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Death quotes

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“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.” William Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar” - 1623

“Every hour wounds. The last one kills.” Neil Gaiman, “American Gods” - 2001

“To be, or not to be, that is the Question” William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” - 1623

“Ah, if he could only die temporarily!” Mark Twain, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” - 1876

“While you do not know life, how can you know about death?” Confucius, “Analects”

“I must be gone and live, or stay and die.” William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet” - 1597

“To die hating them, that was freedom.” George Orwell, “1984” - 1949

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace.” Oscar Wilde, “The Canterville Ghost” - 1887

“Only the dead stay 17 for ever.” Haruki Murakami, “Norwegian Wood” - 1987

“All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Invisible Monsters” - 1999

“After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” J. K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone” - 1997

“By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault.” Charlotte Brontë, “Jane Eyre” - 16 October 1847

“No art is possible without a dance with death, he wrote.” Kurt Vonnegut, “Slaughterhouse-Five” - 1969

“Indeed without death men would scarcely philosophise.” Arthur Schopenhauer, “The World as Will and Representation” - 1819

“Death unites as well as separates; it silences all paltry feeling.” Honoré de Balzac, “Letters of Two Brides” - 1841

“It takes two people to make you, and one people to die. That's how the world is going to end.” William Faulkner, “As I Lay Dying” - 1930

“The thing to me worse than death was the betrayal. I could conceive death.” Malcolm X, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” - 1965

“As a day well spent procures a happy sleep, so a life well employed procures a happy death.” Leonardo da Vinci, “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci” - 1478 – 1519

“Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?” Woody Allen, “Getting Even” - 1971

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” J. K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” - 2007

“Man dies, but glory lives!” Walter Scott, “Ivanhoe” - 1820

“The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Diary” - 2003

“Our life is made by the death of others.” Leonardo da Vinci, “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci” - 1478 – 1519

“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” J. D. Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye” - 1951

“And do you know, there's less charm in life, when one thinks of death, but there's more peace.” Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina” - 1877

“It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death, rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.” Jonathan Swift, “Gulliver's Travels” - 1726

“Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!” William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” - 1623

“War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.” George Orwell, “Animal Farm” - 1945

“The world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.” William Shakespeare, “Much Ado About Nothing” - 1600

“I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead.” J. D. Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye” - 1951

“It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.” J. K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” - 2005

“I may die young . . . But at least I'll die smart.” John Green, “Looking for Alaska” - 2005

“It is nothing to die; it is dreadful not to live.” Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables” - 1862

“If life must not be taken too seriously—then so neither must death.” Samuel Butler, “The Note-Books of Samuel Butler” - 1912

“Everybody going to be dead one day, just give them time.” Neil Gaiman, “Anansi Boys” - 2005

“Friends, I owe more tears to this dead man than you shall see me pay.” William Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar” - 1623

“I could die for you. But I couldn't and wouldn't live for you.” Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead” - 1943

“As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods, They kill us for their sport.” William Shakespeare, “King Lear” - 1623

“But mad people never do die. That's a well-known fact. They've nothing to trouble them, and they live for ever.” Anthony Trollope, “Phineas Redux” - 1874

“Marla's philosophy of life, she told me, is that she can die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn't.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Fight Club” - 1996

“For I can suffer, and be still; And come he slow, or come he fast, It is but Death who comes at last.” Walter Scott, “Marmion” - 1808

“Thus, in a sense, we are still all doomed, even if we keep away from black holes.” Stephen Hawking, “A Brief History of Time” - 1988

“Only in death will we have our own names since only in death are we no longer part of the effort. In death we become heroes.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Fight Club” - 1996

“Blessed be the true life that the pauses between its throbs are not death!” George MacDonald, “Lilith” - 1895

“Except you are a true sexton, books are but dead bodies to you, and a library nothing but a catacomb!” George MacDonald, “Lilith” - 1895

“The most profound sentence ever written, Temple said with enthusiasm, is the sentence at the end of the zoology. Reproduction is the beginning of death.” James Joyce, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” - 1916

“All I know of heaven and all I know of death is in this park: an elegant universe in ceaseless motion, teeming with ruined ruins and screaming children.” John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars” - 2012

“She entered a kind of euphoric state, as if death had freed her from the fear of dying.” Paulo Coelho, “Veronika Decides to Die” - 1998

“I hope you’re pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed — or worse, expelled.” J. K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone” - 1997

“Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.” Herman Melville, “Moby-Dick” - 1851

Related topics

life love living time fear suicide pain loneliness war youth grief suffering freedom heaven eternity birth mortality survival madness dilemma

Related authors

William Shakespeare (34)
Chuck Palahniuk (15)
John Green (14)
J. K. Rowling (10)
George R. R. Martin (8)
Samuel Butler (6)
J. D. Salinger (6)
Albert Camus (5)
George Orwell (4)
Herman Melville (4)
George MacDonald (4)
Kurt Vonnegut (4)
Haruki Murakami (4)
Oscar Wilde (3)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (3)
William Faulkner (3)
Edgar Allan Poe (3)
Virginia Woolf (3)
Victor Hugo (3)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (3)

Related sources

The Fault in Our Stars (9)
Fight Club (8)
The Catcher in the Rye (6)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (6)
Romeo and Juliet (5)
Julius Caesar (5)
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (5)
Antony and Cleopatra (4)
A Game of Thrones (4)
Moby-Dick (4)
Lilith (4)
Hamlet (3)
As I Lay Dying (3)
Henry IV, Part 2 (3)
1984 (3)
Les Misérables (3)
The Sorrows of Young Werther (3)
Antigone (3)
Slaughterhouse-Five (3)
The Plague (3)

Links

William Shakespeare quotes about death · Life quotes about death