Quotes about life and death
656 quotes from 337 people
- ECEmil Cioran1911–1995The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Our place is somewhere between being and nonbeing — between two fictions.
ECEmil Cioran1911–1995Anathemas and Admirations (1987)- ECEmil Cioran1911–1995The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Bernard of Clairvaux1090–1153On Loving God, Ch. 11, Paul Halsall trans.
Arthur C. Clarke1917–20082001: A Space Odyssey (1968) “Foreword”What are clouds, but an excuse for the sky? What is life, but an escape from death?
JCJames Clavell1921–1994Shōgun (1975), Yabu-san’s death poem after being ordered to commit seppuku.The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
Jean Cocteau1889–1963“Postambule” in La Fin du Potomac (1939)Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death.
Jean Cocteau1889–1963Opium (1929)To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life.
Paulo Coelhoborn 1947Aleph (2011)Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds.
Paulo Coelhoborn 1947Eleven Minutes (2003), p. 9.The knight’s bones are dust,
And his good sword rust;
His soul is with the saints, I trust.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge1772–1834“The Knight’s Tomb”, l. 9 (c. 1817)
Colette1873–1954“The Captain”, Earthly Paradise (1966) ed. Robert Phelps- Colette1873–1954Le Pur et l’Impur (The Pure and the Impure) (1932)
If I hear the Way [of truth] in the morning, I am content even to die in that evening.
Confucius551–479 BCAnalects, Chapter IV