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DEATH [PAGE 2 H-Z]

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Excerpt from "Turn Again to Life"
by Mary Lee Hall

If I should die and leave you here awhile,
Be not like others sore undone,
Long vigils by the silent dust, and weep.
For my sake turn again to life and smile,
Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort other hearts than thine.
Complete those dear unfinished tasks of mine,
And I, perchance, may therein comfort you.

-

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 Hamilton
"Along the Road" in _The Century Magazine_ [February 1913].

-

-

Tired of living,
And scared of dying.
--Oscar Hammerstein II (1895—1960)
American songwriter.
"Ol' Man River" in the musical _Show Boat_ [1927 song].

^

Bret Harte (1836—1902)
American writer.

Bret Harte once attended a lecture in Richmond, Virginia,
suffering from a miserable headache. Afterward, to clear
his head, he took a walk with a Richmond friend, who
expatiated on the city's wholesome air and location,
adding proudly that its mortality statistics reflected
only one death per day. Harte, still in agony with his
headache, exclaimed, 'Heavens, let's hope today's
candidate is already dead.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the
moment of waking from a troubled dream; it
may be so the moment after death.
--Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—1864)
American novelist and short-story writer.
Journal entry [25 October 1836].

No young man believes he shall ever die.
--John Hazlitt (1767—1837)
English painter.
William Hazlitt (1778—1830) quotes his brother in the
1827 essay "On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth".

Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that
life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when
we were not: this gives us no concern — why then should it
trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?
--William Hazlitt (1778—1830)
English essayist.
_Table Talk_ [1822] "On the Fear of Death"

One doth but breakfast here, another dines, he that
liveth longest doth but sup; we must all go to bed
in another world.
--Joseph Henshaw (1603—1679)
English bishop and author.
_Horζ Sucissive_ [1631]

Death is nothing at all; it does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
--Henry Scott Holland (1847—1918)
English theologian and preacher.
Sermon preached on Whitsunday [1910].

A man over ninety is a great comfort to all his elderly neighbors;
he is a picket-guard at the extreme outpost; and the young folks
of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy must get by him before
he can come near their camp.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894)
American physician, poet, and essayist.
_The Guardian Angel_ [1867]

His death, which happen'd in his berth,
At forty-odd befell:
They went and told the sexton, and
The sexton toll'd the bell.
--Thomas Hood (1799—1845)
English poet and humorist.
"Faithless Sally Brown"

-

"On the Death of a Female Officer of the Salvation Army"
by A.E. [Alfred Edward] Houseman (1859—1936)
English classical scholar and poet

'Hallelujah!' was the only observation
That escaped Lieutenant-Colonel Mary Jane,
When she tumbled off the platform in the station,
And was cut in little pieces by the train.
Mary Jane, the train is through yer,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah!
We will gather up the fragments that remain.

-

Remembrance of the dead soon fades. Alas! in their
tombs they decay more slowly than in our hearts.
--Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
French poet, dramatist, and novelist.
Attributed in J. De Finod (comp.)
_A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness_ [1886].

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal;
love leaves a memory no one can steal.
--from a headstone in Ireland.

I had an interest in death from an early age.
It fascinated me. When I heard 'Humpty
Dumpty sat on a wall,' I thought, 'Did
he fall or was he pushed?'
--P.D. [Phyllis Dorothy] James (b. 1920)
English writer of detective stories.
In "Paris Review" [1995].

-

I see no comfort in outliving one's friends, and
remaining a mere monument of the times which
are past.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
In a letter to Charles Pinckney [3 September 1816].


It is of some comfort to us both that the term
is not very distant at which we are to deposit
in the same cerement our sorrows and suffering
bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic
meeting with the friends we have loved and lost,
and whom we shall still love and never lose
again.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
In a letter to John Adams [13 November 1818].

-

Since the first century, 149 million people have died in major
wars; 111 million of those deaths occured in the twentieth
century. War deaths per population soared from 3.2 deaths
per 1,000 in the sixteenth century to 44.4 per thousand in
the twentieth.
--Haynes Johnson (b. 1931)
American journalist; winner of the 1966 Pulitzer Prize
for National Reporting.
_The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years_ [2001]

-

It matters not how a man dies, but how he
lives. The act of dying is not of importance,
it lasts so short a time.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
In James Boswell _The Life of Samuel Johnson_ "26 October 1769" [1791].


That we must all die, we always knew;
I wish I had sooner remembered it.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
Letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds [21 July 1784].

-

-

[After the death of his mother, a 7-year-old asks his father about heaven:]

'She can't just end.' he said after a while. 'She was too nice to just
end. She's got to be somewhere.'

'But that's just it, Benny. She *is* somewhere. Your mother goes on
in you. You've got her genes, for one thing. You don't know what
genes are, but you've got them: her hair, her eyes. ... And because
she was a good person who taught you the right values, you'll grow
up to be a good person as well, and you'll have kids of your own
someday, and your mother will go on in them and in *their* children.
Your mother still lives in our memories, too, and in the memories of
her friends. Because she was kind to so many people, those people
were shaped to some small degree by her kindness. They'll now and
then remember her, and because of her they might be kinder to
people, and that kindness goes on and on.'

--Dean Koontz (b. 1945)
American novelist.
"Twilight of the Dawn" in _Strange Highways_ [1995].

-

If some men died and others did not, death
would indeed be a most mortifying evil.
--Jean de La Bruyθre (1645—1696)
French essayist and moralist.
Attributed in John Timbs
_Laconics: Or, The Best Words of the Best Authors_, p. 22 [1829].

The death of a man's wife is like cutting down an ancient oak that has long
shaded the family mansion. Henceforth the glare of the world, with its cares
and vicissitudes, falls upon the old widower's heart, and there is nothing to
break their force, or shield him from the full weight of misfortune. It is as if
his right hand were withered; as if one wing of his angel was broken, and
every movement that he made brought him to the ground.
--Alphonse de Lamartine (1790—1869)
French poet, novelist, and statesman.
Attributed in Henry Southgate (ed.)
_Many Thoughts of Many Minds_, p. 655 [1862, 3rd edition].

-

I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days—
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. [...]

So might we talk of the old familiar faces—

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed—
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

--Charles Lamb (1775—1834)
English essayist.
_The Old Familiar Faces_ [1798]

-

The dead don't die. They look on and help.
--D.H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (1885—1930)
English novelist and poet.
Letter to J. Middleton Murry [2 February 1923].

The actor John Le Mesurier arranged for his own death notice
to appear in _The Times_ when appropriate. It duly appeared
on 16 November 1983, in the form: 'John Le Mesurier wishes
it to be known that he conked out on November 15th. He sadly
misses family and friends.' His last words were, 'It's all been
rather lovely.'
--_The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_
Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005] "Death"

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep,
so life well used brings happy death.
--Leonardo da Vinci (1452—1519)
Florentine painter, sculptor, musician, and scientist.
_The Notebooks [1508—1518]_ vol. 1, ch. 1

If you were going to die soon and had only one
phone call you could make, who would you call
and what would you say? And why are you
waiting?
--Stephen Levine (b. 1937)
American autor and poet.
Quoted in Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen _Chicken Soup for the
Soul: 101 Stories to Open the Heart & Rekindle the Spirit_, p. 111 [1993].

-

'Tis the cessation of our breath.
Silent and motionless we lie;
And no one knoweth more than this.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
_The Golden Legend_ [1851]


In the village churchyard she lies,
Dust is in her beautiful eyes,
No more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs;
At her feet and at her head
Lies a slave to attend the dead,
But their dust is white as hers.

Was she a lady of high degree,
So much in love with the vanity
And foolish pomp of this world of ours?
Or was it Christian charity,
And lowliness and humility,
The richest and rarest of all dowers?

Who shall tell us? No one speaks;
No color shoots into those cheeks,
Either of anger or of pride,
At the rude question we have asked;
Nor will the mystery be unmasked
By those who are sleeping at her side.

Hereafter?--And do you think to look
On the terrible pages of that Book
To find her failings, faults, and errors?
Ah, you will then have other cares,
In your own short-comings and despairs,
In your own secret sins and terrors!

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
"In the Churchyard at Cambridge" in _Birds of Passage_ [1858].


So Nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the what we know.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
"Nature" in _The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems_ [1876].


Dead he is not, but departed - for the artist never dies.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
_Nuremberg_, st. 13


Oh, what hadst thou to do with cruel Death,
Who wast so full of life, or Death with thee,
That thou shouldst die before thou hadst grown old!
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
_Three Friends of Mine_, pt. II

-

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near.
--Andrew Marvell (1621—1678)
English poet.
"To His Coy Mistress"

-

"The Appointment in Samarra"
(as retold by W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965)
English novelist, [1933])

The speaker is Death:

There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to
buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and
trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace
I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it
was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening
gesture, now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city
and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find
me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and
he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he
went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw
me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you
make a threating gesture to my servant when you saw him this
morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only
a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I
had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.


I have walked with death in hand, and death's
hand is warmer than my own. I don't wish to
live anymore.
--W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965)
English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer.
Said on his 90th birthday.


Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice
to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
--W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965)
English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer.
Quoted in Robin Maugham _Conversations with Willie_ [1978].

-

No love, no friendship can cross the path of
our destiny without leaving some mark on it
forever.
--attributed to Franηois Mauriac (1885—1970)
French poet, novelist, and dramatist.

Of all escape mechanisms, death is the most efficient.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.
_A Book of Burlesques_ [1916]

It was the same when, out of a deep sleep in an
Atlantic City hotel where we were spending the
High Holidays, she suddenly sat up and said,
"My mother died" --which she had, it turned
out, and at approximately that hour of the night.
--Arthur Miller (1915—2005)
American dramatist.
Relating his wife's premonitions in _Timebends_, p. 28 [1987].

[Of clouds:]
They are fair resting-places
For the dear weary dead on their way up to heaven.
--Joaquin Miller [Cincinnatus Hiner Miller] (1837—1913)
American poet and journalist.
"Ina", sc. I in _Songs of the Sierras_ [1871].

[When told of the death of Calvin Coolidge:]
How can they tell?
--Wilson Mizner (1876—1933)
American playwright.
Quoted in "Esquire" [July 1938].

The goal in life is to die young – as late as possible.
--Ashley Montagu [Israel Ehrenberg] (1905—1999)
English anthropologist and humanist.
Quoted in Joseph Sutton _Words of Wellness: A Treasury of Quotations_ [1991].

The advantage of living is not measured by length,
but by use; some men have lived long, and lived
little; attend to it while you are in it.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.
_Essais_, bk. I, ch. xx [1580].

Live fast, die young, and have a good looking corpse!
--Willard Motley (1909—1965)
American novelist.
_Knock on Any Door_, ch. 35 [1947]

I can't think of a more wonderful thanksgiving for
the life I have had than that everyone should be
jolly at my funeral.
--Louis Mountbatten (1900—1979)
British war hero.
In Richard Hough's _Mountbatten_ [1980].

Life is a great surprise. I do not see why
death should not be an even greater one.
--Vladimir Nabokov [pen name Vladimir Sirin] (1899—1977)
Russian novelist.
_Pale Fire_ [1962]

When death gives us a long lease of life, it
takes as hostages all those whom we have
loved.
--Madame Suzanne Necker [nιe Curchod] (1739—1794)
Swiss wife of Jacques Necker, mistress of
a Parisian salon, and mother of Madame de Staλl.
Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Pearls of Thought_, p. 57 [1881].

Pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal.
--William Nicholson (b. 1948)
English screenwriter, playwright, and novelist.
"Shadowlands" [1985 television film]

God is dead, but given the way of men, there may still be caves for
thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we —
we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844—1900)
German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture.
_The Gay Science_ (Die frφhliche Wissenschaft), bk. 3 [1882]

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in
our lives means the most to us, we often find that
it is those who, instead of giving much advice,
solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share
our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and
tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us
in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay
with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who
can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing
and face with us the reality of our powerlessness,
that is a friend who cares.
--Henri Nouwen (1932—1996)
Dutch Catholic priest and writer.
_Out of Solitude_ [1974]

Die, my dear doctor, that's the last thing I shall do!
--Lord Palmerston [Henry John Temple] (1784—1865)
British politician.
Attributed in "Buffalo Medical and Surgical Journal" [July 1890].

-

It costs me never a stab nor squirm
To tread by chance upon a worm.
'Aha, my little dear,' I say,
'Your clan will pay me back one day.'
--Dorothy Parker (1893—1967)
American critic and humorist.
"Thought for a Sunshiny Morning" [1928]


Lillian Hellman was with Dorothy Parker when her husband Alan's
body was being taken from the house where he died --

Among the friends who stood with Dottie on those California steps
was Mrs Jones, a woman who had liked Alan, pretended to like Dottie,
and who had always loved all forms of meddling in other people's
troubles. Mrs. Jones said, 'Dottie, tell me, dear, what I can do for you.'

Dottie said, 'Get me a new husband.'

There was a silence, but before those who would have laughed could
laugh, Mrs. Jones said, 'I think that is the most callous and disgusting
remark I ever heard in my life.'

Dottie turned to look at her, sighed, and said gently, 'So sorry. Then
run down to the corner and get me a ham and cheese on rye - and tell
them to hold the mayo.'

_The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_
Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005], "Death"

-

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died.
Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.
--George S. Patton, Jr. (1885—1945)
American general.
Speech in Boston, Massachusetts [7 June 1945].

We are continually dying; I while I am writing these words, you
while you are reading them. I shall be dying when you read this,
you die while I write, we both are dying, we all are dying, we
are dying forever.
--Petrarch [Francesco Petrarca] (1304—1374)
Italian scholar, poet, and Humanist.
Letter to Philippe de Cabassoles [c. 1360].

There's something in the parting hour,
Will chill the warmest heart;
Yet kindred, comrades, lovers, friends,
Are fated all to part;
The one who goes is happier,
Than those he leaves behind.
--Edward Pollock (1823—1858)
_The Parting Hour_

Below my window. . . The blossom is out in full now . . .
I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomiest blossom
that there ever could be, and I can see it. Things are
both more trivial than they ever were, and more
important than they ever were, and the difference
between the trivial and the important doesn't seem
to matter. But the nowness of everything is
absolutely wondrous.
--Dennis Potter (1935—1994)
English television dramatist.
(On his heightened awareness of things in the face of his imminent death.)

[At his hanging the Reverend William Dodd
mounted the scaffold with a faint smile:]
The English know how to die!
--a Prussian traveler named Archenholtz, to his friend,
as quoted in W. Jackson Bate _Samuel Johnson_ [1975].

The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself.
--Publilius Syrus (85—43 B.C.)
Latin writer of mimes who was originally a slave.
Maxim 511.

I am going to seek a great perhaps;
draw the curtain, the farce is played.
--Franηois Rabelais (c. 1494— c. 1553]
French humanist, satirist, and physician.
Attributed in W. Gurney Benham
_A Book of Quotations, Proverbs and Household Words_, p. 717 [1907].

Even such is Time, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust,
Which in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our day;
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.
--Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552—1618)
English explorer and courtier.
(Lines said to have been written on the eve of his execution.)

Death is a distant rumor to the young.
--attributed to Andy Rooney (b. 1919)
American news commentator, producer, and author.

-

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.

Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

--Christina Rossetti [pseud. Ellen Alleyne] (1830—1894)
English poet.
_Goblin Market_ [1862], "Remember"

-

Six years have already passed since my
friend went away from me ... If I try to
describe him here, it is to make sure that
I shall not forget him. To forget a friend
is sad. Not everyone has had a friend.
--Antoine de Saint-Exupιry (1900—1944)
French novelist.
_The Little Prince_ [1944]

Waldo is one ot those people who would
be enormously improved by death.
--Saki [Hector Hugh Munro] (1870—1916)
Scottish writer.
_Beasts and Super-Beasts_ [1914] "The Feast of Nemesis"

Why is there always a secret singing
When a lawyer cashes in?
Why does a hearse horse snicker
Hauling a lawyer away?
--Carl Sandburg (1878—1967)
American poet.
"The Lawyers Know Too Much" in _Smoke and Steel_ [1920].

Here is how we are different from those wonderful plants and
animals. As long as we can love each other and remember the
feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going
away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories
are still there. You live on in the hearts of everyone you have
touched and nurtured while you were here. Death ends a life,
not a relationship.
--Morris "Morrie" S. Schwartz (1916—1995)
Sociology professor and author.
In Mitch Albom _Tuesdays With Morrie_ [1997].

He who dies with the most toys is, nonetheless, still dead.
--attributed to Jerry Seinfeld (b. 1954)
American actor, writer, and comedian.

-

Death is sometimes a punishment;
often a gift; to many, a favor.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
_Hercules Oetaeus_


Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the
end of all. It sets the slave at liberty, carries the banished
man home, and places all mortals on the same level,
insomuch that life itself were a punishment without it.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_, p. 116 [1872].
(Compare with Colton on previous page.)


What madness is it for a man to starve himself to enrich
his heir, and so turn a friend into an enemy! For his joy
at your death will be proportioned to what you leave him.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
Quoted in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_, p. 232 [15th ed. 1894].

-

-

Dead as a doornail.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_King Henry VI_, pt. 2, IV, x [1590—1591]


Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
See that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Julius Caesar_, II, ii, 32 [1599]


To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Hamlet_, III, i, 65 [1601]


Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_All's Well That Ends Well_, V, iii [1602-1604]


Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendant world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling --- 'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Measure for Measure_, III, i [1604]


Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Macbeth_, I, iv, 7 [1606]

-

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any
more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist
propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]
_The Doctor's Dilemma_, act V [1906]

First our pleasures die--and then
Our hopes, and then our fears--and when
These are dead, the debt is due,
Dust claims dust--and we die too.
--Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792—1822)
English poet.
_Death_

If there wasn't death, I think you couldn't go on.
--Stevie [Florence Margaret] Smith (1902—1971)
English poet and novelist.
In "Observer" [9 November 1969].

[After William Randolph Hearst endorsed
Ogden Mills for governor of New York:]
Hearst gave him the kiss of death.
--Alfred E. Smith (1873—1944)
American politician; four-time Democratic governor of New York
and the first Roman Catholic to run for President of the U.S..
Quoted in "N.Y.Times" [25 October 1926]. According to Fred R.
Shapiro (ed.) in _The Yale Book of Quotations_ [2006], that was
the "earliest known usage of 'kiss of death.' "

-

Suppose you are a gardener employed by another. It
is not your garden, but you are called upon to tend
it. You come one morning into the garden, and you
find that the best rose has been taken away. You
are angry. You go to your fellow servants and charge
them with having taken the rose. They declare that
they had nothing to do with it, and one says, "I saw
the master walking here this morning; I think he took
it."

Is the gardener angry then? No, at once he says, "I
am happy that my rose should have been so fair as
to attract the attention of the master. It is his own.
He has taken it, let him do what seems good."

It is even so with your friends. They wither not by
chance. The grave is not filled by accident. Men
die according to God's will. Your child is gone,
but the Master took it. Your husband is gone, your
wife is buried--the Master took them. Thank him
that he let you have the pleasure of caring for them
and tending them while they were here. And thank
him that as he gave, he himself has taken away.

--Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834—1892)
English nonconformist preacher.
_New York Street Pulpit_, vol. 4 [1858]

-

One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.
--attributed to Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1879—1953),
Soviet Communist leader and head of the USSR from
the death of V. I. Lenin (1924) until his own death.

^

Thaddeus Stevens (1792—1868)
American politician and lawyer.

A visitor who called on Stevens during his last
illness remarked on the patient's appearance.
'It's not my appearance that troubles me right
now,' Stevens replied. 'It's my disappearance.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for
words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
--Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811—1896)
American writer and philanthropist.
_Little Foxes_ [1865]

If this is dying, then I don't think much of it.
--Lytton Strachey (1880—1932)
English biographer.
In Michael Holroyd _Lytton Stratchey_ vol. 2 [1968].

-

Scatter my ashes in my garden
so I can be near my loves.
Say a few honest words,
sing a gentle song,
join hands in a circle of flesh.
Please tell some stories
about me making you laugh.
I love to make you laugh.

When I’ve had time to settle,
and green gathers into buds,
remember I love blossoms
bursting in spring.
As the season ripens
remember my persistent passion.

And if you come into my garden
on an August afternoon,
pluck a bright red globe,
let juice run down your chin
and the seeds stick to your cheek.

When I’m dead I want folks to smile
and say, 'That Patti, she sure is
some tomato!'

--Patti Tana
American poet and teacher.
"Post Humus" in _Ask the Dreamer Where Night Begins_ [1986].

-

-

I hold it true, whate'er befall,
I feel it when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809—1892)
English poet.
"In Memoriam A. H. H." [1850]
(Arthur Henry Hallam was the fiancι of Tennyson's
sister Emily and died suddenly in September 1833.)

& see:

Say what you will, 'tis better to be
left than never to have been loved.
--William Congreve (1670—1729)
English dramatist.
"The Way of the World", act 2, sc. I [1700]


Ah, Christ, that it were possible,
For one short hour to see
The souls we loved, that they might tell us
What and where they be.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809—1892)
English poet.
"Maud; A Monodrama", pt. XXVI [1856]

-

I've noticed when a fellow dies, no matter what he's been -
A saintly chap or one whose life was darkly steeped in sin -
His friends forget the bitter words they spoke but yesterday,
And now they find a multitude of pretty things to say.
I fancy when I go to rest someone will bring to light
Some kindly word or goodly act long buried out of sight;
But, if it's all the same to you, just give to me instead
The bouquets while I am living and the knocking when I'm dead.
--Louis Edwin Thayer (1878—1956)
"Of Post-Mortem Praises" [1908]

-

Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
--Dylan Thomas (1914—1953)
Welsh poet.
"And death shall have no dominion" [1936]


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
--Dylan Thomas (1914—1953)
Welsh poet.
"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" [1952]

-

The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet.
--Edward Thomas (1878—1917)
English poet.
"Early One Morning", l. 15 [1917]

When a man dies he kicks the dust.
--Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862)
American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher.
_Walden_ [1854] "Economy"

Nothing reopens the springs of love so fully
as absence, and no absence so thoroughly
as that which must needs be endless.
--Anthony Trollope (1815—1882)
English novelist [son of Frances Trollope].
_The Last Chronicle of Barset_ [2 vol., 1867]

-

The report of my death was an exaggeration.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
In a cable from London to the Associated Press [2 June 1897].


Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already
tried it before I was born - a hundred million years - and
I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember
to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put
together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all
sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence
of care, grief, perplexity, and the presence of a deep
content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred
million years of holiday which I look back upon with a
tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume,
when the opportunity comes.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_Autobiography_ [1959 ed.]


I refused to attend his funeral. But I wrote
a very nice letter explaining that I approved
of it.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
Attr. in Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (ed.) _Everyone's Mark Twain_ [1972].


I would like to live in Manchester, England.
The transition between Manchester and death
would be unnoticeable.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
Attributed in John P. Holms & Karin Baji (comps.)
_Bite-Size Twain: Wit and Wisdom from the Literary Legend_ [1998].

-

Some people are so afraid to die
that they never begin to live.
--Henry Van Dyke (1852—1933)
American clergyman, educator, and author.
Quoted in _Forbes_ [1917].

^

Voltaire (1694—1778)
French philosopher, writer, and wit.

At the funeral of a certain nobleman, Voltaire declared,
'He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend --
provided, of course, that he really is dead.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

-

In the dark immensity of night
I stood upon a hill and watched the light
Of a star,
Soundless and beautiful and far.

A scientist standing there with me
Said, 'It is not the star you see,
But a glow
That left the star light years ago.'

Men are like stars in a timeless sky:
The light of a good man's life shines high,
Golden and splendid
Long after his brief earth years are ended.

--Grace V. Watkins (1905—1993)
American poet and essayist.

-

There'll be two dates on your tombstone
And all your friends will read 'em
But all that's gonna matter is
That little dash between 'em.
--Kevin Welch (b. 1955)
American singer and songwriter.
Lyrics, 'Pushing Up Daisies,' in album: _Life Down Here On Earth_ [1995].

One has to embrace the world like a lover. One has to accept
pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and
darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn
in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every
consequence of living and dying.
--Morris Langlo West (1916—1999)
Australian novelist.
_The Shoes of the Fisherman_ [1963]

Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o'er
Those lighted faces smile no more. . . .
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written words we linger o'er,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,
No step is on the conscious floor!
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust
(Since He who knows our need is just)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
--John Greenleaf Whittier (1807—1892)
American poet.
"Snow-Bound" [1866]

-

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
(Sipping champagne on his deathbed.)
Attributed in "The Golden Book Magazine" [1930].


I am in a duel to the death with this
wallpaper, one of us has got to go.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
(One month before he died on his bed.)

-

Though my soul may set in darkness,
it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars to fondly
to be fearful of the night.
--Sarah Williams (1837—1868)
American poet.
"The Old Astronomer to his Pupil" [1868]

He first deceased; she for a little tried
To live without him, liked it not, and died.
--Henry Wotton (1568—1639)
English poet and diplomat.
_Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton's Wife_

Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is
an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.
--Xenophon (c.430—352 B.C.)
Athenian historian.
Attributed in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 211 [1908 ed.].

And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one.
--Edward Young (1683—1765)
English poet.
"Night Thoughts" [1742—1745]

-

I wake up in the morning and dust off my wits,
I grab the newspaper and read the obits.
If I'm not there, I know I'm not dead,
So I have a good breakfast and go back to bed.
--From a turn-of-the-century parlor song, as
quoted in Studs Terkel _Coming of Age_ [1995]

How many hopes lie buried here.
--epitaph on gravestone of 19th century three-year-old

Here today, gone tomorrow.
--anon.

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal.
Love leaves a memory no one can steal.
--From a headstone in Ireland

-

Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great Mercy,
to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed,
we therefore commit his body to the ground;
earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal Life.
--_The Book of Common Prayer_ "The Burial of the Dead"

The _Historical Dictionary of American Slang_ lists "graveyard
watch" (on a ship) as used around 1890; it meant the watch from
midnight to 4 AM. "Graveyard shift" (starting at midnight) for
workmen shows up around 1900.

Doctor Bell fell down the well
And broke his collar-bone.
Doctors should attend the sick
And leave the well alone.
--anon

Remember me as you pass by,
how you are now so once was I.
How I am now one day you'll be,
prepare yourself to follow me.
--anon, epitaph

Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down.
--anon.

-

I wake up in the morning and dust off my wits,
I grab the newspaper and read the obits.
If I'm not there, I know I'm not dead,
So I have a good breakfast and go back to bed.
--From a turn-of-the-century parlor song, as
quoted in Studs Terkel _Coming of Age_ [1995]

--

Q: What's the difference between an American actuary
and a Sicilian actuary?

A: The American actuary knows how many people will
die in a given year. The Sicilian actuary knows
their names.

-

Two 90-year-old women, Rose and Barb, had been friends all of their
lives.

When it was clear that Rose was dying, Barb visited her every day. One
day Barb said, "Rose, we both loved playing women's softball all our
lives, and we played in all through High School. Please do me one
favor: when you get to Heaven, somehow you must let me know if there's
women's softball there."

Rose looked up at Barb from her deathbed, "Barb, you've been my best
friend for many years. If it's at all possible, I'll do this favor for
you."

Shortly after that, Rose passed on.

At midnight a couple of nights later, Barb was awakened from a sound
sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to
her, "Barb Barb."

"Who is it?" asked Barb, sitting up suddenly. "Who is it?"

"Barb -- it's me, Rose."

"You're not Rose. Rose just died."

"I'm telling you, it's me, Rose," insisted the voice.

"Rose! Where are you?"

"In Heaven," replied Rose. "I have some really good news and a
little bad news."

"Tell me the good news first," said Barb.

"The good news," Rose said, "is that there's softball in Heaven.
Better yet, all of our old buddies who died before us are here, too.
Better than that, we're all young again. Better still, it's always
springtime, and it never rains or snows. And best of all, we can play
softball all we want, and we never get tired.."

"That's fantastic," said Barb.. "It's beyond my wildest dreams! So
what's the bad news?"

"You're pitching next Tuesday."

-

-----

bereave (verb) [bi-'reev]
To deprive totally, dispossess, rob, or take away.

elegiac [el-i-JAHY-uhk], adjective:
1. Relating to the mourning or remembering of the dead.
2. Used in, suitable for, or resembling an elegy.
3. Expressing sorrow.

knell [NEL], verb:
The stoke of a bell tolled at a funeral or at the death
of a person; a death signal; a passing bell; hence,
figuratively, a warning of, or a sound indicating, the
passing away of anything.

macabre [muh-KAH-bruh], adjective:
1. Gruesome and horrifying.
2. Pertaining to or representing death, esp. its grimmer or uglier aspect.

moribund (adj.) ['mo-ri-bκnd]
Dying out, on the brink of death.

shroud (noun)
1: a wrap for a corpse; winding sheet.
2: something that covers or conceals like a wrapper.
Example: a shroud of fog.
Cr.Syn.: veil, mantle, cloak
Related: mask, camouflage, cover,


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 |
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