Quotes about life and death
656 quotes from 337 people
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death
John Keats1795–1821Ode to a Nightingale (1819), Poems (1820), “Ode to a Nightingale”, Stanza 6In contextTo die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.
Erich Fromm1900–1980Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 4
Eckhart Tolleborn 1948A New Earth (2005)
Charles I of England1600–1649Last words, said on the scaffold before his execution. (30 January, 1649).
Viktor Frankl1905–1997Man’s Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984), p. 67 in the 1959 Beacon Press edition
L. Frank Baum1856–1919Last words, to his wife Maud (6 May 1919), as quoted in Uncovering Lives: The Uneasy Alliance of Biography and Psychology (1994) by Alan C. Elms, p. 154
Lord Byron1788–1824Sardanapalus (1821), Act IV, scene 1.
Robert Frost1874–1963A Witness Tree (1942)
Helen Keller1880–1968Let Us Have Faith (1940), ch. “Faith Fears Not”, pp. 50–51; repr. in The Open Door (1957)
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936Twelve Types (1903) “Sir Walter Scott”Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.
Stonewall Jackson1824–1863Last words (May 10, 1863); as quoted in “Stonewall Jackson’s Last Days” by Joe D. Haines, Jr. in America’s Civil WarIt is not pleasant to come upon Death in a lonely place at midnight.
Robert E. Howard1906–1936“The God in the Bowl” (1952)We’re all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life!
Tennessee Williams1911–1983Orpheus Descending (1957), Val (Act 2, Scene 1)Cowards fear to die; but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.
Walter Raleigh1552–1618On the snuff of a candle the night before he died; Raleigh’s Remains, p. 258, ed. 1661
John Maynard Keynes1883–1946A Tract on Monetary Reform (1923), Ch. 3, p. 80