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Quotes about life and death

656 quotes from 337 people

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The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die.
Kurt Vonnegut1922–2007Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone’s got to take care of all your details.
Andy Warhol1928–1987
This is the real secret of life⁠—to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.
Alan Watts1915–1973The Essence of Alan Watts (1977)
- Work
Time like an ever-rolling stream
Bears all its Sons away;
They fly forgotten as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
Isaac Watts1674–1748O God, Our Help in Ages Past (1719)In context
- Time
By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers
H. G. Wells1866–1946The War of the Worlds (1898), Book Two: The Earth under the Martians, Chapter VIIIIn context
- Nature
I desire to have both heaven and hell ever in my eye, while I stand on this isthmus of life, between two boundless oceans.
John Wesley1703–1791Letter to Charles Wesley
He knelt by the bed and bent over her, draining their last moment to its lees; and in the silence there passed between them the word which made all clear.
Edith Wharton1862–1937The House of Mirth (1905), Book Two, Chapter 14In context
- Love
I have tried hard⁠—but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else.
Edith Wharton1862–1937The House of Mirth (1905), Book Two, Chapter 12In context
- Failure
Life’s meaning has always eluded me and I guess it always will. But I love it just the same.
E. B. White1899–1985Letter to Mary Virginia Parrish (29 August 1969)
Once in everyone’s life there is apt to be a period when he is fully awake, instead of half asleep.
E. B. White1899–1985One Man’s Meat, foreword to the 1982 edition
- Experience
I’m not looking forward to death; it’s important to live while we are here. But those who have died, my mother said, now they know the secret. And someday we all will.
Betty White1922–2021The TGB Interview: BETTY WHITE (30 June 2011)
Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.
Walt Whitman1819–1892Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Starting from Paumanok. 12
- Beauty
I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.
Walt Whitman1819–1892Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won
Walt Whitman1819–1892O Captain! My Captain! (1865)In context
- Leadership
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Walt Whitman1819–1892When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d (1865)In context
- Nature