Drakus's blog: "Quotes"

Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.
A. Sachs

When I pass, speak freely of my shortcomings and my flaws. Learn from them, for I'll have no ego to injure.
Aaron McGruder, Boondocks, 07-04-04

Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny.
Aeschylus (525 BC - 456 BC), Agamemnon

Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.
Bertolt Brecht (1898 - 1956), The Mother, 1932

For certain is death for the born
And certain is birth for the dead;
Therefore over the inevitable
Thou shouldst not grieve.
Bhagavad Gita (250 BC - 250 AD), Chapter 2

He not busy being born is busy dying.
Bob Dylan (1941 - )

I'd rather get my brains blown out in the wild than wait in terror at the slaughterhouse.
Craig Volk, Northern Exposure, A-Hunting We Will Go, 1991

The killing was the best part. It was the dying I couldn't take.
Craig Volk, Northern Exposure, A-Hunting We Will Go, 1991

Be open to your dreams, people. Embrace that distant shore. Because our mortal journey is over all too soon.
David Assael, Northern Exposure, It Happened in Juneau, 1992

A man should not leave this earth with unfinished business. He should live each day as if it was a pre-flight check. He should ask each morning, am I prepared to lift-off?
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, All is Vanity, 1991

Death is the enemy. I spent 10 years of my life singlemindedly studying, practicing, fighting hand to hand in close quarters to defeat the enemy, to send him back bloodied and humble and I am not going to roll over and surrender.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, First Snow, 1993

I am going to concentrate on what's important in life. I'm going to strive everyday to be a kind and generous and loving person. I'm going to keep death right here, so that anytime I even think about getting angry at you or anybody else, I'll see death and I'll remember.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Do The Right Thing, 1992

It's no accident that the church and the graveyard stand side by side. The city of the dead sleeps encircled by the city of the living.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Lost and Found, 1992
 
The fact that we don't know this man, isn't important really. Cause his experience is our experience, and his fate is our fate. Vani tass, vani tatum, et omni i vani tass, says the preacher. All is vanity I think that's a pretty good epitaph for all of us. When we're stripped of all our worldly possessions and all our fame, family, friends, we all face death alone. But it's that solitude in death that's our common bond in life. I know it's ironic, but that's just the way things are. Vani tass, vani tatum, et omni i vani tass. Only when we understand all is vanity, only then, it isn't.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, All is Vanity, 1991

Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Epicurus (341 BC - 270 BC), from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

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)

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952), Soliloquies in England, 1922, "War Shrines"

Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.
Horace (65 BC - 8 BC), Odes

I am not dying, not anymore than any of us are at any moment. We run, hopefully as fast as we can, and then everyone must stop. We can only choose how we handle the race.
Hugh Elliott, Standing Room Only weblog comments, 06-11-04

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.
Johnny Carson (1925 - 2005)

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.
Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745)

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.
Joseph Stalin (1879 - 1953)

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.
Lois McMaster Bujold, Diplomatic Immunity, 2002

Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 AD - 180 AD), Meditations

The report of my death was an exaggeration.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), New York Journal, June 2, 1897

Never knock on Death's door: ring the bell and run away! Death really hates that!
Matt Frewer, as Dr. Mike Stratford in "Doctor, Doctor"

I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means.
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), upon being told the cost of an operation

It's sad when our daddies die. Makes us one less person inside.
Pamela Ribon, Why Girls Are Weird, 2003

Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?
Plato (427 BC - 347 BC), Dialogues, Phaedo

As men, we are all equal in the presence of death.
Publilius Syrus (~100 BC), Moral Sayings, First Century B.C.

The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself.
Publilius Syrus (~100 BC), Maxims

The fact that when we die we are nothing more than worm meat---I just don't think about it.
Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess, Northern Exposure, Grosse Pointe 48230, 1993

As we look deeply within, we understand our perfect balance. There is no fear of the cycle of birth, life and death. For when you stand in the present moment, you are timeless.
Rodney Yee

If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive.
Samuel Goldwyn (1882 - 1974)

There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 - 1930)

Death is not the worst; rather, in vain
To wish for death, and not to compass it.
Sophocles (496 BC - 406 BC), Electra

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)

Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
William Goldman, "The Princess Bride"
 
Those who welcome death have only tried it from the ears up.
Wilson Mizner (1876 - 1933)

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying.
Woody Allen (1935 - )

It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune.
Woody Allen (1935 - )

On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down.
Woody Allen (1935 - )

There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?
Woody Allen (1935 - )

"When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them, they show us the state of our decay."
-- Brian Aldiss (b. 1925)