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Quotes about life and death

656 quotes from 337 people

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Isn’t it good just to be alive on a day like this? I pity the people who aren’t born yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course, but they can never have this one.
L. M. Montgomery1874–1942Anne of Green Gables (1908), Chapter XVIn context
- Happiness
Life isn’t divided into genres. It’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky.
Alan Mooreborn 1953“The Mustard magazine interview” (January 2005)
- Writing
I do nobody harm, I say none harm, I think none harm, but wish everybody good. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith, I long not to live.
Thomas More1478–1535Thomas More’s Account, in a letter to his daughter Margaret Roper, of his Second Interrogation
Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.
Christopher Morley1890–1957Thunder on the Left (1925), ch. 14
I would like to die on Mars; just not on impact.
Elon Muskborn 197112 September 2012
- Comedy
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Napoleon1769–1821
The bullet that will kill me is not yet cast.
Napoleon1769–1821Statement at Montereau (17 February 1814)
- Courage
If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.
John von Neumann1903–1957Keynote, first national ACM meeting (1947), as recalled by Franz L. Alt in Communications of the ACM 15:7 (July 1972), p. 694
- Science
The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man. Unless he understands this, he does not grasp the essential meaning of his life.
Huey P. Newton1942–1989Revolutionary Suicide (1973), p. 3
My fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning. I wanted my death to be something the people could relate to, a basis for further mobilization of the community.
Huey P. Newton1942–1989Revolutionary Suicide (1973), p. 190
- Fear
If we have our own why in life, we shall get along with almost any how.
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900Twilight of the Idols (1889), “Maxims and Arrows,” § 1.12
- Motivation & Goals
There is nothing to life that has value, except the degree of power⁠—assuming that life itself is the will to power.
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900The Will to Power (1888), Book 1, sec. 55 (10 June 1887)
- Power
Many die too late, and some die too early. Yet strange soundeth the precept: “Die at the right time!”
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–1885), First Part, XXIIn context
Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
Anaïs Nin1903–1977D. H. Lawrence : An Unprofessional Study (1932)
To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.
MOMary Oliver1935–2019American Primitive (1983), “In Blackwater Woods”
- Love