Famous quotes
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“I sometimes think, with a sad delight, that if one day, in a future I no longer belong to, these sentences, that I write, last with praise, I will at last have the people who understand me, those mine, the true family to be born in and be loved. [...] I will only be understood in effigy, when affection no longer repays the dead the unaffection that was, when living.”
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If a man can only write well when drunk, I'll tell him: get drunk. And if he tells me that his liver suffers with it, I'll answer: what's your liver? It's a dead thing that lives as long as you live, and the poems you'll write will live without a as long as.”
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At first I felt dizzy - not with the kind of dizziness that makes the body reel but the kind that's like a dead emptiness in the brain, an instinctive awareness of the void.”
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dead of night. No one, nothing but the society of the moments. Each pretends to keep us company, then escapes — desertion after desertion.”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Agatha Christie? We go back years, me and Ag. She's a … she's just a … she's dead, isn't she?”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Clocks slay time. ... Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”
William Faulkner (1897–1962) first seen 1910 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: June Second, 1910
“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
William Faulkner (1897–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dead, we become the lumber of the world.”
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680) said by 1680 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge men's search To vaster issues.”
George Eliot (1819–1880) said by 1880 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps the wind Wails so in winter for the summers dead, And all sad sounds are nature's funeral cries For what has been and is not.”
George Eliot (1819–1880) said by 1880 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With thy coming Melody was come. This was thy lot, to feel, create, bestow, And that immeasurable life to know From which the fleshly self falls shrivelled, dead, A seed primeval that has forests bred.”
George Eliot (1819–1880) said by 1880 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I am dead I would rather people thought me better than I was instead of worse; but if they think me worse, I cannot help it and, if it matters at all, it will matter more to them than to me.”
Samuel Butler (novelist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Courage, mon ami, le diable est mort! / Take courage, my friend, the devil is dead!”
Charles Reade (1814–1884) said by 1884 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All things are hush'd, as Nature's self lay dead, The Mountains seem to nod their drowsy head; The little Birds in dreams their Songs repeat, And sleeping Flowers, beneath the night-dew sweat; Even Lust and Envy sleep.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) first seen 1667 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Indian Emperor (1667), Act III, sc. ii
“Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped; And they have kept it since by being dead.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We lov'd, and we lov'd, as long as we could, Till our love was lov'd out in us both: But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled: 'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His knowledge in the noblest useful arts Was such dead authors could not give, But habitudes with those who live.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Go, miser! go: for lucre sell thy soul; Truck wares for wares, and trudge from pole to pole, That men may say, when thou art dead and gone, See what a vast estate he left his son!”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ahmed comes back a conqueror, but what hath he found? The cry of the orphan is loud on his ear, And his eye hath beheld the young bride's bitter tear, And the friend of his youth is left dead on the plain, And the flower of his nobles return not again. There are crowds that are filling the air with his name; Do ye marvel the monarch is loathing his fame?”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let music make less terrible The silence of the dead; I care not, so my spirit last Long after life has fled.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The past is the poet's,—that world is his own; Thence hath his music its truth and its tone. He calls up the shadows of ages long fled, And light, as life lovely, illumines the dead.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The morning Sun arose — Still the festal board was spread — Still hosts and guests were round ; But hosts and guests were dead !”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) first seen 1826 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (22nd April 1826) The Death-Feast (under the pen name Iole)
“Weep for life, with its toil and care, Its crime to shun, and its sorrow to bear ; Let tears and the sign of tears be shed Over the living, not over the dead !”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (21st August 1830) The Legacy of the Roses
“The woman raised her languid head, And said, "My child was weak He knew no one amid the dead His daily food to seek ! My husband was a hunter good As ever arrows bore : I know my child will now have food, Therefore I weep no more. I sit and think upon the past, And sing my mournful strain : I know that we shall meet at last, And never part again.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) first seen 1835 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The London Literary Gazette (24th January 1835) Versions from the German (Fourth Series.) 'The Huron's Child'— Herder.
“A bold bad man, that dar'd to call by name Great Gorgon, Prince of darknesse and dead night.”
Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) said by 1599 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“NAY, weep not, dearest, though the child be dead; He lives again in Heaven's unclouded life,”
John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who first invented work, and bound the free And holiday-rejoicing spirit down . . . . . . . . . To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood? . . . . . . . . . Sabbath-less Satan!”
Charles Lamb (1775–1834) first seen 1819 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Work (1819)
“Look upward, Feeble Ones! look up, and trust That He, who lays this mortal frame in dust, Still hath the immortal Spirit in His keeping In Jesus' sight they are not dead, but sleeping”
Charles Lamb (1775–1834) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In his letter to Vincent Novello (8 November 1830)
“The red-letter days, now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days.”
Charles Lamb (1775–1834) said by 1834 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I conceive disgust at those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that "such as he now is, I must shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In the meantime I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters!”
Charles Lamb (1775–1834) said by 1834 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Books are a guide in youth, and an entertainment for age. They support us under solitude, and keep us from becoming a burden to ourselves. They help us to forget the crossness of men and things, compose our cares and our passions, and lay our disappointments asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.”
Jeremy Collier (1650–1726) said by 1726 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In every way that counted, I was dead. Inside somewhere maybe I was screaming and weeping and howling like an animal, but that was another person deep inside, another person who had no access to the face and lips and mouth and head, so on the surface I just shrugged and smiled and kept moving.”
Neil Gaiman (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And he still thinks, in the little bit of his head that's still him, that he's not a zombie. That he's not dead, that there's a threshold he hasn't stepped over. But he crossed it long time ago.”
Neil Gaiman (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the battlefield called Vigrid, the gods will fall in battle with the frost giants, and the frost giants will fall in battle with the gods.The undead troops from Hel will litter the ground in their final deaths, and the noble Einherjar will lie beside them on the frozen ground, all of the them dead for the last time, beneath the lifeless misty sky, never to rise again, never to wake and fight.”
Neil Gaiman (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Did one man write Shui Hu Chuan, or did it grow to its present shape, added to, rearranged, deepened and developed by many minds and many a hand, in different centuries? Who can now tell? They are dead. They lived in their day and wrote what in their day they saw and heard, but of themselves they have told nothing.”
Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late.”
Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Text: Psalm 119:19. I am a stranger on the earth, hide not Thy command ments from me. Are we what we dreamt we should be? No, but still the sorrows of life.. .,so much more numerous than we expected, the tossing to and fro in the world, they have covered it over, but it is not dead, it sleepeth.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1876 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from van Gogh's first sermon, 29 October, 1876; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, p. 18
“Do you know what makes the prison disappear? Every deep, genuine affection. Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But whenever affection is revived, there life revives.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) said by 1890 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Young women with ambitions should be very crafty and cautious, lest mayhap they be caught in the soft, silken mesh of a happy marriage, and go down to oblivion, dead to the world.”
Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) said by 1915 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our admiration is so given to dead martyrs that we have little time for living heroes.”
Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) said by 1915 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ah done been in sorrow's kitchen and Ah done licked out all de pots. Ah done died in grief and been buried in de bitter waters, and Ah done rose agin from de dead lak Lazarus.”
Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lucy in Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), Ch. 6, p. 13
“But Alexander (I of Macedon), proving himself to be an Argive, was judged to be a Greek; so he contended in the furlong race and ran a dead heat for first place.”
Herodotus (484–425 BC) said by 425 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was just as the 1914 War burst on me that I made the discovery that 'legends' depend on the language to which they belong; but a living language depends equally on the 'legends' which it conveys by tradition. … Volapuk, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c &c are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends...”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 180: To a Mr. Thompson (incomplete draft of a letter, 1956).
“What, in substance, both the Esquimaux wizards and the Louisiana swamp-priests had chanted to their kindred idols was something very like this: the word-divisions being guessed at from traditional breaks in the phrase as chanted aloud: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." ... "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." .”
H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.”
H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars, or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse.”
H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Supernatural Horror in Literature" (1927)
“There's seven people dead On a South Dakota farm Somewhere in the distance There's seven new people born”
“You don't count the dead When God's on your side”
“The ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.”
“Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you. Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you. Strike another match, go! Start anew And it's all over now, Baby Blue.”