Quotes about life and death
656 quotes from 337 people
Paul Erdős1913–1996Common remark when breaking off work for the night, as quoted in “The Magician of Budapest” in The Edge of the Universe: Celebrating Ten Years of Math Horizons (2007) by Deanna Haunsperger and Stephen Kennedy, p. 111
Aeschylus525–456 BCAgamemnon, line 1364–1365
Robert Louis Stevenson1850–1894Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)
Nathaniel Hawthorne1804–1864Letter to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (4 June 1837)
Cormac McCarthy1933–2023The New York Times, April 19, 1992, “Cormac McCarthy’s Venomous Fiction” by Richard B. Woodward
Elbert Hubbard1856–1915The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927), p. 40
David Lloyd George1863–1945In Lord Riddell’s Intimate Diary of the Peace Conference and After, 1918-1923 (1933)
Sandra Bullockborn 1964Parade interview (2009)
Heraclitus535–470 BCFragment 26
L. Ron Hubbard1911–1986A letter to his wife Polly (October 1938), quoted in Bare-faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard (1987), p. 81.As one must die, I would rather die of passion than boredom!
Émile Zola1840–1902Au Bonheur des Dames (1883), Ch. 11 (tr. E. A. Vizetelly, 1895)Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life.
George Sand1804–1876Metella (1833), ch. 1As an actor, I’m thankful I have lived not one life, but many.
Charlton Heston1923–2008Video farewell (2002)Maybe that’s what life is… a wink of the eye and winking stars.
Jack Kerouac1922–1969Letter to Alan Harrington (23 April 1949) published in Kerouac: Selected Letters: Volume 1 1940-1956 (1996)All of us alive are survivors, but how many of us transcend survival?
Joan Baezborn 1941And a Voice to Sing With (1989) (p. 322)