Death Sayings and Quotes

Death is an inevitable part of life’s natural order. That doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. Below you’ll find a collection of wise and insightful death quotes and sayings.

A person has learned much who has learned how to die. German (on death and dying)
Death never takes a wise man by surprise; he is always ready to go. Jean de la Fontaine
Six feet of earth makes us all equal. Italian (on death and dying)
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Steve Jobs
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily. Napoleon Bonaparte
I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life. Corazon Aquino
The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead. Albert Einstein
I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens. Woody Allen
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. Marcus Aurelius
To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. J.K. Rowling
Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid. Langston Hughes
When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time. Laurie Halse Anderson
Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn. Mahatma Gandhi
I'm not afraid of death. It's the stake one puts up in order to play the game of life. Jean Giraudoux
To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead. Samuel Butler
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. Mark Twain
A man does not die of love or his liver or even of old age; he dies of being a man. Percival Arland Ussher
Death is a distant rumor to the young. Andrew A. Rooney
Life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight. Rossiter Worthington Raymond
To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know? Socrates
Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying. Martin Luther
Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all. Seneca
Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them. George Eliot
Good men must die, but death cannot kill their names. Proverb
Thank Heaven! the crisis --The danger, is past, and the lingering illness, is over at last --, and the fever called ''Living'' is conquered at last. Edgar Allan Poe
Death - the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening. Walter Scott
A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. Joseph Stalin
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. Harriet Beecher Stowe
The boundaries between life and death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends and where the other begins? Edgar Allen Poe
Death is the veil which those who live call life: They sleep, and it is lifted. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Dying is like getting audited by the IRS—something that only happens to other people ... until it happens to you. Jerome P. Crabb
We all labour against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases. Sir Thomas Browne
Dying is like coming to the end of a long novel—you only regret it if the ride was enjoyable and left you wanting more. Jerome P. Crabb
Death is a new office building filled with modern furniture, A wise thing, but which has no purpose for us. John Ashbery
For death is but a passing phase of Life; A change of dress, a disrobing; A birth into the unborn again; A commencing where we ended; A starting where we stopped to rest; A crossroad of Eternity; A giving up of something, to possess all things. The end of the unreal, the beginning of the real. Edwin Leibfreed
Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives. Andrew Sachs
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. George Bernard Shaw
As long as you are not aware of the continual law of Die and Be Again, you are merely a vague guest on a dark Earth. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings. Sogyal Rinpoche
We do not die because we have to die; we die because one day, and not so long ago, our consciousness was forced to deem it necessary. Antonin Artaud
For certain is death for the born, And certain is birth for the dead; Therefore over the inevitable, Thou shouldst not grieve. Bhagavad Gita
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not. Epicurus
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. Isaac Asimov
I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather... Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car. Will Shriner
Death keeps no calendar. English (on death and dying)
Death pays all debts. William Shakespeare
Death takes no bribes. Benjamin Franklin
The first breath is the beginning of death. Thomas Fuller
The world's an inn, and death the journey's end. John Dryden
Death is a law, not a punishment. Jean Dubos
Death produced a state of gloom and emptiness in which life and hope were to be left behind. Herbert Lockyer
Death was looked upon as a bitter, inevitable separation, which must be faced with a manly separation. Herbert Lockyer
The deathbed was the great battlefield where man's enemy, the devil, staked his last throw and drew up all his strongest forces of one final and bitter assault. Burrell and Lucas
To sleep! perchance to dream; aye, there's the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. Tagore
Leaves have their time to fall / And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath / And starts to set—but all / Thou hast all seasons for thine own, oh death! Felicia Hermans
Tell me, my soul, can this be death? / Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! / O grave, where is thy victory? / O, death where is thy sting? Alexander Pope
Death moulded into calm completeness the status of his life. John Greenleaf Whittier
The mode of death is sadder than death itself. Latin Proverb
A thousand approaches lie to open death. Seneca
Oh sunderings short of body and breath. Oh battle, and murder, and sudden death. Empress Josephine
It is folly to die of the fear of death. Seneca
One person's illness or death will not indemnify others against death. Yoruba Proverb
If thou expect death as a friend, prepare to entertain him; if as an enemy, prepare to overcome him. Death has no advantage except when he comes as a stranger. Quarles
Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity Milton
Death expecteth thee everywhere; be wise. therefore, and expect death everywhere. Quarles
Be still prepared for death: and death or life shall thereby be the sweeter. William Shakespeare
Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it.—It unloosens the chain of the captive and puts the bondman's task in another's hands. Sterne
Death is the crown of life.—Where death denied, poor man would live in vain; to live would not be life; even fools would wish to die. Young
Death has nothing terrible which life has not made so. A faithful Christian life in this world is the best preparation for the next Tyron Edwards
It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind. Swift
We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love. Mad. Be Stael
They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies, nor can spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same divine principle. William Penn
Death hides, but it does not divide, they are but on Christ's other side. Thou art with Christ and Christ with me. In Him I am close to thee. Elizabeth Urch
Death is like thunder in two particulars: we are alarmed at the sound of it, and it is formidable only from that which preceded it. Colton
The Gods conceal from men the happiness of death, that they may endure life. Lucan
The darkness of death is like the evening twilight; it makes all objects appear more lovely to the dying. Richter
We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death. Hawthorne
Death stamps the characters and conditions of men for eternity.— As death finds them in this world, so will they be in the next. Emmons
Although the testimony of my mother's life helped mold me and taught me how to live, the testimony of her last years and her death gave me insight into how to die. Billy Graham
Even in the darkest moment, before death snatches man's last breath. God is willing to save a lost soul. Billy Graham
Death be not proud thou some have called thee. Mighty and dreadful for thou art not so. John Donne
Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life. Bertolt Brecht
Death is nothing at all; it does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Henry Scott Holland
Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one. Vladimir Nabokov
Thou lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion. Dylan Thomas
Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. Ludwig Wittgenstein
Death must be distinguished from dying, with which it is often confused. Sydney Smith
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Francis Bacon
Death, in itself, is nothing; but we fear, to be we know not what, we know not where. John Dryden
These are two ways of life ending with death have been declared: death with one's will and death against one's will. Death against one's will is that of ignorant men...death with one's will is that of wise men. Jaina Sutras
Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it. Haruki Murakami
We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. Chuck Palahniuk
People living deeply have no fear of death. Anais Nin
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. Kahlil Gibran
He who is not busy being born is busy dying. Bob Dylan
Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. William Shakespeare
If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live. Martin Luther King, Jr.
If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die. Maya Angelou
I intend to live forever, or die trying. Groucho Marx
The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living. Marcus Tullius Cicero
If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character… Would you slow down? Or speed up? Chuck Palahniuk
Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely. Buddha
It is difficult to accept death in this society because it is unfamiliar. In spite of the fact that it happens all the time, we never see it. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross