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“here was Kenilworth now heading the new department concerned with Personnel [-] one of those blank administrative constructs which offered no openings into the world of policy. A dead end. [-] he would soon develop the negative powers of obstruction which always derive from a sense of failure. (IV)”
Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There give thy griefs full vent to flow O'er the unconscious dead, With no spectator to thy woe But my attendant shade.”
Ann Eliza Bleecker (1752–1783) said by 1783 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who died at Azan sends This to comfort all his friends:— Faithful friends! It lies I know Pale and white and cold as snow; And ye say, 'Abdallah’s dead!' Weeping at the feet and head. I can see your falling tears, I can hear your sighs and prayers; Yet I smile and whisper this: I am not the thing you kiss. Cease your tears and let it lie; It was mine—it is not I.”
Edwin Arnold (1832–1904) said by 1904 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What I like about Clive Is that he is no longer alive. There is a great deal to be said For being dead.”
Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And nigh this toppling reed, still as the dead The great pike lies, the murderous patriarch, Watching the waterpit shelving and dark Where through the plash his lithe bright vassals thread.... He on the sandbank lies, Sunning himself long hours With stony gorgon eyes: Westward the hot sun lowers.”
Edmund Charles Blunden (1896–1974) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Pike", sts. 4 and 6. The Waggoner, &c. (1920) pp. 19–20
“I shall have more to say when I am dead.”
Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Three Taverns (1920), "John Brown".
“Mine was a threeplank bed whereon I lay and cursed the weary sun. They took away the prison clothes and on the frosty nights I froze. I had a Bible where I read that Jesus came to raise the dead— I kept myself from going mad by singing an old bawdy ballad and birds sang on my windowsill and tortured me till I was ill”
Basil Bunting (1900–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I were a writer, how I would enjoy being told the novel is dead. How liberating to work in the margins, outside a central perception. You are the ghoul of literature. Lovely.”
Don DeLillo (born 1936) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All the gods are dead except the god of war.”
Eldridge Cleaver (1935–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I did not know that thou wert dead before; I did not feel the grief I did sustain; The greater stroke astonisheth the more; Astonishment takes from us sense of pain; I stood amazed when others' tears begun, And now begin to weep when they have done.”
Henry Constable (1562–1613) first seen 1595 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Sir Philip Sidney's Soul", l. 9; prefixed to Sidney's Apology for Poetry (1595); also in Davison's Poetical Rhapsody (1602)
“It's exhilarating to be alive in a time of awakening consciousness; it can also be confusing, disorienting, and plainful. ("When We Dead Awaken: Writing As Re-Vision")”
Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don't know you know. ("When We Dead Awaken: Writing As Re-Vision")”
Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is the funeral pyre and Troy is dead That sparkled so the day I saw it first, And darkened slowly after. I am she Who loves all beauty — yet I wither it.”
Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I am dead and over me bright April Shakes out her rain-drenched hair, Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted, I shall not care. I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful When rain bends down the bough, And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted Than you are now.”
Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Man in suit to Indian woman) Oh guru, ancient mother of the world, we men have been crippled. We have never learned how to feel; we don't even know how to cry. Oh my wise guru, can you teach me to cry? (Guru) Sure. No problem. Tomorrow I'll start you at a dead-end job, pay you at women's wages and then I'll throw in sole support of a pre-school child.”
Nicole Hollander (1939–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dead is the travel of all our travels.”
Antoni Lange (1862–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dead is the cradle of everything.”
Antoni Lange (1862–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Kerchak was dead. Withdrawing the knife that had so often rendered him master of far mightier muscles than his own, Tarzan of the Apes placed his foot upon the neck of his vanquished enemy, and once again, loud through the forest rang the fierce, wild cry of the conqueror. And thus came the young Lord Greystoke into the kingship of the Apes.”
Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Had Kala lived, Tarzan would have sacrificed all else to remain near her, but now that she was dead, and the playful friends of his childhood grown into fierce and surly brutes he felt that he much preferred the peace and solitude of his cabin to the irksome duties of leadership amongst a horde of wild beasts.”
Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is hard, Kid, you gotta be harder. You gotta take it on and fight for it and be a fucking man about how you live it. If you're too much of a pussy to do that, then maybe you should leave, 'cause you're dead already.”
James Frey (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The artist should not only paint what he sees before him, but also what he sees in himself. If, however, he sees nothing within him, then he should also refrain from painting what he sees before him. Otherwise his pictures will be like those folding screens behind which one expects to find only the sick or the dead.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Awe-Struck Witness" in Time magazine (28 October 1974) and in "On the Brink: The Artist and the Seas" by Eldon N. Van Liere in Poetics of the Elements in the Human Condition: The Sea (1985) ed. Anna-Teresa Ty…
“All the difference in the world are as nothing compared to this: the difference between being you and being me. It makes the chasms between gods and men, between men and women, between dead and alive, seem almost trivial.You are you. She is someone else. Between lie the stars.”
Michael Marshall Smith (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our culture is like a garment that does not fit us, or in any case no longer fits us. This culture is like a dead language that no longer has anything in common with the language of the street. It is increasingly alien to our lives.”
Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God is indeed dead. He died of self-horror when He saw the creature He had made in His own image.”
Irving Layton (1912–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The account of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, as the manuscripts are inaccurately designated, and of the half a century of intense research that followed, is in itself a fascinating as well as an exasperating story.”
Geza Vermes (1924–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The absence from the Dead Sea Scrolls of historical texts proper should not surprise us. Neither in the inter-Testamental period, nor in earlier biblical times, was the recording of history as we understand it a strong point among the Jews.”
Geza Vermes (1924–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”
George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) said by 1759 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[W]e who base our confidence and our hopes on the Parliamentary system—New institutions have often a disturbed, if not a stormy youth. The Duma will revive in one form or another. We can say with all sincerity, “The Duma is dead; long live the Duma.”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the opening of the 14th Inter-Parliamentary Conference in the Royal Gallery of Westminster Palace (23 July 1906), quoted in The Times (24 July 1906), p. 3
“She’s an extraordinarily talented actor who is tremendously photogenic. She’s also a dead ringer for Jill Valentine.”
Sienna Guillory (born 1975) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Resident Evil: Apocalypse Production Article. hollywoodjesus.com. 13 September 2004.
“The withering away of illusions is a long and dreary process, like a toothache. But you can pull out a tooth. Illusions, dead, continue to rot within us. And stink. And you can't escape them. I carry all of mine around with me.”
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Changi for me — of course it's easy to be wise after the event, and to discuss it cleverly after the event — was about as near as you can get to being dead and still be alive.”
James Clavell (1921–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He is dead," we cried, and even amid that gloom The wintry veil was rent! The new-born day Showed us the Angel seated in the tomb And the stone rolled away.”
Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fool hath said … The fool hath said And we, who deemed him wise, We, who believed that Thou wast dead, How should we seek Thine eyes?How should we seek to Thee for power, Who scorned Thee yesterday? How should we kneel in this dread hour? Lord, teach us how to pray.”
Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At Paske began our morrice And, ere Pentecost, our May; Because, albeit your words be true, You know not what you say. You chatter in church like jackdaws, Words that would wake the dead, Were there one breath of life in you, One drop of blood," he said.”
Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“dear joe, your wild noisy huge brother is dead. I couldn't do what my parents did: bring two boys, four years apart through the maze.”
Michael Rosen (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This was a thing she’d not seen before, how the meat that fed her was a living being one minute and then violently dead. The smell of it was personal, inescapable, like the scent that rose in the steam from her own self when she stepped into a hot bath. They had broken open the animal’s secret body just to eat it.”
Nalo Hopkinson (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Liquidity" was one of those words Wall Street people threw around when they wanted the conversation to end, and for brains to go dead, and for all questioning to cease.”
Michael Lewis (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth.”
Jesus (6 BC–33) said by 33 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.”
Jesus (6 BC–33) said by 33 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.”
Jesus (6 BC–33) said by 33 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He is a God, not of the dead, but of the living, for they are all living to him.”
Jesus (6 BC–33) said by 33 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And having said this, Jesus smote his face with both his hands, and then smote the ground with his head. And having raised his head, he said: "Cursed be every one who shall insert into my sayings that I am the son of God." At these words the disciples fell down as dead, whereupon Jesus lifted them up, saying: 'Let us fear God now, if we would not be affrighted in that day.'”
Jesus (6 BC–33) said by 33 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I range the fields with pensive tread, And pace the hollow rooms; And feel (companion of the dead) I'm living in the tombs.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A dead father's counsel, a wise son heedeth.”
Esaias Tegnér (1782–1846) said by 1846 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whence is yonder flower so strangely bright? Would the sunset's last reflected shine Flame so red from that dead flush of light? Dark with passion is its lifted line, Hot, alive, amid the falling night.”
Dora Read Goodale (1866–1953) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cardinal Flower, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 89.
“By the end of the tonight, all but one of these students will be dead. That’s not true. I'd give them about a week.”
Derren Brown (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the world of ethics, shortcuts often lead to dead ends.”
Kuruvilla Pandikattu (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But the more times she missed, the faster she’d be traveling when she finally slammed into the mast. And it wasn’t if she hit the mast; it was when. At that point, Abby would be either severely injured or dead.”
Abby Sunderland (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Marianne tried to stay hopeful. But slowly her imagination bulldozed her optimism aside and pushed her mind into a dark place. There, she saw Abby tethered to the boat in her bright red foul-weather gear, being dragged along dead in the sea.”
Abby Sunderland (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Honor in safety, survival under threat. Better a living coward than a dead hero.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source