Funeral Quotes - Page 12

• Funeral: a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Death, Suicide, Grief

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.92, University of Georgia Press

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• Offerings to propitiate the dead then were regarded as belonging to the class of funeral sacrifices, and these are idolatry. Idolatry, in fact, is a sort of homage to the departed, the one as well as the other is a service to dead men. Moreover, demons dwell in the images of the dead. ... this sort of exhibition has passed from honors of the dead to honors of the living; I mean, to quaestorships [financial overseers]and magistractes, to priestly offices of different kinds. Yet, since idolatry still cleaves to the dignity's name, whatever is done in its name partakes of its impurity.

  Tertullian

  Religious, Mean, Sacrifice

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• Those who bequeath unto themselves a pompous funeral, are at just so much expense to inform the world of something that had much better be concealed; namely, that their vanity has survived themselves.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Vanity, World, Pompous

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.233

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• Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

  Amelia Josephine Burr

  Life, Motivational, Death

  Amelia Josephine Burr, “A Song Of LIVIng”

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• Life and death are but phases of the same thing, the reverse and obverse of the same coin. Death is as necessary for man's growth as life itself.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Life, Death, Prayer

  Mahatma Gandhi (1958). “Light of India: The Message of the Mahatma”

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• The comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that of having had one.

  Seneca the Younger

  Best Friend, Prayer, Inspirational Life

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• Perhaps passing through the gates of death is like passing quietly through the gate in a pasture fence. On the other side, you keep walking, without the need to look back. No shock, no drama, just the lifting of a plank or two in a simple wooden gate in a clearing. Neither pain, nor floods of light, nor great voices, but just the silent crossing of a meadow.

  Mark Helprin

  Death, Prayer, Pain

  Mark Helprin (1991). “A Soldier of the Great War”, Harcourt

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• The people who pretend that dying is rather like strolling into the next room always leave me unconvinced. Death, like birth, must be a tremendous event.

  J. B. Priestley

  Death, Prayer, People

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• In death a hero, as in life a friend!

  Alexander Pope

  Death, Hero, Dying

  Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson (1839). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope: In 1 volume”, p.321

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• Is that a birthday? 'tis, alas! too clear; 'Tis but the funeral of the former year.

  Alexander Pope

  Years, Age, Clear

  Alexander Pope, Alexander Dyce (1831). “Poetical Works”, p.168

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• Weapons are the tools of violence;all decent men detest them.Weapons are the tools of fear;a decent man will avoid themexcept in the direst necessityand, if compelled, will use themonly with the utmost restraint.Peace is his highest value.If the peace has been shattered,how can he be content?His enemies are not demons,but human beings like himself.He doesn't wish them personal harm.Nor does he rejoice in victory.How could he rejoice in victoryand delight in the slaughter of men?He enters a battle gravely,with sorrow and with great compassion,as if he were attending a funeral

  Laozi

  Peace, Compassion, Men

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• Every funeral may justly be considered as a summons to prepare for that state into which it shows us that we must some time enter; and the summons is more loud and piercing as the event of which it warns us is at less distance. To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege; but to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Distance, Sleep, Preparation

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• One day you will disappear on a funeral pyre - just into nothingness, as smoke. Don't get attached to anything. This attachment takes you away from your real being; you become focused on the thing to which you are attached. Your awareness gets lost in things, in money, in people, in power. And there are a thousand and one things, the whole thick jungle around you, to be lost in. Remember, non-attachment is the secret of finding yourself, then awareness can turn inwards because you don't have anything outside to catch hold of. It is free, and in this freedom you can know your self-nature.

  Rajneesh

  Real, Attachment, Self

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• Life's errors cry for the merciful beauty that can modulate their isolation into a harmony with the whole.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Mistake, Errors, Isolation

  Rabindranath Tagore, Mohit Kumar Ray (2007). “Poems”, p.588, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

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• Say not 'Good-night' but in some brighter clime, bid me 'Good-morning.'

  Anna Letitia Barbauld

  Death, Good Night, Morning

  Anna Letitia Barbauld (2001). “Anna Letitia Barbauld: Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.175, Broadview Press

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• Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite
  Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.
  News from the humming city comes to it
  It sound of funeral or of marriage bells.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Summer, Garden, Cities

  Alfred Tennyson Tennyson, Baron, Alfred Lord Tennyson (2014). “Fifty Poems”, p.102, Cambridge University Press

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• Honest listening is one of the best medicines we can offer the dying and the bereaved.

  Jeanie (Jenny) Cameron

  Grief, Medicine, Listening

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• A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.

  Maya Angelou

  Sympathy, Condolences, Together Again

  Twitter post from Sep 25, 2016

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• I hate funerals and would not attend my own if it could be avoided

  Robert Tappan Morris

  Funny, Death, Hate

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• View your life from your funeral, looking back at your life experiences, what have you accomplished? What would you have wanted to accomplish but didn't? What were the happy moments? What were the sad? What would you do again, and what you wouldn't

  Viktor E. Frankl

  Happiness, Spiritual, Views

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• I foresee a great funeral contest over me.

  Alexander the Great

  Last Words, Contests

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• In New Orleans the funerals remind us that Life is bigger than any individual life, and it will roll on, and for the short time that your individual life joins the big stream of Life, cut some decent steps, for God’s sake.

  Tom Piazza

  Cutting, New Orleans, Sake

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• With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage.

  William Shakespeare

  Marriage, Mirth

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 1

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• I worry that friends will slowly become professional pallbearers, waiting for each death, of their lovers, friends and neighbors, and polishing their funeral speeches; perfecting their rituals of death rather than a relatively simple ritual of life such as screaming in the streets.

  David Wojnarowicz

  Simple, Worry, Waiting

  David Wojnarowicz (2017). “Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration”, p.113, Canongate Books

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• Michael O'Sullivan was my great friend. But I don't ever remember telling him that. The words that are spoken at a funeral are spoken too late for the man who is dead.

  Ian Bannen

  Death, Men, Dying

  "Fictional character: Jackie O'Shea". "Waking Ned", 1998.

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