Quotes About Mortality

The sense of death is most in apprehension,And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,In corporal sufferance finds a pang as greatAs when a giant dies.

The worst is death, and death will have his day.

He dies, and makes no sign.

What is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?And, live we how we can, yet die we must.

And then he drew a dial from his poke,And, looking on it with lack-luster eye,Says very wisely, "It is ten o'clock;Thus may we see," quoth he, "how the world wags."

Death, death: O, amiable lovely death!

I have touch'd the highest point of all my greatness;And from that full meridian of my glory,I haste now to my setting: I shall fallLike a bright exhalation in the evening,And no man see me more.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day, As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by-and-by black night doth take away...

This fell sergeant, death,Is strict in his arrest.

Alas, poor Yorick I knew him Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy...

Cowards die a thousand deaths. The valiant taste of death but once.

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying Nothing.

The sands are number'd that make up my life.

To die, to sleep --To sleep, perchance to dream, ay there's the rub,For in that sleep of death what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause there's the respectThat makes calamity of so long life.

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; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

When I did the film Generations, in which the character died, I felt like a guest for the first time. That made me very sad.

What is involved in such issues, in the end, is learning to respect the freedom of the dead to be dead; honoring the dead in their status as dead people, and refraining from harassment of the dead by refusing to mythologize the dead or enshrine them. What is at stake is recognition by those in grief of the right of the dead to be regarded mortally, which is to say, to be treated humanly in death.

General Polk, who was dignified and corpulent, walked back slowly, not wishing to appear too hurried or cautious in the presence of the men, and was struck across the breast by an unexploded shell, which killed him instantly.

Everyone dies. Not everyone really lives.

I wish I could have known earlier that you have all the time you'll need right up to the day you die.

How fast has brother followed brother, From sunshine to the sunless land!

The clouds that gather round the setting sunDo take a sober coloring from an eyeThat hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;Another race hath been, and other palms are won.Thanks to the human heart by which we live,Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,To me the meanest flower that blows can giveThoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.