Talk:Death

Cleanup
I've just done two passes of massive cleanup on this theme article. It still needs proper resorting of quotes into "Sourced" and "Unsourced", the former meaning specific published sources provided, including article titles and issue dates; book titles and editions with page numbers or at least chapters; unambiguous audiovisual-work titles and relevant specificity (e.g., song titles, very terse scene descripions, TV-show episode titles & scenes, news-program dates) — basically anything that would provide readers and editors some fighting chance of being able to verify the quote without having to read an entire book or magazine (or year of magazines!), watch an entire TV series or even a whole film, etc.

Some of the quotes currently in the article have this specific sourcing, but I haven't yet moved them into place. For one thing, separating the quotes into subtopics in both "Sourced" and "Unsourced" sections leads to confusion. For another, I'm just tired right now. I invite everyone to help finish this article cleanup. Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 14:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I just did another MASSIVE cleanup of quotes into alphabetized sections, but haven't had time to review the results thoroughly, to check for glitches — and will probably do a bit more within the next day or so, I have to do a few other things now, and must soon leave, but will work on it more after I return. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:11, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Unsourced

 * While you're still sleeping, the saints are still weeping because things you call dead haven't yet had the chance to be born.
 * John Scatman

Living with death - quotes and anecdotes

 * Even at our birth, death does but stand aside a little. And every day he looks towards us and muses somewhat to himself whether that day or the next he will draw nigh.
 * Robert Bolt


 * People aren't afraid of being dead, they're afraid of getting dead.
 * George Carlin


 * It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.
 * Francis Bacon


 * Every blade in the field, Every leaf in the forest, Lays down its life in its season, As beautifully as it was taken up.
 * Henry David Thoreau

Coming to terms with death

 * Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.
 * Oscar Wilde


 * Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all - the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.
 * Mark Twain


 * Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come.
 * Rabindranath Tagore


 * 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


 * On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down.
 * Woody Allen


 * I like the dead – they're so uncritical.
 * Tom Baker


 * Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
 * Albert Einstein


 * To die would be an awfully big adventure.
 * Peter Pan


 * Death, then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live if we cannot bear to die.
 * William Penn


 * Having a child changes every aspect of your life - for the better, of course. The sacrifices are large, but what you get in return is even bigger than the sacrifices you make. I feel, in a sense, ready to die because you are living on in your child. Not literally, not ready to die - but you know, that sort of feeling in a profound way.
 * Heath Ledger


 * I have no terror of Death. It is the coming of Death that terrifies me.
 * Oscar Wilde


 * A long illness seems to be placed between life and death, in order to make death a comfort both to those who die and to those who remain.
 * Jean de La Bruyere (1645–1696).

Death

 * The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
 * Mark Twain


 * Here. Astride the top of nothingness, I suddenly receive the call of death. Who, in passing, tells me that it's nothing. Nothing more than the absence of nothingness. Nothing more than the absence of the word itself. Nothing more, and simply nothingness.
 * Giannina Braschi


 * [Death is] nature's way of telling you to slow down.
 * American life insurance proverb, unidentified article, Newsweek, unidentified 1960 issue


 * Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.
 * Epicurus


 * Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.
 * Horace


 * The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.
 * Erich Maria Remarque


 * Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?
 * Plato


 * We look at death from the selfish side, like, "That guy died. Oh, it's so sad." Why is it sad? He's away from all of this bad stuff that's here on Earth. I mean, at the worst, he's just somewhere quiet, no nothing. At best, he's an angel... or he's a spirit somewhere. What is so bad about that?
 * Tupac Shakur


 * When a tiger dies, it leaves its skin behind. When a person dies, he leaves his name behind.
 * Chinese proverb


 * When I die, I would like to go peacefully, in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming in terror like his passengers.
 * Jack Handey


 * When you were born, you cried, and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
 * Kabir


 * In the beginning the word Good and evil did not exist until the word Death came about.

Death and the meaning of life

 * Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, 'Did you bring joy?'  The second was, 'Did you find joy?'
 * Leo Buscaglia


 * Death and death alone gives meaning to life and this meaning is entirely negative.
 * Georges Poulet


 * When one considers just what a man is, Happy it be that short his span is.
 * James Cagney


 * I said to Life, I would hear Death speak. And Life raised her voice a little higher and said, You hear him now.
 * Khalil Gibran


 * If man were immortal, do you realise what his meat bills would be?
 * Woody Allen


 * There'll be plenty of time to rest in the grave.
 * Paul Erdős


 * The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
 * Harriet Beecher Stowe

Others

 * Everyone will come to my funeral to make sure that I stay dead.
 * Marilyn Manson


 * The dead, if not separated from the living, bring madness upon them.
 * Nyakyusa proverb


 * Men only think of their past right before their death, as if they were searching frantically for proof that they were alive.
 * Jet Black, Cowboy Bebop.


 * Faith in eternal life ceases — but death goes on.
 * Vladimir Jankélévitch


 * Nothing will be left of me. I die utterly as unknown as if I had never been born. Nothingness receive your prey.
 * Jan Potocki

Humor

 * * I intend to live forever. So far, so good!
 * Woody Allen


 * I don't believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.
 * Woody Allen


 * It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune.
 * Woody Allen


 * Those who welcome death have only tried it from the ears up.
 * Wilson Mizner


 * To me, funerals are like bad movies. They last too long, they're overacted, and the ending is predictable.
 * George Burns


 * If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive!
 * Samuel Goldwyn