Inspiration
“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” Richard Bach, (Illusions)
“We meet but briefly in life, if we touch each other with stardust – that is everything.” Author unknown, quote given to us by June Pym.
Death
“Life is like the desert, life the solitude, death joins us to the great majority” Edward Young, 1683 –1765
"Death is delightful. Death is dawn, the waking from a weary night of fevers unto truth and light." Joaquin Miller
"We understand death only after it has placed its hands on someone we love" Anne L. de Stael
"The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation." Herman Hesse
“The soul takes flight to a world that is invisible, and there arriving she is sure of bliss and forever dwells in paradise.” Lady Jane Grey, the movie.
"Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality." Jean Paul Richter
"The tragedy of life is in what dies inside a man while he lives" Norman Cousins
“Death - the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening." Sir Walter Scott
Death of Spouse
“Across the years I will walk with you - in deep green forests, on shores of sand and when our time on earth is through, in heaven too, you will have my hand!” Robert Sexton
Love
"If I could reach up and hold a star for every time you've made me smile, the entire evening sky would be in the palm of my hand" unknown
Mourning
"Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass; it’s about learning to dance in the rain" Author unknown
"Everyone can master a grief but he that has it." Shakespeare
“Don’t be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.” Richard Bach, (Illusions)
"What we have once enjoyed, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes part of us." Helen Keller
"Where there is sorrow there is holy ground." Oscar Wilde
"I would say to those who mourn... look upon each day that comes as a challenge, as a test of courage. The pain will come in waves, some days worse than others, for no apparent reason. Accept the pain. Do not suppress it. Never attempt to hide grief." Daphne du Maurier
"The light has gone out of my life." Theodore Roosevelt, on the death of his wife
“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.” (Little Foxes, 1866)
Young Death
“To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable” Erich Fromm
Elderly
“Years foll’wing Years, steal something ev’ry day, At last they steal us from our selves away.” Alexander Pope
“The family with an old person in it possesses a jewel.” Chinese saying
"Life is a dream walking, death is a going home." Chinese Proverb
“Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional.” Bumper sticker
“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” Adapted from quote by Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige
“Getting old aint for sissies.” Bette Davis
“Perhaps the gods are kind to us, by making life more disagreeable as we grow older. In the end death seems less intolerable than the manifold burdens we carry” Sigmund Freud, (at age 74.)
Suicide
"This morning, for the first time in a long time, the joy again of imagining a knife twisted in my heart.” Franz Kafka
“The real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how swell life gets again after the hell is over.” Ernest Hemingway, a few weeks before committing suicide.
“No neurotic harbors thoughts of suicide which are not murderous impulses against others redirected upon himself.” Sigmund Freud
“Lucius Arruntius killed himself, he said, to escape both the future and the past.” Montaigne, (1553 – 1592)
“Suicide is a privilege of man which deity does not possess.” Pliny the elder, (AD 23-79)
“Dear world, I am leaving you because I am bored. I am leaving you with your worries. Good luck." George Sanders, suicide note 25 April 1972
“One must allow men to do themselves great injuries in order to avoid a greater evil – slavery.” Vauverargues, (1715 – 1747)
“Suicide is what the death certificate says when one dies of depression.” Peter D. Kramer, psychiatrist.
Violence
“They who sow the wind shall reap the typhoon.” Philippine saying
“A piece of each of us died at that moment.” Mike Mansfield, on John F. Kennedy’s assassination
“One of the biggest lies in the world is that crime doesn’t pay. Of course, crime pays.” G. Gordon Liddy
“Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” Louis D. Brandeis
“The greatest crimes are caused by excess and not by necessity.” Aristotle
“Let your love of justice be exceeded only by your love of mercy.” Anonymous
“Most criminals are not born; they are made…. What the State really punishes in a criminal is often its own neglect, its own failure to do its duty to the citizen.” William Randolph Hearst
Terminal Illness
"To live a life half dead, a living death” John Milton
“I, fed with judgement, in a fleshy tomb, am buried above ground.” William Cowper (1731-1800) written during a period of insanity.
“It was not frightening to die sometime, it was frightening to die right now.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, (cancer ward)
“The worst evil of all is to leave the ranks of the living before one dies.” Seneca the younger, 5 BCE to AD 65
“Slowly, gradually, he detached himself, breathing less and less, fainter and fainter; then he was off and free, like a dry leaf from the tree, floating down and away.” Helen Nearing
The Death of a Cricket Player
“His innings is over, his bat is laid down. Bowled out by death's unerring ball.” Unknown
The Death of a Pilot
"We shall never forget them nor the last time we saw them, as they prepared for their mission and waved good-bye and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God."
Quote by Ronald Reagan, addressing NASA employees following the tragic loss of the Challenger 7 crew on STS-51L (extract from the poem 'High Flight' by John Magee, which you can find on the condolence poetry page)
Light Hearted
"Tears are sometimes an inappropriate 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
"There is a remedy for everything; it is called death." Portuguese proverb
“The living are just the dead on holiday” Maurice Maeterlinck, 1862 – 1949
"The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets." Will Rogers
"When you are born you cry and the world is happy; when you die, the world cries and you are happy." From the movie: One Last Thing
“The only reason I might go to the funeral is to make absolutely sure that he’s dead.” Anonymous. (British) On Lord Beaverbrook
“I saw him now going the way of all flesh.” John Webster
Strive not, my soul, for an immortal life, but make the most of what is possible.” Pythian Odes, 518 – 438BC
“Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you’re still alive, it isn’t.” Richard Bach, (Illusions)
“After the game the king and the Pawn go into the same box.” Italian saying
“But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run, we are all dead.” John Maynard Keynes.
Death plucks my ear and says, “live – I’m coming.” Virgil, 70-19BCE
“He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt” Joseph Heller, 1923
“The idea is to die young as late as possible.” Ashley Montagu, (1905 –1999)
“It's nature's way of telling you to slow down.” Anonymous, (Cited as Madison Avenues latest definition of death.)
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inspirational Quotes
