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“{Music symbolizes the loss of faith, of common belief.] The small, intimate church is closed, the organs are dead, it is sadder than before. Only those whom fate designs for the eternal mass of infinite love remain. They compose only a very small chapel of clarity in space and time.[45]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't ever think the poetry is dead in an old man because his forehead is wrinkled, or that his manhood has left him when his hand trembles! If they ever were there, they are there still!”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809–1894) said by 1894 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“… after you're dead and buried and floating around whatever place we go to, what's going to be your best memory of Earth? … What moment for you defines what it's like to be alive on this planet?”
Douglas Coupland (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ask whatever challenges dead and thoughtless beliefs.”
Douglas Coupland (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have a temper. My mum's got a temper. My brother's got a temper. You've got to have one. You know what happens if you don't have one? One day you're walking down the street and you just pop. You're lying there dead on the pavement because you've been holding and suppressing all this bullshit, you know.”
Russell Crowe (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He had always felt that they thought that in him they had a kindred spirit. That was true. Their great men were the men he admired; some of their greatest men were the men from whom he had drawn inspiration, notably Abraham Lincoln. The next day he was to start on a journey to see a country which he regarded as the great miracle of the West, where man had risen from the dead past to a new hope.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the American Society in London at the Savoy Hotel, London, before his tour of the United States (28 September 1923), quoted in The Times (29 September 1923), p. 6
“If it is right that the State should resume its authority over the land for the purposes of burying the dead, it is surely also right that it should exercise its ownership where it is necessary it should do so to feed the living.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Killerton Park, near Exeter, opening the Liberal land campaign (17 September 1925), quoted in The Times (18 September 1925), p. 14
“From the fame opinion of a soul distinct from the body came the practice of praying, first for the dead, and then to them with a long train of other absurd opinions, and superstitious practices.”
Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) said by 1804 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The buzzard told the monkey "You're chokin' me Release your hold and I'll set you free" The monkey looked the buzzard right dead in the eye and said "Your story's touching but it sounds like a lie.”
Nat King Cole (1919–1965) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Straighten Up And Fly Right" (1937) written with Irving Mills.
“These people are not interested in creative destruction, they are only interested in destruction. That leads to gas chambers. That leads to, uh, guillotines. That leads to millions dead. That leads to Mao. That leads to totalitarianism. Every. Single. Time.”
Glenn Beck (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Truly, I wish I were dead. She was weeping when she left me, and said many things to me, and said this: "How much we have suffered, Sappho. Truly, I don't want to leave you.”
Sappho (651–570 BC) said by 570 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Fr. 94 Voigt (tr. Stanley Lombardo, 2002)
“Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell, While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke. He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear, Sick for escape,— loathing the strangled horror And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead.”
Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who will remember, passing through this Gate, The unheroic Dead who fed the guns? Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate, — Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones? Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own. Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp; Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone, The armies who endured that sullen swamp.”
Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Passing the New Menin Gate" (1927-1928)
“Here was the world's worst wound. And here with pride 'Their name liveth for evermore' the Gateway claims. Was ever an immolation so belied As these intolerably nameless names? Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.”
Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Passing the New Menin Gate" (1927-1928)
“In the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.”
Harper Lee (1926–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Visite" in Discours du Grand Sommeil (1920); later published in Collected Works Vol. 4 (1947)
“That pile of paper on his left side went on living like the watch on a dead soldier’s wrist.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On his visit to the deathbed of Marcel Proust, as quoted in "Cocteau: The Great Enchanter" by Edmund White Vogue (May 1984)
“If an addict who has been completely cured starts smoking again he no longer experiences the discomfort of his first addiction. There exists, therefore, outside alkaloids and habit, a sense for opium, an intangible habit which lives on, despite the recasting of the organism.... The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thou hast committed— Fornication: but that was in another country; And besides, the wench is dead.”
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) said by 1593 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Would you love me for my money? Would you love me for my head? Would you love me through the winter? Would you love me 'til I'm dead? Oh, if you would and you could, Come blow your horn on high.”
Nick Drake (1948–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again.”
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mad Girl's Love Song" (1953) from Collected Poems (1981)
“To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream.”
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The great god Pan is dead.”
Plutarch (40–120) said by 120 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When one told Plistarchus that a notorious railer spoke well of him, "I 'll lay my life," said he, "somebody hath told him I am dead, for he can speak well of no man living.”
Plutarch (40–120) said by 120 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Count not the cost of honour to the dead! The tribute that a mighty nation pays To those who loved her well in former days Means more than gratitude for glories fled; For every noble man that she hath bred, Lives in the bronze and marble that we raise, Immortalised by art's immortal praise, To lead our sons as he our fathers led.”
Henry van Dyke (1852–1933) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: National Monuments, st. 1 (February 1905).
“For ever so our thoughtful hearts repeat On fields of triumph dirges of defeat; And still we turn on gala-days to tread Among the rustling memories of the dead.”
Henry van Dyke (1852–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revery of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken. . . .”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I must hold in balance the sense of the futility of effort and the sense of the necessity to struggle; the conviction of the inevitability of failure and still the determination to "succeed" — and, more than these, the contradiction between the dead hand of the past and the high intentions of the future.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Charity without faith is meaningless, and faith without charity remains a dead letter.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Elise Harris, "Priest Swaps Clerical Hats with 'Sharp, Healthy' Benedict XVI", National Catholic Register (11 February 2013)
“I am left to defend the 'dead' Constitution.”
Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On a living Constitution: Speech at Marquette University in Milwaukee (13 March 2001).
“I don't think it's a living document, I think it's dead. More precisely, I think it's enduring. It doesn't change. I think that needs to be orthodoxy.”
Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Virginia (April 2008). http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/04/no_to_cameras_yes_to_60_minute.html
“Forgotten? No, we never do forget: We let the years go: wash them clean with tears, Leave them to bleach, out in the open day, Or lock them careful by, like dead friends' clothes, Till we shall dare unfold them without pain— But we forget not, never can forget.”
Dinah Craik (1826–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How could I exist in the same world with that brightness? Two years later she smiled at me. She Named my name. I thought I would wake up dead.”
Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men who cannot believe in the mystery of our Saviour's redemption can believe that spirits from the dead have visited them in a stranger's parlour, because they see a table shake and do not know how it is shaken; because they hear a rapping on a board, and cannot see the instrument that raps it; because they are touched in the dark, and do not know the hand that touches them.”
Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The New Zealander (1965), p. 73
“Every time you come in yelling that God damn "Rise and Shine!" "Rise and Shine!" I say to myself, "How lucky dead people are!”
Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God isn't dead — he's just missing in action.”
Phil Ochs (1940–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One morning, I awoke to find my two neighbours dead by my side. The day before, sleeping in the same straw, we had spoken a little — to reassure ourselves and each other.”
Louis Lecoin (1888–1971) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: De Prison En Prison (1947)
“What tongueless ghost of sin crept through my curtains?. My family don't seem so familiar / And my enemies all know my name. You better get on your knees and pray / Panic is on the way My eyes are dead / My throat's like a black hole / And if there's a God / Would he give another chancer / An hour to sing for his soul?”
Noel Gallagher (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I met this poet named Brendan Kennelly. I have known him for years; he is an unbelievable poet. And he said, “Bono, if you want to get to the place where the writing lives, imagine you’re dead.” There is no ego, there is no vanity, no worrying about who you will offend. That is great advice.”
“That was the year the British decided to get out and sell everything. So I immediately held an election. I knew the people will be dead scared. And I won my bet big-time.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On winning 88% of the votes in 1968 (actual share was 84.43%), The Straits Times, (7 March 2007)
“I’m dead by then. There’ll be different voices, different standpoints, but I stand by my record. I did some sharp and hard things to get things right. Maybe some people disapproved of it. Too harsh, but a lot was at stake and I wanted the place to succeed, that’s all. At the end of the day, what have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On how history will assess him, in Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going (2011)
“Princess Kate has been missing for almost 80 days. There've been three faked photos and millions of rumours. What are the royals covering up? Is she dead or has she downed tools?”
George Galloway (born 1954) first seen 2024 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tweet/post on X (14 March 2024), as cited in "George Galloway damned by MPs as 'stain on democracy' for 'lurid untruths' about Princess of Wales", The Telegraph (23 March 2024)
“I've never gotten anything out of his movies. They have felt constructed, faux intellectual and completely dead. Cinematographically uninteresting and infinitely boring. Godard is a fucking bore. He's made his films for the critics. One of the movies, Masculin, féminin, was shot here in Sweden. It was mindnumbingly boring.”
Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the works of filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, as quoted in Secret Lives of Great Filmmakers: What Your Teachers Never Told You about the World's Greatest Directors (2014) by Robert Schnakenberg
“For me he's just a hoax. It's empty. It's not interesting. It's dead. Citizen Kane, which I have a copy of — is all the critics' darling, always at the top of every poll taken, but I think it's a total bore. Above all, the performances are worthless. The amount of respect that movie's got is absolutely unbelievable.”
Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Triune, shaping, restless power, Life-flow from life's natal hour, No music chords are in thy sound; By some thou'rt but a rattle found; Yet, without thy ceaseless motion, To ice would turn their dead devotion.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Look, if he’s alive, there’s nothing we have to do about it. If he’s dead, there’s nothing we can do.”
Samuel R. Delany (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Peace and prosperity, public virtue, victory, everything is in the vigor of the laws. Outside of the laws everything is sterile and dead.”
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–1794) first seen 1792 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (Autumn 1792) [Source: Oeuvres Complètes de Saint-Just, vol. 1 (2 vols., Paris, 1908), p. 419]
“We must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living.”
Davy Crockett (1786–1836) first seen 1828 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the US House of Representatives on April 2, 1828, as quoted in The Life of Colonel David Crockett (1884) by Edward Sylvester Ellis and in the January 1867 issue of Harper's magazine ("Davy Crockett's Electione…
“I leave this rule for others when I'm dead Be always sure you're right — THEN GO AHEAD!”
Davy Crockett (1786–1836) said by 1836 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in David Crockett: His Life and Adventures (1874) by John Stevens Cabot Abbott, who indicates that he also often used simply "Go ahead!" as a battle cry, and general assertion of determination.