Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.
A. Sachs
When I pass, speak freely of my shortcomings and my flaws. Learn from
them, for I'll have no ego to injure.
Aaron McGruder, Boondocks, 07-04-04
Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny.
Aeschylus (525 BC - 456 BC), Agamemnon
We do not die because we have to die; we die because one day, and not
so long ago, our consciousness was forced to deem it necessary.
Antonin Artaud (1896 - 1948)
Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.
Bertolt Brecht (1898 - 1956), The Mother, 1932
For certain is death for the born
And certain is birth for the dead;
Therefore over the inevitable
Thou shouldst not grieve.
Bhagavad Gita (250 BC - 250 AD), Chapter 2
He not busy being born is busy dying.
Bob Dylan (1941 - )
I'd rather get my brains blown out in the wild than wait in terror at
the slaughterhouse.
Craig Volk, Northern Exposure, A-Hunting We Will Go, 1991
The killing was the best part. It was the dying I couldn't take.
Craig Volk, Northern Exposure, A-Hunting We Will Go, 1991
Be open to your dreams, people. Embrace that distant shore. Because
our mortal journey is over all too soon.
David Assael, Northern Exposure, It Happened in Juneau, 1992
A man should not leave this earth with unfinished business. He should
live each day as if it was a pre-flight check. He should ask each
morning, am I prepared to lift-off?
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, All is Vanity,
1991
Death is the enemy. I spent 10 years of my life singlemindedly
studying, practicing, fighting hand to hand in close quarters to defeat
the enemy, to send him back bloodied and humble and I am not going to
roll over and surrender.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, First Snow,
1993
I am going to concentrate on what's important in life. I'm going to
strive everyday to be a kind and generous and loving person. I'm going
to keep death right here, so that anytime I even think about getting
angry at you or anybody else, I'll see death and I'll remember.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Do The Right
Thing, 1992
It's no accident that the church and the graveyard stand side by
side. The city of the dead sleeps encircled by the city of the living.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Lost and Found,
1992
I'm afraid I'm being an awful nuisance.
Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964), Her last words, as quoted in The Last Years
of a Rebel : A Memoir of Edith Sitwell by Elizabeth Salter, 1967
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and
when death has come, we are not.
Epicurus (341 BC - 270 BC), from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent
Philosophers
I hope the leaving is joyful; and I hope never to return.
Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954)
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it
ceases to be serious when people laugh.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people
die past that age.
George Burns (1896 - 1996)
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952), Soliloquies in England, 1922, "War
Shrines"
Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door
and at the palaces of kings.
Horace (65 BC - 8 BC), Odes
I am not dying, not anymore than any of us are at any moment. We run,
hopefully as fast as we can, and then everyone must stop. We can only
choose how we handle the race.
Hugh Elliott, Standing Room Only weblog comments, 06-11-04
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's
troublesome.
Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but
phone calls taper off.
Johnny Carson (1925 - 2005)
It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so
universal as death, should ever have been designed by Providence as an
evil to mankind.
Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745)
A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.
Joseph Stalin (1879 - 1953)
As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings
happy death.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)
The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do
so for them.
Lois McMaster Bujold, Diplomatic Immunity, 2002
Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even
death is one of the things that Nature wills.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 AD - 180 AD), Meditations |