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Quotes about life and death

656 quotes from 337 people

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I kiss’d thee ere I kill’d thee. No way but this,
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Othello (c. 1604), Act V, Scene II, spoken by OthelloIn context
- Love
O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Julius Caesar (1599), Act III, Scene I, spoken by AntonyIn context
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Julius Caesar (1599), Act III, Scene II, spoken by AntonyIn context
- Good & Evil
Full fathom five thy father lies.
Of his bones are coral made.
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
William Shakespeare1564–1616The Tempest (c. 1611), Act I, Scene II, spoken by ArielIn context
- Change
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,
A stage, where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.
William Shakespeare1564–1616The Merchant of Venice (c. 1597), Act I, Scene I, spoken by AntonioIn context
- Acting
I am sure care’s an enemy to life.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Twelfth Night (c. 1601), Act I, Scene III, spoken by Sir TobyIn context
- Happiness
Come away, come away, death.
And in sad cypress let me be laid.
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Twelfth Night (c. 1601), Act II, Scene IV, spoken by DukeIn context
- Love
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
What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn’t come every day.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950Pygmalion (1912), Act II, spoken by HigginsIn context
- Risk
Philosopher, metaphysician,
Rhymer, brawler, and musician,
Famed for his lunar expedition,
And the unnumbered duels he fought,⁠—
And lover also,⁠—by interposition!⁠—
Here lies Hercule Savinien
De Cyrano de Bergerac,
Who was everything, yet was naught.
Edmond Rostand1868–1918Cyrano de Bergerac (1897), Act V: Cyrano’s Gazette, Scene VI, spoken by CyranoIn context
- Character
The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labour lies.
Virgil70–19 BCThe Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book VIIn context
And after it there came so long a train
Of people, that I ne’er would have believed
That ever Death so many had undone.
Dante Alighieri1265–1321The Divine Comedy (c. 1320), Inferno, Canto IIIIn context
Not as though thou hadst thousands of years to live. Death hangs over thee: whilst yet thou livest, whilst thou mayest, be good.
Marcus Aurelius121–180Meditations (c. 170–180), The Fourth BookIn context
- Virtue