DEATH - PAGE 1 (A-G)


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	DEATH [PAGE 1 A-G] . . . [QUOTES FOLLOW LINKS] see: BEREAVEMENT CREMATION DESPAIR ENDINGS EPITAPHS EUTHANASIA FUNERALS GRAVEYARDS, GRIEF HEARTBREAK HEAVEN, HELL IMMORTALITY LAST WORDS LEGACIES MURDER OBITUARY REINCARNATION REMORSE SORROW SUICIDE TEARS WIDOWS WILLS If a wife loses her husband by death, she cannot marry another man. She has only to choose between two things - either to remain a widow as long as she lives or to burn herself; and the latter eventuality is considered the preferable, because as a widow she is ill-treated as long as she lives. As regards the wives of kings, they [Hindus] are in the habit of burning them, whether they wish it or not, by which they desire to prevent any of them by chance committing something unworthy of the illustrious husband. They make an exception only for women of advanced years and for those who have children; for the son is the responsible protector of his mother. --Alberuni (973—1048) _Kitab-al-Hind_ (Book on India) [1030]. - - Somewhere—in desolate wind-swept space— In Twilight-land—in No-man’s-land— Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, And bade each other stand. “And who are you?” cried one a-gape, Shuddering in the gloaming light. “I know not,” said the second Shape, “I only died last night!” --Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836—1907) American poet, short-story writer, and editor. _Identity_ In Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. _An American Anthology, 1787—1900_ [1900] - - There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman? --Woody Allen [Allen Stewart Konigsberg] (1935— ) American actor, screenwriter, and director. I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens. --Woody Allen [Allen Stewart Konigsberg] (1935— ) American actor, screenwriter, and director. It's impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune. --Woody Allen [Allen Stewart Konigsberg] (1935— ) American actor, screenwriter, and director. - Be not grieved above measure for thy deceased friends. They are not dead, but have only finished the journey which it is necessary for every one of us to take. We ourselves must go to that great place of reception in which they are all of them assembled, and, in this general rendezvous of mankind, live together in another state of being. --Antiphanes (fl. early 4th cent. B.C.) Greek comic poet. Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. --Isaac Asimov (1920—1992) Russian-born American author. - Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead. Put crepe bows round the white necks of public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West. My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good. --W.H. [Wystan Hugh] Auden (1907—1973) English-born poet and man of letters. "Funeral Blues" from_Twelve Songs, No. 9_ [1936] - To a father, when his child dies, the future dies; To a child, when his parents die, the past dies. --Berthold Auerbach (1812—1882) German novelist. Men fear death as children fear to go into the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. --Francis Bacon (1561—1626) English philosopher and essayist. _Essays_ [1625] "Of Death" The sole equality on earth is death. --Philip James Bailey (1816—1902) English poet. To die will be an awfully big adventure. --Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860—1937) Scottish writer and dramatist. _Peter Pan_ [1928] - "Henry King, [Who chewed bits of String, and was early cut off in dreadful agonies]" by Hilaire Belloc (1870—1953) British poet, essayist, historian, and novelist. The Chief Defect of Henry King Was chewing little bits of String. At last he swallowed some which tied Itself in ugly Knots inside. Physicians of the Utmost Fame Were called at once; but when they came They answered, as they took their Fees 'There is no Cure for this Disease. Henry will very soon be dead.' His Parents stood about his Bed Lamenting his Untimely Death, When Henry, with his Lastest Breath, Cried--'Oh, my Friends, be warned by me, That Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch, and Tea Are all the Human Frame requires. . . ' With that, the Wretched Child expires. - What I like about Clive Is that he is no longer alive. There is a great deal to be said For being dead. --Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875—1956) English novelist and humorist. Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hand away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there for a lifetime. --Ray Bradbury (1920— ) American science fiction author. _Fahrenheit 451_ [1953] Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life. --Bertolt Brecht (1898—1956) German dramatist. _The Mother_ [1932] - What is dying? A ship sails and I stand watching till she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says "She is gone". Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all, she is just as large as when I saw her. The diminished size and total loss of sight is mine, not in her and just at the moment when someone at my side says "She is gone", there are others who are watching her coming and other voices take up a glad shout "There she comes", and that is dying. --Bishop Brent (1862—1929) the first Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines. - If there is any substitute for love, it is memory. --Joseph Brodsky [Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky] (1940—1996) Russian-born American poet and winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize for Literature. [Mel Brooks] was approached by a woman who offered condolences on the passing of his beloved wife, Anne Bancroft. "I know how you feel. I just lost my mother," the woman said. "How old was she?" asked Mel. "Ninety-six," the woman replied. "Well," Mel said, "she was asking for it." --"New York Post" [23 August 2005] - I walked a mile with Pleasure She chattered all the way, But left me none the wiser For all she had to say. I walked a mile with Sorrow And ne'er a word said she; But oh, the things I learned from her When Sorrow walked with me! --Robert Browning (1812—1889) English poet. The grand perhaps. --Robert Browning (1812—1889) English poet. & note: I am going to seek a great perhaps; draw the curtain, the farce is played. --attributed to François Rabelais - Tears are sometimes an inapproriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly, completely successfully, or just completely, the correct response to death's perfect punctuation mark is a smile. --Julie Burchill (1959— ) English journalist. In _Independent_ [5 December 1989] - When death's dark stream I ferry o'er A time that surely shall come; In Heaven itself, I'll ask no more, Than just a Highland welcome. --Robert Burns (1759—1796) Scottish poet and songwriter. A verse...on taking Leave [2 September 1787] If there's another world, he lives in bliss; If there is none, he made the best of this. --Robert Burns (1759—1796) Scottish poet and songwriter. - What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now. --Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824) English Romantic poet and satirist. _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, Canto II [1812], st. 98 To live in the hearts we leave Is not to die. --Thomas Campbell (1777—1844) Scottish poet. "Hallowed Ground" [1825] I'll tell you a big secret, mon cher. Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day. --Albert Camus (1913—1960) French novelist, dramatist, and essayist who won the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. _The Fall_ [1956] I look upon life as a gift from God. I did nothing to earn it. Now that the time is coming to give it back, I have no right to complain. --Joyce Cary Through gloom and shadow look we On beyond the years; The soul would have no rainbow Had the eyes no tears. --John Vance Cheney (1848—1922) American poet. - [Let] nothing but good be said of the dead. --Chilon (6th cent. B.C.) One of the Seven Sages of Greece. or Do not speak ill of the dead. --The Seven Sages (c. 650—550 BC) (From _Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, I, 77) - On a gravestone, every life is contained on the little dash between two dates. That is humbling. It puts our passions and disappointments in perspective. It reminds us to trust in a power more abiding than our own. --Forrest Church American theologian and author. _Return of the Native_ - The life of the dead consists in being present in the minds of the living. --Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC) Roman orator and statesman. _Orationes Phillipiae_ [c. 60 B.C.] I have no regret at having lived, for I have so conducted my life that I do not feel that I was born to no purpose. I cheerfully quit from life as if it were an inn, not a home; for Nature has given us a hostelry in which to sojourn, not to abide. --Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC) Roman orator and statesman. _De Senectute_ [ 45 B.C.] - Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console. --C.C. Colton (1780—1832) English clergyman and writer. We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey. --Stephen Covey (1932— ) American author. The best of men cannot suspend their fate: The good die early, and the bad die late. --Daniel Defoe (1660—1731) English novelist and journalist. _Character of the late Dr. S. Annesley_ [1715] - The memory of those who lie below passes away so soon. At first they tend them, morning, noon, and night; they soon begin to come less frequently; from once a day, to once a week; from once a week to once a month; then at long and uncertain intervals; then, not at all. --Charles Dickens (1812—1870) English novelist. _The Old Curiosity Shop_ [1841], Chapter 54 Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. --Charles Dickens (1812—1870) English novelist. _A Christmas Carol_ [1843] - But Jesus, when you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both, it's health, you worry about getting ruptured or something. If everything is simply jake then you're frightened of death. --J. P. Donleavy (1926— ) American dramatist and novelist. _The Ginger Man_ [1955], ch. 5 - No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. --John Donne (1572—1631) English poet and dean of St. Paul's [1621-1631]. "No Man is an Iland" Death be not proud, though some have called Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so. --John Donne (1572—1631) English poet and dean of St. Paul's [1621—1631]. "Holy Sonnets" [1609] - In 1952, when I was only forty-two, my mother was dying. I held her frail hand in mine for hours, looking at the pale face of my ma. That's what I always called her--not Mum, not Momma, not Mother-- just Ma. . . . Her startling last words still echo somewhere deep inside of me. My mother, in her last moments, was concerned about me. She was a real mother who took care of me till the very end of her life. Now, lying in my hospital bed, I wondered: What happens when you die? Could I see my mother again? I would like that. But maybe, after death, you come before that mythical Man with a long beard, sitting on a throne. You stand before Him, puny and timid. Then you ask, "Is this heaven?" And He roars back, "Heaven! You just came from there!" And as your eyes widen, He continues, "Ingrate! Didn't you like the sunrise, the sunset, the moon, and the stars? Weren't you pleased with the mountains, forests, rivers, and streams that I gave you?" I remain silent as the voice roars. "Didn't you like the fragrant flowers and fruits and vegetables I gave you? And when I nurtured those plants with rain, you complained because you couldn't play golf. Ingrate! That was heaven!" --Kirk Douglas [Issur Danielovitch] (1916— ) American film actor and producer. _My Stroke of Luck_ [2002], "Death Takes a Holiday" - - Death in itself is nothing; but we fear To be we know not what, we know not where. --John Dryden (1631—1700) English poet, critic, and dramatist. _Aureng-Zebe_ [1676], act IV, sc. i Dead men tell no tales. --John Dryden (1631—1700) English poet, critic, and dramatist. _Absalom and Achitophel_ [1681] - How many deaths will it take till he knows That too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind. --Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (1941— ) American singer and songwriter. "Blowin' in the Wind" [1962 song] - I have to apologize to you that I am still among the living. There will be a remedy for this however. --Albert Einstein (1879—1955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. (Letter of 25 August 1946 to Tyffany Williams, a child in South Africa who expressed surprise on learning that Einstein was still alive.) To one bent on age, death will come as a release. I feel this quite strongly now that I have grown old myself and have come to regard death like an old debt, at long last to be discharged. Still, instinctively one does everything possible to postpone the final settlement. Such is the game that Nature plays with us. --Albert Einstein (1879—1955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. [To Gertrud Warschauer on 5 February 1955.] - Oh may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence. --George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] (1819—1880) English novelist. "Oh May I Join the Choir Invisible" [1867 poem] Every man is entitled to be valued by his best moment. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882) American philosopher and poet. _The Conduct of Life_ [1860], "Beauty" Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not. --Epicurus (341—270 B.C.) Greek philosopher. In Diogenes Laërtius _Lives of the Eminent Philosophers_ - A sweet thing, for whatever time, to revisit in dreams the dear dead we have lost. --Euripides (485?—406 B.C.) Greek dramatist. _Alcestis_ [438 BC], Line 355 Who knows that 'tis not life which we call death, and death our life on earth? --Euripides (485?—406 B.C.) Greek dramatist. - If Mr. Selwyn calls again, show him up: if I am alive, I shall be delighted to see him; and if I am dead, he will be delighted to see me. --Henry Fox (1705—1774) English Whig politician Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. --Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. Letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy [13 November 1789]. - Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glint on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain. When you wake in the morning hush, I am the swift, uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circling flight. I am the soft starlight at night. Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there, I do not sleep. (Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there, I did not die!) --Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905—2004) American poet. "Do not stand at my grave and weep" [1932] - We hold reunions, not for the dead, for there is nothing in all the earth that you and I can do for the dead. They are past our help and past our praise. We can add to them no glory, we can give to them no immortality. They do not need us, but forever and forever more we need them. --James A. Garfield (1831—1881) 20th President of the United States [1881]. Ask her to wait a moment - I am almost done. --Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777—1855) German mathematician and scientist. (Working, and informed that his wife is dying.) Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. --Theodor Seuss Geisel [Dr. Seuss] (1904—1991) American writer and illustrator of children's books. - "Tender-Heartedness" by Harry Graham (1874—1936) British writer and journalist. Billy, in one of his nice new sashes, Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes; Now, although the room grows chilly, I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy. "L'enfant Glace" by Harry Graham (1874—1936) British writer and journalist. When Baby's cries grew hard to bear I popped him in the Frigidaire. I never would have done so if I'd known that he'd be frozen stiff. My wife said, "George, I'm so unhappe! Our darling's now completely frappe!' - And isn't it funny, she thought, that it takes two generations to kill off a man?. . . First him, and then his memory. --Shirley Anne Grau (1929— ) American author. end page \| DANCING - DAY \| DEATH - PAGE 1 (A-G) \| DEATH - PAGE 2 (H-Z) \| DEBATE - DEEDS \| DECEPTION \| DEFEAT - DELAY \| DEMOCRACY \| DENIAL - DESIRE \| DESPAIR - DICKENS (CHARLES) \| DICTIONARY - DILIGENCE \| DINNER - DISABILITY \| DISAGREEMENT - DISGUISE \| DISHONESTY - DOCTORS \| DOGS \| (ON) DOING GOOD - DREAMS \| DRESS - DRUNKENNESS \| DUELS - DUTY \| \| A \| B \| C \| D \| E \| F \| G \| \| Return Home \| The Credits \| The Cast \| Act 1 \| Act 2 \| Act 3 \| The End \| The Reviews \| Photos \|