Quotes, aphorisms and sentences about death, or about the moment in which all the vital functions present in vital organisms cease forever, opening the field to the various interpretations on what is next.
Quotes about death
- Dying is terrible, but the idea of dying without having lived is unbearable. (Erich Fromm)
- I want death to catch me while I plant my cabbages, not worried about her at all and even less about my imperfect garden. (Michel de Montaigne)
- The fact that they are all devoted to disappearance produces an unbearable feeling in us. But it would be even more so if death were to disappear. (Jean Baudrillard)
- In the democracy of the dead all men are finally equal. There is neither rank nor position nor prerogative in the republic of the grave. (John James Ingalls)
- Everything is insignificant, fluctuating, illusory and fallacious, like a mirage. You can be proud, wise, and beautiful, but death will tear you away from the face of the earth exactly as if you had been a mouse hidden under the floor, and your posterity, your story, your immortal genes will burn or freeze together with the terrestrial globe. (Anton Chekhov)
- Death is horrible only for one who does not believe in God, or believe in an evil God, which is the same thing. For the one who believes in God, in his goodness and lives in this life according to his law and has experienced this goodness of his, for him death is only a passage. (Lev Tolstoj)
- So to die is to drink from the river of silence is to climb the top of the mountain means to be naked in the wind and melt in the sun. (Khalil Gibran)
- Being remembered after death is only a meager reward for being treated with contempt when we were alive. (William Hazlitt)
- Nobody knows if death is not by chance the greatest of goods, yet they fear it as if they knew well that it is the greatest of evils. And isn't believing you know what you know really the most shameful form of ignorance? (Socrates)
- There are people to whom death gives an existence. (Louis Scutenaire)
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- Death is the dark background that a mirror serves if we want to see something. (Saul Bellow)
- Cowards die many times before dying; while the brave experience the taste of death only once. (William Shakespeare)
- Death, the most atrocious of all evils, does not exist for us. When we live death there is not, when she is there we are not there. (Epicurus)
- There is no remedy for birth and death except enjoying the break. (George Santayana)
- I am not afraid of death: it is the stake we set to play the game of life. (Jean Giraudoux)
- If you are aware of death, it will not come as a surprise, you will not be worried about it. You will perceive that death is exactly like changing clothes and, consequently, in that moment you will be able to maintain mental tranquility. (Dalai Lama)
- Not being afraid of death hurts less than life! (Jim Morrison)
- Living means being born at all times. Death takes over when the birth process ceases. (Erich Fromm)
- People do not die immediately, but remain immersed in a sort of aura of life that has no relation to true immortality, but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. (Marcel Proust)
- It takes a lifetime to learn to live and, what may seem stranger, it takes a lifetime to learn to die. (Lucio Anneo Seneca)
- The reality is that one lives until he dies. And the truth is that nobody wants reality. (Chuck Palahniuk)
- There is nothing certain in a man's life, except this: that he must lose it. (Aeschylus)
- Dying means separating yourself not only from what you were, but also from what you couldn't become. The latter aspect of death is the most disturbing. (Gheorghe Gricurcu)
- You can be safe from everything, but for death we all live in a city without walls. (Epicurus)
- In front of himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he will never know that he is dead. (Samuel Butler)
Aphorisms on death
- Death, an inexplicable mystery, of which a daily experience seems not to have convinced men yet. (Benjamin Constant)
- The good that will be said of us after our death will console us for the evil that would have been said of our life if it had lasted too long. (Robert Sabatier)
- Do not praise me for death, splendid Odysseus.I would like to be a bifolco, to serve a master, an underprivileged, who had no wealth, rather than dominate over all the worn shadows. (Homer)
- Death is not the biggest loss in life. The biggest loss is what dies within us while we are living. (Norman Cousins)
- Do not fear death: the sooner we die, the sooner we will be immortal. (Benjamin Franklin)
- The idea that you will die is more cruel than dying, but less than the idea that another is dead. (Marcel Proust)
- A death is a tragedy, a million deaths is statistics. (Josif Stalin)
- Nobody can say with certainty that tomorrow he will still be alive. (Euripides)
- A dying man needs to die, like a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist. (Stewart Alsop)
- I really hope that when I die someone has enough common sense to throw me into the river or something. Anything less than placing me in a goddamn graveyard. People who come and put a bouquet of flowers on your stomach on Sunday and all that rubbish. Who wants flowers when he's dead? Nobody. (J.D. Salinger)
- Your own death is unrepresentable, and every time we try to do it, we can see that in reality we continue to be present as spectators. Therefore the psychoanalytic school has also been able to affirm that there is no one who basically believes in his own death, or, what is equivalent, that in his unconscious each of us is convinced of his own immortality. (Sigmund Freud)
- Dying is the very condition of existence. In this I refer to all those who said that it is death that gives meaning to life precisely by subtracting that meaning from it. It is the nonsense that makes sense by denying this meaning. (Vladimir Jankélévitch)
- The death of the young is a shipwreck, that of the old is a landing in the port. (Plutarch)
- Why do you fear your last day? It doesn't contribute to your death more than any of the others. (Michel de Montaigne)
- The death of the body is not the end of the spirit, but only one stage of the journey, as when diligence was changed in times gone by. (Louis Bromfield)
- Every night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I was born again. (Gandhi)
- There are ten thousand and more doors through which man can exit the scene. (John Webster)
- Death is what life has so far invented most solid and secure. (Emil Cioran)
- Every man is born like many men and dies as one. (Martin Heidegger)
- Death is that disease that puts an end to all others. (Soren Kierkegaard)
- Sometimes things are done for the dead that would not have been done for the living. (Marcel Proust)
- Die to sleep. Nothing else. And with that sleep you can calm the painful heartbeat, and the thousand natural offenses of which the flesh is heir! This is a conclusion to be devotedly desired. Die to sleep. Sleep, maybe dream. (William Shakespeare)
- Many people are so afraid of dying that they can't live. (Henry van Dyke)
- Here is our mistake: we see death in front of us and instead much of it is already behind us: past life belongs to death. (Lucio Anneo Seneca)
- In this world there is nothing safe except death and taxes. (Benjamin Franklin)
Phrases about death
- We don't want to die. Every life is a succession of ideas that one would not want to interrupt. (Montesquieu)
- Life is a big surprise. I don't see why death couldn't be an even bigger one. (Vladimir Nabokov)
- Life is a strange gift. At the beginning, this gift is overestimated: it is believed to have received eternal life. After you underestimate it, you find it poor, too short, you would be almost ready to throw it. Finally, we realize that it was not a gift, but only a loan. (Eric Emmanuel Schmitt)
- Death is the curve of the road, dying is just not being seen. (Fernando Pessoa)
- Life is a dream from which death wakes us. (Hodjviri)
- When a man dies, a chapter is not torn from the book, but is translated into a better language. (John Donne)
- Of death this must be said: for her, there is no need to get out of bed. Wherever you happen to be, be sure that they will bring it for free. (Kingsley Amis)
- I'm not afraid of death. I was dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and that didn't cause me the slightest disturbance. (Mark Twain)
- Death is not so tragic. In a hundred years, each of us will not think about it anymore. (Boris Vian)
- Every year we pass without knowing it on the day of our death. (Valeriu Butulescu)
- Death is a surprise that makes the conceivable inconceivable. (Paul Valéry)
- Death would be sweeter if my gaze had your face as the last horizon, and if it were so ... a thousand times I would be born a thousand times even to die. (William Shakespeare)
- After your death you will be what you were before your birth. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
- We live among things destined to die. (Lucio Anneo Seneca)
- I feel that monotony and death are more or less the same thing. (Charlotte Bronté)
- Western men live as if they should never die and die as if they had never lived. (Dalai Lama)
- The sage does not expose himself to danger without reason, since there are few things he cares about enough; but he is willing, in great trials, to even give his life, knowing that under certain conditions it is not worth living. (Socrates)
- Death is a custom that everyone, sooner or later, must respect. (Jorge Louis Borges)
- I hope to meet death late, in love, and definitely drunk. (Atticus)
- The only grace that God has given us, if it exists, is to have hidden from us the way we will die. (Patrick Ourednik)
- Whatever its form, its modality, whatever its appearance, its name, every fear is oriented towards death. If you go deep, you will find that you are afraid of death. (Osho)
- Life and death are not two extremes far from each other. They are like two legs that walk together, and both belong to you. In this same instant you are living and dying at the same time. Something in you dies every moment. Within seventy years, death will come to fruition. In every moment you keep dying, and in the end you will really die. (Osho)
- I fought with death. It is the least exciting challenge you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grayness, nothing underfoot, nothing around, without spectators, without fanfare, without glory, without the great desire for victory, without the great fear of defeat, in an unhealthy atmosphere of lukewarm skepticism, without much relief in our own reasons and even less in those of your opponent. (Joseph Conrad)
- Since the day of my birth, my death has started on its way. He is walking towards me, without haste. (Jean Cocteau)
- Whenever I spend time with a person who is dying I actually find a person who lives. Dying is the process that begins a few minutes before death, when the brain is deprived of oxygen; all the rest is living. (Patch Adams)
- The day we fear last is only our birthday for eternity. (Seneca)
