all. Death is something that happens to someone else.”

  Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I personally have always voted for the death penalty because I believe that people who go out prepared to take the lives of other people forfeit their own right to live. I believe that that death penalty should be used only very rarely, but I believe that no-one should go out certain that no matter how cruel, how vicious, how hideous their murder, they themselves will not suffer the death penalty.”

  Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: TV Interview for Channel 4 A plus 4 (15 October 1984)

• “Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.”

  Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 6 October 1957

• “My work has been essentially a dialogue with death, asking him, “Why? Why?” So only death can silence me. Only death can close my lips.”

  Eugène Ionesco (1909–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Death is not "an eternal sleep!" Citizens! efface from the tomb that motto, graven by sacrilegious hands, which spreads over all nature a funereal crape, takes from oppressed innocence its support, and affronts the beneficent dispensation of death! Inscribe rather thereon these words: "Death is the commencement of immortality!”

  Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) first seen 1794 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Last speech to the National Convention (26 July 1794), reported in The World's Famous Orations (New York, 1906)

• “'This swirl of stars,' Draconus suddenly said, 'marks the plunge of light into darkness. These stars, they are distant suns, shihing their light down upon distant, unknown worlds. Worlds, perhaps, little different from this one. Or vastly different. It hardly matters. Each star swirls its path towards the centre, and at that centre is death - the death of light, the death of time itself.'”

  Steven Erikson (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

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