Death

"Life, that dares send A challenge to his end, And when it comes, say, "Welcome, friend!""

"She'l bargain with them; and will giue Them GOD; teach them how to liue In him; or if they this deny, For him she'l teach them how to Dy."

"We are born, then cry, We know not for why, And all our lives long Still but the same song."

"The most heaven-like spots I have ever visited, have been certain rooms in which Christ's disciples were awaiting the summons of death. So far from being a "house of mourning," I have often found such a house to be a vestibule of glory."

"Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

"Death is utterly acceptable to consciousness and life. There has been endless times of numberless deaths, but neither consciousness nor life has ceased to arise. The felt quality and cycle to death has not modified the fragility of flowers, even the flowers within the human body."

"Round, round the cypress bier Where she lies sleeping, On every turf a tear, Let us go weeping! Wail!"

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here."

"And though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds, There's a lean fellow beats all conquerors."

"Every living movement is a sliding toward death. But if they are willing to look it in the face they also discover that every movement toward death is life."

"I expressed just now my mistrust of what is called Spiritualism—… I owe it a trifle for a message said to come from Voltaire's Ghost. It was asked, "Are you not now convinced of another world?" and rapped out, "There is no other world — Death is only an incident in Life.""

"Death carries off a man who is gathering flowers and whose mind is distracted, as a flood carries off a sleeping village."

"What argufies pride and ambition?Soon or late death will take us in tow:Each bullet has got its commission,And when our time's come we must go."

"People can't die, along the coast," said Mr. Peggotty, "except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born, unless it's pretty nigh in—not properly born, till flood. He's a-going out with the tide."

"It ’s such a little thing to weep, So short a thing to sigh; And yet by trades the size of these We men and women die!"

"Beloved in the Lord, if only you will lay hold of the Saviour's strength, and cast yourself entirely on His kind arms, with His dying grace He will do wonders for you in the dying hour. A great trembling may come upon you when you think of going down to tread the verge of Jordan: "For ye have not passed this way heretofore." But Jesus has; and you shall see His footprints along the shore. "He knoweth all the fords," and will be your guide unto death and through death."

"Soon for me the light of day Shall forever pass away; Then from sin and sorrow free, Take me, Lord, to dwell with Thee."

"The dead cannot be restored. They can be remembered. They can be mourned. But they are still dead."

"The answer to death was to make use of it rather than fall victim to it—master it by making it serve his goals, beliefs. This was not a good answer. But it was the only answer he had."

"Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so, For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee doe goe, Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie. Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well, And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then; One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die."

"I think it's good that we die. I just wish that more of us could have more fulfilment, and know the beauty of life more fully. When I hear about Silicon Valley billionaires who want to live forever, I think to myself: There’s no higher entitlement than thinking that you should live forever, when part of the beauty of nature is that even the stars die. That's what Emily Dickinson said: 'That it will never come again/is what makes life so sweet.' I believe that."

"Welcome, thou kind deceiver! Thou best of thieves! who, with an easy key, Dost open life, and, unperceived by us, Even steal us from ourselves."

"Death in itself is nothing; but we fear To be we know not what, we know not where."

"So was she soon exhaled, and vanished hence; As a sweet odour, of a vast expense. She vanished, we can scarcely say she died."

"Of no distemper, of no blast he died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellow'd long."

"Heaven gave him all at once; then snatched away, Ere mortals all his beauties could survey; Just like the flower that buds and withers in a day."

"He was exhal'd; his great Creator drew His spirit, as the sun the morning dew."

"Like a led victim, to my death I'll go, And dying, bless the hand that gave the blow."

"In the jaws of death."

"Death is the way to immortality. Love will begin when the world ends."

"I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly."

"[Words he used to refuse heart surgery the day before he passed away.]"

"Death is the king of this world: 'tis his park Where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain Are music for his banquet."

"If we could know Which of us, darling, would be first to go, Who would be first to breast the swelling tide And step alone upon the other side— If we could know!"

"He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread."

"Philosophy instructs us to pay homage to the gods, not through hope or fear, but from veneration of Their superior nature. It moreover enables us to conquer the fear of death, by teaching us that it is no proper object of terror; since, whilst we are, death is not, and when death arrives, we are not: so that it neither concerns the living nor the dead."

"I cried to Thee, O Lord; and unto the Lord I made supplication. What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise Thee? Shall it declare Thy truth?""

"But learn that to die is a debt we must all pay."

"Out of the strain of the Doing, Into the peace of the Done; Out in the thirst of Pursuing, Into the rapture of Won. Out of grey mist into brightness, Out of pale dusk into Dawn— Out of all wrong into rightness, We from these fields shall be gone. "Nay," say the saints, "Not gone but come, Into eternity's Harvest Home.""

"He that always waits upon God is ready whenever He calls. Neglect not to set your accounts even; he is a happy man who to lives as that death at all times may find him at leisure to die."

"I am not in the least surprised that your impression of death becomes more lively, in proportion as age and infirmity bring it nearer. God makes use of this rough trial to undeceive us in respect to our courage, to make us feel our weakness, and to keep us in all humility in His hands."

"On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everybody drops to zero."

"Sit the comedy out, and that done, When the Play's at an end, let the Curtain fall down."

"Young Never-Grow-Old, with your heart of gold And the dear boy's face upon you; It is hard to tell, though we know it well, That the grass is growing upon you."

"Death hath so many doors to let out life."

"We must all die! All leave ourselves, it matters not where, when, Nor how, so we die well; and can that man that does so Need lamentation for him?"

""Paid the debt of nature." No; it is not paying a debt; it is rather like bringing a note to the bank to obtain solid gold for it. In this case you bring this cumbrous body which is nothing worth, and which you could not wish to retain long; you lay it down, and receive for it from the eternal treasures — liberty, victory, knowledge, rapture."

"When you take the wires of the cage apart, you do not hurt the bird, but help it. You let it out of its prison. How do vou know that death does not help me when it takes the wires of my cage down? — that it does not release me, and put me into some better place, and better condition of life?"

"If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete."

"Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes!"