Tombs Quotes

• A tomb is a monument placed on the limits of two worlds.

  Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

  Two, World, Limits

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• Tombs are the clothes of the dead and a grave is a plain suit; while an expensive monument is one with embroidery.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Clothes, Embroidery, Suits

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• Museums are tombs, and it looks like everything is turning into a museum.

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Museums, Looks

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.42, Univ of California Press

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• A lover in life will be a lover in death, a lover in the tomb, a lover in paradise, a lover on the day of resurrection.

  Rumi

  Love, Paradise, Resurrection

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• Kings built tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry or in high cold towers asking questions of the stars. And so the kingdom of Gondor sank into ruin, the line of kings failed, the white tree withered and the rule of Gondor was given over to lesser men.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Kings, Stars, Son

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• Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

  Herman Melville

  Doubt, Atheism, Literature

  1851 Moby Dick, ch.7.

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• Who knows if to live is to be dead, and to be dead, to live? And we really, it may be, are dead; in fact I once heard sages say that we are now dead, and the body is our tomb.

  Socrates

  Religious, Sage, Body

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• Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be, but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.

  Plato

  Sea, Wish, May

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• After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs.

  Emily Dickinson

  Pain, Feelings, Literature

  'After great pain, a formal feeling comes' (1862)

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• No real estate is permanently valuable but the grave.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Death, Real

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist”, p.8, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• I found in one of the tombs an inscription saying, 'If you touch my tomb, you will be eaten by a crocodile and hippopotamus.' It doesn't mean the hippo will eat you, it means the person really wanted his tomb to be protected.

  Zahi Hawass

  Mean, Found, Crocodiles

  "The king of the pharaohs" by Tim Radford, www.theguardian.com. November 26, 2003.

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• I will announce some of the tombs I found next to the great pyramid of Khufu. One is an intact tomb that I have not opened yet.

  Zahi Hawass

  Khufu, Pyramids, Next

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• Forgetful of thy tomb thou buildest houses.

  Horace

  House, Forgetful

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• All that glisters is not gold.

  Common

  Inspirational, Venice, Gold

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• The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds - the cemeteries - and they're a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Greek, Roman, sepulchres- palatial mausoleums made to order, phantomesque, signs and symbols of hidden decay - ghosts of women and men who have sinned and who've died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn't pass away so quickly here. You could be dead for a long time

  Bob Dylan

  Sleep, Past, Men

  Bob Dylan (2011). “Chronicles”, p.157, Simon and Schuster

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• Epitaph: An inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Death, Dying, Virtue

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.69, University of Georgia Press

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• As all things eternal and primordial reappear, so all things mortal return to the earth. Honor, old age, probity, justice, constance, virtue, and gentleness are all gathered into the cold tomb.

  Francis Quarles

  Death, Justice, Honor

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• As I grow older and older,
  And totter toward the tomb,
  I find that I care less and less
  Who goes to bed with whom.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Memorable, Bed, Care

  Quoted in Janet Hitchman, Such a Strange Lady (1975)

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• I tried. But I feel that I haven't given utterance to the thousandth part of what lies within me. When I go to the grave I can say as others have said, "I have finished my day's work." But I cannot say, "I have finished my life." My day's work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley; it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight, but opens on the dawn.

  Victor Hugo

  Morning, Lying, Twilight

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• My father's body lies in a stone tomb high on a hill. People walk by, pause, think their own thoughts about him and move on, back to their own lives. I can never move on. He is everywhere.

  Patti Davis

  Lying, Father, Moving

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• All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told.

  William Shakespeare

  Love, Venice, Gold

  William Shakespeare (1805). “The Comedy of the Merchant of Venice ...”, p.57

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• The shameless Chloe placed on the tombs of her seven husbands the inscription, "The work of Chloe." How could she have expressed herself more plainly?

  Martial

  Husband, Chloe, Shameless

  Martial (1871). “The Epigrams of Martial”, p.400

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• There is nothing harder for an Artist than to retain his Artistic integrity in the tomb of success. A tomb, nevertheless, which nearly every Artist: whether he admits it or not; naturally wants to get into.

  Caitlin Thomas

  Success, Integrity, Artist

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• A golden tomb is useful only for the thieves!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Thieves, Golden

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• Man gains wider dominion by his intellect than by his right arm. The mustard-seed of thought is a pregnant treasury of vast results. Like the germ in the Egyptian tombs its vitality never perishes; and its fruit will spring up after it has been buried for long ages.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Spring, Men, Long

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