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Quotes about life and death

656 quotes from 337 people

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Not even nothingness preceded life. Nothingness owes its very idea to existence.
George MacDonald1824–1905From “Life” in Unspoken Sermons Series II (1886)
- Philosophy
Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear.
James Madison1751–1836Last words, to his niece, as told in Paul Jennings, A Colored Man’s Reminiscences of James Madison (1865), p. 20
Suicide is man’s way of telling God, ‘You can’t fire me⁠—I quit.’
Bill Maherborn 1956
Every moment of one’s existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.
Norman Mailer1923–2007“Hip, Hell, and the Navigator” in Western Review No. 23 (Winter 1959); republished in Conversations with Norman Mailer (1988) edited by J. Michael Lennon.
What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.
Nelson Mandela1918–2013Speech at Walter Sisulu’s 90th birthday celebration, Johannesburg (18 May 2002)
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
Horace Mann1796–1859Address at Antioch College (1859)
- Motivation & Goals
Love stands opposed to death. It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.
Thomas Mann1875–1955The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 6
- Love
For the sake of goodness and love, man shall let death have no sovereignty over his thoughts.
Thomas Mann1875–1955The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 6
- Love
A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries.
Thomas Mann1875–1955The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 2, “At Tienappels’,” (1924), trans. by H.T. Lowe-Porter (1928).
Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order. This is what life has taught me.
Katherine Mansfield1888–1923Journal entry (29 January 1922), published in The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)
Che sera, sera,
What will be, shall be?
Christopher Marlowe1564–1593Doctor Faustus (c. 1592), spoken by FaustusIn context
- Luck
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damn’d perpetually!
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come;
Fair Nature’s eye, rise, rise again, and make
Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
Christopher Marlowe1564–1593Doctor Faustus (c. 1592), spoken by FaustusIn context
- Time
Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burned is Apollo’s laurel-bough,
That sometime grew within this learned man.
Christopher Marlowe1564–1593Doctor Faustus (c. 1592), spoken by ChorusIn context
- Knowledge
But at my back I alwaies hear
Times winged Charriot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lye
Desarts of vast Eternity.
Andrew Marvell1621–1678To His Coy Mistress (1681)In context
- Time
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you⁠—
It takes life to love Life.
Edgar Lee Masters1868–1950Lucinda Matlock (1915)In context
- Love