Quotes About Death

A look at the end

Just like life, we have been pontificating about death since the beginning of time. What does death really mean? Is it just a death of the body? Is there a soul that lives on? Where do we go when we die? Is this all there is? Today’s quotes are reflections about death and what it means.

1. “There is no solution to death….Life intends to kill us.” -Dorothy L. Sayers 2. “It’s a terrible thing to die young. Still, it saves a lot of time.” -Grace Paley 3. “We are all cremated equal.” -Goodman Ace 4. “Always go to other peoples’ funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.” -Yogi Berra 5. “I’ve a great fancy to see my own funeral afore I die.” -Maria Edgeworth 6. “The woman is perfected Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment.” -Sylvia Plath 7. “Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs.” -William Shakespeare 8. “A grave is such a quiet place.” -Edna St. Vincent Millay 9. “Men fear Death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.” -Francis Bacon 10. “Because I could not stop for Death He kindly stopped for me — The Carriage held but just Ourselves And Immortality.” -Emily Dickinson 11. “Death in itself is nothing; but we fear To be we know not what, we know not where.” -John Dryden

12. “A man’s dying is more his survivor’s affair than his own.” -Thomas Mann

13. “A grave’s a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace.” -Andrew Marvel

14. “Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well.” -Sylvia Plath

15. “Death is an evil; the gods have so judged; had it been good, they would die.” -Sappho

16. “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” -Mark Twain

17. “What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.” -Albert Pike 18. “The death of a beloved is an amputation.” -C. S. Lewis

19. “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” -Norman Cousins

20. “O, beautiful upon the grave, The starlight and the moonbeams lie! With such sweet watchers o’er our sleep, Why should we ever fear to die?” -Mary Ann H. Dodd Shutts

21. “A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.” -Oscar Wilde

22. “Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.” -David Gerrold 23. “What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness.” -Thomas Bailey

24. “Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back.” -Marcus Aurelius

25. “When some men die it is as if you had lost your pen-knife, and were subject to perpetual inconvenience until you could get another. Other men’s going is like the vanishing of a great mountain from the landscape, and the outlook of life is changed forever.” -Phillips Brooks

26. “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” -Mark Twain

27. “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” -George Eliot 28. “Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” -Rabindranath Tagore

29. “Death is never a clean break — some stardust always remains.” -Terri Guillemets

30. “Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.” -e. e. cummings

31. “Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.” -Virginia Woolf

32. “life blooms right through death and they beautify each other.” -Terri Guillemets

33. “When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time.” -Laurie Halse Anderson

34. “When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.” -Will Rogers

35. “Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.” -Emily Dickinson

36. “I think when loved ones die, we absorb something from them that makes us who we are so we can continue on.” -Reginald VelJohnson

37. “Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.” -George R.R. Martin

38. “The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?” -Edgar Allan Poe 39. “A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

40. “Death is not poison but merely life’s final remedy.” -Terri Guillemets

More from Kiki Wellington:

Sources:

Bernstein Partnow, E. (2008). The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Great Quotes for All Occasions*. Alpha Books.

Death Quotes. A-Z Quotes. https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/death.html

Death Quotes. BrainyQuote. https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/death-quotes

Death Quotes. Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/death

Helpful Death Quotes On The Ways We Grieve. Everyday Power. https://everydaypower.com/death-quotes/

Merriam-Webster. (2012). Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Quotations. Merriam-Webster.

Quotations about Death. The Quote Garden. https://www.quotegarden.com/death.html

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