Death Quotes - Page 29

• If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Funny, Jobs, Worry

  Essays Bk III, Ch. 12 'Of Physiognomy'

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• Among the poor, the approach of dissolution is usually regarded with a quiet and natural composure, which it is consolatory to contemplate, and which is as far removed from the dead palsy of unbelief as it is from the delirious raptures of fanaticism. Theirs is a true, unhesitating faith, and they are willing to lay down the burden of e weary life, in the sure and certain hope of a blessed immortality.

  Robert Southey

  Blessed, Quiet, Immortality

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• Whatever stress some may lay upon it, a death-bed repentance is but a weak and slender plank to trust our all on.

  Laurence Sterne

  Stress, Bed, May

  Laurence Sterne (1859). “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy: Gentleman & A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy”, p.540

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• The realm of death seems an enemy's country to most men, on whose shores they are loathly driven by stress of weather; to the wise man it is the desired port where he moors his bark gladly, as in some quiet haven of the Fortunate Isles; it is the golden west into which his sun sinks, and, sinking, casts back a glory upon the leaden cloud-tack which had darkly besieged his day.

  James Russell Lowell

  Wise, Country, Stress

  James Russell Lowell (1845). “Conversations on Some of the Old Poets”, p.111

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• At the last, when we die, we have the dear angels for our escort on the way. They who can grasp the whole world in their hands can surely also guard our souls, that they make that last journey safely.

  Martin Luther

  Angel, Journey, Hands

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• The fear of approaching death, which in youth we imagine must cause inquietude to the aged, is very seldom the source of much uneasiness.

  William Hazlitt

  Causes, Youth, Imagine

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• To have to die is a distinction of which no man is proud.

  Alexander Smith

  Men, Proud, Distinction

  Dreamthorp Ch. II (1863)

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• Love masters agony; the soul that seemed
  Forsaken feels her present God again
  And in her Father's arms
  Contented dies away.

  John Keble

  Father, Agony, Soul

  John Keble (1874). “The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays Throughout the Year”, p.82

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• Our respect for the dead, when they are just dead, is something wonderful, and the way we show it more wonderful still. We show it with black feathers and black horses; we show it with black dresses and black heraldries; we show it with costly obelisks and sculptures of sorrow, which spoil half of our beautiful cathedrals. We show it with frightful gratings and vaults, and lids of dismal stone, in the midst of the quiet grass; and last, and not least, we show it by permitting ourselves to tell any number of falsehoods we think amiable or credible in the epitaph.

  John Ruskin

  Beautiful, Horse, Thinking

  John Ruskin (1902*). “Works”

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• How beautiful it is for a man to die
  Upon the walls of Zion! to be called
  Like a watch-worn and weary sentinel,
  To put his armour off, and rest in heaven!

  Nathaniel Parker Willis

  Beautiful, Wall, Men

  Nathaniel Parker Willis (1868). “The Poems: Sacred, Passionate, and Humorous”, p.110

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• We look at death through the cheap-glazed windows of the flesh, and believe him the monster which the flawed and cracked glass represents him.

  James Russell Lowell

  Believe, Glasses, Monsters

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• If human love hath power to penetrate the veil--and hath it not?--then there are yet living here a few who have the blessedness of knowing that an angel loves them.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Angel, Knowing, Veils

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• Death is so genuine a fact that it excludes falsehoods, or betrays its emptiness; it is a touchstone that proves the gold, and dishonors the baser metal.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Gold, Facts, Emptiness

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (2001). “The House of the Seven Gables”, p.367, Applewood Books

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• It seems as though, at the approach of a certain dark hour, the light of heaven infills those who are leaving the light of earth.

  Victor Hugo

  Dark, Light, Heaven

  Victor Hugo (1994). “Les Miserables Volume One”, p.170, Wordsworth Editions

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• When the dust of death has choked a great man's voice, the common words he said turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked like horses draw like griffins.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Horse, Men, Dust

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Illustrated)”, p.867, Delphi Classics

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• O Earth, so full of dreary noises!
  O men, with wailing in your voices!
  O delved gold, the wader's heap!
  O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall!
  God makes a silence through you all,
  And "giveth His beloved, sleep.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Fall, Sleep, Men

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• Every day His servants are dying modestly and peacefully--not a word of victory on their lips; but Christ's deep triumph in their hearts--watching the slow progress of their own decay, and yet so far emancipated from personal anxiety that they are still able to think and plan for others, not knowing that they are doing any great thing. They die, and the world hears nothing of them; and yet theirs was the completest victory. They came to the battle field, the field to which they had been looking forward all their lives, and the enemy was not to be found. There was no foe to fight with.

  Frederick William Robertson

  Heart, Fighting, Thinking

  Frederick William Robertson (1873). “Sermons Preached at Brighton”, p.585

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• There are remedies for all things but death.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Remedy, All Things

  Thomas Carlyle (1858). “The French Revolution: A History”, p.81

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• No king nor nation one moment can retard the appointed hour.

  John Dryden

  Kings, Moments, Hours

  John Dryden, “Palamon And Arcite; Or The Knight's Tale. From Chaucer. In Three Books. Book Ii.”

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• The birds of the air die to sustain thee; the beasts of the field die to nourish thee; the fishes of the sea die to feed thee. Our stomachs are their common sepulchre. Good God! with how many deaths are our poor lives patched up! how full of death is the life of momentary man!

  Francis Quarles

  Men, Air, Sea

  Francis Quarles (1844). “Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles”, p.53

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• It is not length of life, but depth of life.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Life, Birthday

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.191, Harvard University Press

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• Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar When I put out to sea.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Stars, Sunset, Sea

  'Crossing the Bar' (1889)

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• Death knocks at your door, and before you can tell him to come in, he is in the house with you.

  Grace Ogot

  Doors, House

  Grace Ogot (1988). “Land Without Thunder”, p.45, East African Publishers

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• Death is a supple suitor, that wins at last. It is a stealthy wooing; conducted first by pallid innuendos and dim approach, but brave at last with bugles.

  Emily Dickinson

  Winning, Brave, Dying

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• We are not the worst moments of our lives. Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking.

  Helen Prejean

  Men, Helen, Worst

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