Quotes About Mortality

Waiting for a special occasion to kill me? Christmas is coming.

Death, the sable smoke where vanishes the flame.

And if I laugh at any mortal thing, This that I may not weep.

My time has been passed viciously and agreeably at thirty-one so few years months days hours or minutes remain that 'Carpe Diem' is not enough. I have been obliged to crop even the seconds-for who can trust to tomorrow

There is an order Of mortals on the earth, who do become Old in their youth, and die ere middle age, Without the violence of warlike death; Some perishing of pleasure, some of study, Some worn with toil, some of mere weariness, Some of disease, and some insanity, And some of wither'd or of broken hearts; For this last is a malady which slays More than are number'd in the lists of Fate, Taking all shapes and bearing many names.

The humblest individual under heaven,   Than might suffice a moderate century through. I knew that nought was lasting, but now even   Change grows too changeable without being new.

But I being fond of true philosophy, Say very often to myself, 'Alas! All things that have been born were born to die, And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass; You've pass'd your youth not so unpleasantly, And if you had it o'er again—'t would pass— So thank your stars that matters are no worse, And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse.

Ah me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen, To follow half on which the eye dilates Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken. Than those whereof such things the bard relates, Who to the awe-struck world unlocked Elysium's gates?

Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, Count o'er thy days from anguish free, And know, whatever thou hast been, 'Tis something better not to be. [First published, Childe Harold, 1812

All things must pass.

Call in thy death's head there: tie up thy fears.

The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockrow.

How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset.

I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.

Full lasting is the song, though he,The singer, passes.

Days, when the ball of our vision Had eagles that flew unabashed to sun; When the grasp on the bow was decision, And arrow and hand and eye were one; When the Pleasures, like waves to a swimmer, Came heaving for rapture ahead!- Invoke then, they dwindle, they glimmer As lights over mounds of the dead. -Ode to Youth and Memory

I know that no one would live outThirty years, fifty years if the world were endingWith his life.

His golden locks time hath to silver turned;O time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing!His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned,But spurned in vain; youth waneth by increasing.

I learned how to die a long time ago.

La muerte es tan... definitiva! Mientras que la vida está llena de posibilidades

Warum sollte der Tod einen Mann ehrlicher oder gar klüger machen? Die Toten sind wahrscheinlich dumme Kerle, die sich unaufhörlich beklagen - die Erde ist zu kalt, mein Grabstein sollte größer sein, warum hat er mehr Würmer als ich...

Nothing makes the past a sweeter place to visit than the prospect of imminent death.

Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.

Every man must die, Jon Snow. But first he must live.