We all know how our stories will end, yet some of us spend all our lives dreading it, while others have made their peace with it. We’re talking about death, and this is our post dedicated to death quotes. Its purpose isn’t to make you feel morbid or afraid but rather to show you what wise people had to say about it. Soon, you’ll see that death can be somewhat inspiring, and there’s nothing to be afraid of.
Historically, people have had (and still have) various ways to deal with the inevitable. Take, for instance, the Victorians and their pictures with the dead and their fascination with mourning jewelry - now it all seems pretty morbid, but at the time and with that mortality rate, it all seemed well and fine. Or take the Irish tradition of celebrating the deceased’s life for one last time. There’s drinking, there’s singing, there are tears, but ultimately it is cherishing life. And now think about the Westerners of this day - wakes and funerals are pretty ominous affairs, where everyone’s silent and consumed by their own thoughts about the one who has passed. So see, we all have our different ways of dealing with the termination of life, and none of them are lesser than the others. Same with these death quotes - some are celebrating the end, quite a few despise it, but all of them acknowledge the fact that we’ll all end up the same.
So now it is time for you to scroll six feet down and check out the inspiring quotes for yourself. We’d like to guarantee that these intelligent quotes will inspire you to live your life to the fullest, but, as we all well know, different people - different thoughts. However, vote for the life and death quotes that you’d keep closest to your heart and tell us what you think about them, too.
This post may include affiliate links.
“Many people die at twenty five and aren’t buried until they are seventy five.” – Benjamin Franklin
“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 tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.” – Oscar Wilde
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "And so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
“We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” – Chuck Palahniuk
"You needn’t die happy when your time comes, but you must die satisfied, for you have lived your life from the beginning to the end." - Stephen King
“Losing your life is not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing is to lose your reason for living.” - Jo Nesbo
"We are born from a quiet sleep, and we die to a calm awakening." - Zhuangzi
"Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter." - Albert Camus
Yes it does. Rather die in my sleep at 101 than be buried alive tomorrow!
"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." - Mahatma Gandhi
“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings happy death.” – Leonardo da Vinci
“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.” - Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
"In the end there is one dance you'll do alone." - Jackson Browne
"Death is nothing, but to live defeated is to die every day." - Napoleon Bonaparte
Thinking about their employees-CEO's must have this as a daily mantra! (and are rich because of it)
“We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.” – Charles Bukowski
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
"Man always thinks about the past before he dies, as if he were frantically searching for proof that he truly lived." - Jet Black
“To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death of one’s own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear head and with joyfulness, consummated in the midst of children and witnesses: so that an actual leave-taking is possible while he who is leaving is still there.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“Death never takes a wise man by surprise; he is always ready to go.” – Jean de la Fontaine
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.” - Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
"No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away." - Terry Pratchett
"My mama always used to tell me: "If you can’t find somethin’ to live for, you best find somethin’ to die for." - Tupac Shakur
“Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.” – Andrew Sachs
“He died that day because his body had served its purpose. His soul had done what it came to do, learned what it came to learn, and then was free to leave.” - Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain
"A normal human being does not want the Kingdom of Heaven: he wants life on earth to continue." - George Orwell
"Death takes no bribes." - Benjamin Franklin
But we try - that's why we flock to doctors for the lest little thing!
“Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.” – Albert Einstein
No kids! Guess I'm a wilted leaf! Thought I may be a little "bark" on the tree!
“Death is a great revealer of what is in a man, and in its solemn shadow appear the naked lineaments of the soul.” – E.H. Chapin
“I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I take it out and talk to it: "Hello, baby, how you doing? When you coming for me? I'll be ready.” - Charles Bukowski
"To the most trivial actions, attach the devotion and mindfulness of a hundred monks. To matters of life and death, attach a sense of humor." - Zhuangzi
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” – Mark Twain
Who determines if a life is lived fully? Not the man who was born to live working in a mine for a pittance! Maybe a world famous author can spit platitudes of death but not a man in a mine!
"The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead." - Albert Einstein
What does he mean? We should fear accidents that may kill us when we live? Maybe I'm taking this too literally!
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That signifies nothing. For us believing physicists the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” – Albert Einstein
Maybe to one who has had an illustrious past, present and future may think of it as an illusion! But the lowly hard worker nothing is an illusion!
“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” - Steve Jobs
This is said by a man who was very fearful of death! Or so it was said!
"Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it." - Haruki Murakami
"Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life." - Bertolt Brecht
"The fear of death is the beginning of slavery." - Robert Anton Wilson
To a lot of people, if they think about it are already slaves just to life!
"It is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death." - Oliver Sacks
“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
“I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.” - Jimi Hendrix - Axis: Bold as Love
Great, but in the process of your living don't deal in the death of others!
“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.” - Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent
I hope not - for the vast majority of use we would die as complete and utter failures compared to others or or dreams!
“Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.” - George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.” - Isaac Asimov
If you take pleasant and peaceful out of the equation. You may have said the truth!
“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.” - Shannon Alder
"That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet." - Emily Dickinson
"Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is just a passing shadow of a cloud." - Yann Martel, Life of Pi
“Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live.” – Henry Van Dyke
This is true but also a euphemism, the person saying this has lived How?
“People living deeply have no fear of death.” – Anaïs Nin
“The truth I have been seeking – this truth is Death. Yet Death is also a seeker. Forever seeking me. So – we have met at last. And I am prepared. I am at peace.” – Bruce Lee
“Dying is a troublesome business: there is a pain to be suffered, and it wrings one’s heart, but death is a splendid thing – a warfare accomplished, a beginning all over again, a triumph. You can always see that in their faces.” – George Bernard Shaw
I suppose if you are a believer - I have seen a lot of people die I don't think I have ever saw triumph on anyone's face!
“I don't want to die without any scars.” - Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
“If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character... Would you slow down? Or speed up?” - Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters
“One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.” - Antonio Porchia
“No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning.” - Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
"What happens after death is so unspeakably glorious that our imagination and our feelings do not suffice to form even an approximate conception of it. The dissolution of our time-bound form in eternity brings no loss of meaning." - Carl Jung
And how would you know - these are platitudes from a man who has not been there!
"Tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you also go. He will not be alone." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
"Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs." - Leo Tolstoy
"You’ll drift apart, it’s true, but you’ll be out in the open, part of everything alive again." - Philip Pullman
“After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” – J.K. Rowling
Come on this is not a revelation - we have been hearing this BS since Sunday school!
“Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.” – Epicurus
“I discovered to my joy, that it is life, not death, that has no limits.” – Gabriel García Márquez
“If being a kid is about learning how to live, then being a grown-up is about learning how to die.” – Stephen King
“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.” - Oscar Wilde
“Does it hurt?" The childish question had escaped Harry's lips before he could stop it.
"Dying? Not at all," said Sirius. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep.” - J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter, and the Deathly Hallows
“I am afraid. Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been.” - Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
"All men think that all men are mortal but themselves." - Edward Young
“We cannot banish dangers, but we can banish fears. We must not demean life by standing in awe of death.” – David Sarnoff
“Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.” – Edgar Allan Poe
“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” – Norman Cousins
“What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose.” – Henry Ward Beecher
“There are special people in our lives who never leave us... Even after they are gone.” – D. Morgan
That is so true and with these special people the memory never seem to fade!
“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” – Robert Benchley
“Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.” – Francis Bacon
“Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.” – Socrates
“Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“After your death you will be what you were before your birth.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
And what was I before my birth? (Sperm or Ovum or something more divine?)
“Grief is the price we pay for love.” – Queen Elizabeth II
“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.” – Harriet Beecher-Stowe
“It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.” – Samuel Johnson
“To die will be an awfully big adventure.” – J.M. Barrie
“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly – that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” – Anne Lamott
“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” – Rabindranath Tagore
“It’s only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth – and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up – that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.” - Lemony Snicket, Horseradish
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!” - Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
“It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.” - Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Again what is every ones expectation of living. Living might be frightful to some!
“At the temple there is a poem called "Loss" carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it.” - Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
“A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.” - Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
“After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die.” - E.B. White, Charlotte's Web
"I feel monotony and death to be almost the same." - Charlotte Brontë
This was brought on by the way she was treated because of her illness!
"Death commences too early – almost before you’re half-acquainted with life – you meet the other." - Tennessee Williams
"Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds." - Buddha
"Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once." - William Shakespeare
Well Will cowards don't die soon enough! (To you sir in the literal sense of course!)
"While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die." - Leonardo da Vinci
"Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die." - Amelia Burr
"The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude." - Thornton Wilder
"When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings." - Sogyal Rinpoche
"We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe only truth." - Voltaire
“I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.” – Thomas Browne
“A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist.” – Stewart Alsop
“We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies it is the first law of nature.” – Voltaire
“Death a friend that alone can bring the peace his treasures cannot purchase, and remove the pain his physicians cannot cure.” – Mortimer Collins
“Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.” – Mitch Albom
Yep! We are the only things on earth that knows death is inevitable!
“We will all, someday, experience death, and become obsolete as a dead leaf falling from a tree, crushed by passers-by to ashes underlying the earth.” – Kim Elizabeth
“The loss of a friend is like that of a limb; time may heal the anguish of the wound, but the loss cannot be repaired.” – Robert Southey
“Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.” – Langston Hughes
“The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?” – Edgar Allan Poe
“Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death like autumn leaves.” – Rabindranath Tagore
“Birth and death are the most singular events we experience – and the contemplation of death, as of birth, should be a thing of beauty, not ignobility.” – Jacob K. Javits
“When someone we love dies, we get so busy mourning what died that we ignore what didn’t.” – Ram Dass
“All that live must die, passing through nature to eternity.” – William Shakespeare
“Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.” – Emily Dickinson
“Loss and possession, death and life are one. There falls no shadow where there shines no sun.” – Hilaire Belloc
“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.” - Anais Nin
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” - Mark Twain
“When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time.” - Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak
“You only live twice: once when you are born, and once when you look death in the face” - Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice
“Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.” - Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena
Loss in this sense does not really fit the description of death a person who dies is not a "thing"!
“You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.” - John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
“In the end, it wasn't death that surprised her but the stubbornness of life.” - Jeffrey Eugenides
"Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time… It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other." - Leo Buscaglia
"What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us." - Helen Keller
"Death is a distant rumor to the young." - Andrew A. Rooney
"Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation." - Rumi
"What would life be worth if there were no death? Who would enjoy the sun if it never rained? Who would yearn for the day if there were no night?" - Glenn Ringtved
"Our minds are too small to comprehend something as huge as death. Let it go." - Maxime Lagacé
"It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but retire a little from sight and afterwards return again." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Religion is the human response to being alive and having to die." - Forrest Church
"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity." - Gilda Radner
"Those men who, in war, seek to preserve their lives at any rate commonly die with shame and ignominy, while those who look upon death as common to all, and unavoidable, and are only solicitous to die with honor, oftener arrive at old age and, while they live, live happier." - Xenophon
"Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough." - William Saroyan
"Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive – the risk to be alive and express what we really are." - Miguel Angel Ruiz
"Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t." - Richard Bach
“Every word affords me pain. Yet how sweet it would be if I could hear what the flowers have to say about death!” – E.M. Cioran
“I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.” – Leonardo da Vinci
“Death is beautiful when seen to be a law, and not an accident. It is as common as life.” – Henry David Thoreau
“I’ll bet in Heaven they have one single word that means ‘back when I was alive’. You know, to save time in meetings and stuff.” – Derek Littlefield
“Only a moment you stayed, but what an imprint your footprints have left in our hearts.” – Dorothy Ferguson
“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.” – Helen Keller
Yes to see everything and love the colors not belittle some of them!
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” – Steve Jobs
“I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life.” – Corazon Aquino
“There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colors of life in all their purity.” – George Santayana
“Because life is fragile and death inevitable, we must make the most of each day.” – Thomas S. Monson
I still would like to know - what making the most of each day means!
“Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.” – Ernest Hemingway
“The connections we make in the course of a life – maybe that’s what heaven is.” – Fred Rogers
“That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.” - Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever
“If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone?” - Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper
“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.” - Mahatma Gandhi
“The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.” - Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.” - Kahlil Gibran
“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.” - Edvard Munch
"Whatever you want to do, do it now. There are only so many tomorrows." - Michael Landon
OK if you have the ability to do what you can and want to do 'till the end of your tomorrows!
"Death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent, it clears out the old to make way for the new." - Steve Jobs
"I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen
"Death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity." - Mother Teresa
"Take nothing for granted. Keep in mind that it can come at anytime. Even today." - Maxime Lagacé
"The meaning of life is that it stops." - Franz Kafka
"Death: something like birth, a natural mystery, elements that split and recombine. Not an embarrassing thing. Not an offense to reason, or our nature." - Marcus Aurelius
"Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I do not have the ability to achieve monuments in life so will I in death?
“Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them.” – George Eliot
“Death is something inevitable. When a man has done what he considers to be his duty to his people and his country, he can rest in peace.” – Nelson Mandela
“There is love in holding and there is love in letting go.” – Elizabeth Berg
“By becoming deeply aware of our mortality, we intensify our experience of every aspect of life.” – Robert Greene
Amazing the Chief Tecumseh poem didn’t get posted: Live Your Life “So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a Nobel death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give the word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the food and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and nothing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their
Amazing the Chief Tecumseh poem didn’t get posted: Live Your Life “So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a Nobel death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give the word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the food and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and nothing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their
