"Mainstream sociological theory sees differences in jobs, skills, and education as the primary causes of inequality, and substantial wealth transfers embarrass this theory. The classical sociologist Emil Durkheim, for example, predicted that family inheritances would decline over time in favor of giving to charitable and nonprofit organizations, but studies examining actual bequests invalidate this predication. ... In 1989 charitable bequests constituted less than 10 percent of proceeds of estates valued at over $600,000 in the United States."

"He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind. And the fool shall be servant to the wise in heart."

"Whenever the rate of return on capital is significantly and durably higher than the growth rate of the economy, it is all but inevitable that inheritance (of fortunes accumulated in the past) predominates over saving (wealth accumulated in the present). ... The inequality r > g in one sense implies that the past tends to devour the future: wealth originating in the past automatically grows more rapidly, even without labor, than wealth stemming from work, which can be saved. Almost inevitably, this tends to give lasting disproportionate importance to inequalities created in the past, and therefore to inheritance."

"He lives to build, not boast, a generous race; No tenth transmitter of a foolish face."

"Let's choose executors and talk of wills: And yet not so, for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground?"

"Has this fellow no feeling of his business that he sings at grave-making? Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness."

"Lay her i' the earth; And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring!"

"They bore him barefac'd on the bier; * * * * * And in his grave rain'd many a tear."

"The sepulchre, Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws."

"Bear from hence his body: And mourn you for him: let him be regarded As the most noble corse that ever herald Did follow to his urn."

"The grave unites; where e'en the great find rest, And blended lie th' oppressor and th' oppressed!"

"The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace."

"Lay her in the gentle earth, Where the summer maketh mirth ; Where young violets have birth ; Where the lily bendeth. Lay her there, the lovely one ! With the rose, her funeral stone ; And for tears, such showers alone As the rain of April lendeth."

"Sympathy is the softener of death, and memory of the loved and the lost is the earthly shadow of their immortality. But who turns aside amid those crowds that hurry through the thronged and noisy streets?—No one can love London better than I do; but never do I wish to be buried there. It is the best place in the world for a house, and the worst for a grave."

"A piece of a Churchyard fits everybody."

"They grew in beauty side by side, They filled one home with glee: Their graves are severed far and wide By mount and stream and sea."

"Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark — a shining space With the grave's narrowness, though not its peace."

"The foot in the grave."

"Perhaps the early grave Which men weep over may be meant to save."

"They say in the grave there is peace, and peace and the grave are one and the same."

"GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student."

"Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down; Where a green grassy turf is all I crave, With here and there a violet bestrewn, Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave; And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave!"

"Put off boasting, give up self-conceit and remember your grave."

"Dark lattice! letting in eternal day!"

"The grave is a very small hillock, but we can see farther from it, when standing on it, than from the highest mountain in all the world."

"It is sweet to hold converse with the pious dead. A holy influence emanates from their blissful home, and fills the soul with a feeling of sacred and solemn awe. The spirit whispers peace, and fills the waiting caverns of the soul with the bright hope of again meeting those whom we believe to be in the abode of redeemed and happy spirits."

"The grave has a door on its inner side."

"There is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living. O, the grave! the grave! It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections."

"For ages the world has been waiting and watching; millions, with broken hearts, have hovered around the yawning abyss; but no echo has come back from the engulfing gloom —silence, oblivion, covers all. If indeed they survive; if they went away whole and victorious, they give us no signals. We wait for years, but no messages come from the far-away shore to which they have gone."

"The earth doth not cover our beloved, but heaven hath received him; let us tarry for a while, and we shall be in his company."

"… In shepherd's phrase With one foot in the grave."

"But the grandsire's chair is empty, The cottage is dark and still; There's a nameless grave on the battle-field, And a new one under the hill."

"…The low green tent Whose curtain never outward swings."

"Kings have no such couch as thine, As the green that folds thy grave."

"There is an acre sown with royal seed."

"The grave Is but the threshold of eternity."

"O heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do you Hope to inherit in the grave below?"

"To that dark inn, the Grave!"

"Never the grave gives back what it has won!"

"Ruhe eines Kirchhofs!"

"Yet shall thy grave with rising flow'rs be dressed, And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast; There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow, There the first roses of the year shall blow."

"Pabulum Acheruntis."

"(Bodies) carefully to be laid up in the wardrobe of the grave."

"There is a calm for those who weep, A rest for weary pilgrims found, They softly lie and sweetly sleep Low in the ground."

"Your seventh wife, Phileros, is now being buried in your field. No man's field brings him greater profit than yours, Phileros."

"We should teach our children to think no more of their bodies when dead than they do of their hair when cut off, or of their old clothes when they have done with them."

"As life runs on, the road grows strange With faces new,—and near the end The milestones into headstones change:— 'Neath every one a friend."

"There are slave-drivers quietly whipped underground, There bookbinders, done up in boards, are fast bound, There card-players wait till the last trump be played, There all the choice spirits get finally laid, There the babe that's unborn is supplied with a berth, There men without legs get their six feet of earth, There lawyers repose, each wrapped up in his case, There seekers of office are sure of a place, There defendant and plaintiff get equally cast, There shoemakers quietly stick to the last."

"Take them, O Grave! and let them lie Folded upon thy narrow shelves, As garments by the soul laid by, And precious only to ourselves!"