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die quotes

  • We live ignorant and die in errancy as we lived.

    -Abu'l-'Ala   Al-Ma'arri
    c.1000  Luzu'  miyya'  t, stanza 4 (translated by R  A Nicholson in Studies in Islamic Poetry,1921).

  • You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.

    -John Adams
      Letter to Thomas  Jefferson,15  Jul.

  • What a pity is it That we can die but once to serve our country!

    -Joseph Addison
      Cato, act 4, sc.1, l.258^9.

  • See in what peace a Christian can die.

    -Joseph Addison
      Last words, to his stepson Lord Warwick. Quoted in EdwardYoung Conjectures on Original Composition (1759).

  • Once to die is better than length of days in sorrow without end.

    -Aeschylus
    Prometheus Vinctus, l.750^1.

  • It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.

    -Woody pseudonym of  Allen Stewart Konigsberg Allen
      Death:  A Comedy in One Act.

  • Work was like cats were supposed to be: if you disliked and feared it and tried to keep out if its way, it knew at once and sought you out and jumped on your lap and climbed all over you to show how much it loved you. Please God, he thought, don't let me die in harness.

    - Sir Kingsley Amis
      Take A Girl LikeYou, ch.5.

  • Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant! Hail Caesar, we who are about to die salute you!

    -Anonymous
    Traditional formula for gladiators saluting the emperor. One source for the expression is Suetonius Claudius 21:'Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant', ('Hail Emperor, we salute you, we who are about to die!').

  • Yif thou wolte lyve frely, lerne to dye gladly.

    -Anonymous
    c.1375  The Art of Dieing.

  • Export or die.

    -Anonymous
    s  British Board of  Trade.

  • Don't die of ignorance.

    -Anonymous
      AIDS awareness campaign slogan.

  •    Mourir, ce n'est rien. Commence donc par vivre. C'est moins dro"  le et c'est plus long. To die is nothing. Begin by living. It's less funnyand lasts longer.

    -Jean Anouilh
      Rome  o et  Jeannette, act 3.

  • C'est bon pour les hommes de croire aux ide  es et de mourir pour elles. It isgood for people to believe in ideas and die for them.

    -Jean Anouilh
      Antigone.

  • Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris.

    -Thomas Gold Appleton
    Quoted in Oliver Wendell Holmes The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table (1858), ch.6.  Although the speaker in Holmes's book is not identified by name, he is generally identified as  Appleton.

  • You know when I need to die? When I'm done living. When I can't walk, can't eat, can't see, when I'm a crotchety old bastard, mad at the world.Then I can die.

    - Lewis Addison Armistead
      Every Second Counts.

  • Encased in talent like a uniform, The rank of every poet is well known; They can amaze us like a thunderstorm, Or die so young, or live for years alone.

    -W(ystan) H(ugh) Auden
      'The Novelist'.

  • 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,Viscount St Albans Bacon
      Essays, no.2,'Of Death'.

  • When the guns begin to rattle And the men to die Does the Goddess of the Battle Smile or sigh?

    - George Granville Barker
      'Battle Hymn of the New Republic'.

  • To die will be an awfully big adventure.

    - SirJ(ames) M(atthew) Barrie
      Peter Pan (published1928), act 3.

  • Die? I should say not, old fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.

    -John Barrymore
      Quoted in Lionel Barrymore We Barrymores (1951), ch.26.

  • : Oh, but thou dost not know What 'tis to die. :Yes, I do know, my Lord: 'Tis less than to be born; a lasting sleep; A quiet resting from all jealousy, A thing we all pursue; I know besides, It is but giving over of a game, That must be lost.

    - Francis and Fletcher,John Beaumont
         PHILASTERBELLARIO1609  Philaster (published1620), act 3, sc.1.

  • There is Jackson with his Virginians, standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer.

    - Barnard Elliot Bee
    Of General Thomas  J  Jackson, whose resistance stopped the Union advance at Bull Run, 21  Jul. Quoted in B Perley Poore Perley's Reminiscences (1886), vol.2, ch.7.'Stonewall Jackson' became a popular nickname for the General.

  • And the L God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LGod commanded the man, saying,Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thoushalt noteat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORD Genesis 2:15^17.

  • And the serpent said unto the woman,Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Genesis 3:4^5.

  • Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest,Iwill lodge: thy peopleshall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the L do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDRuth1:16^17

  •    For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again: neither doth God respect any person.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Samuel14:14.

  • But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough, now,O L, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORD1 Kings19:4.

  • And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes. Then said his wife unto him,Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Job 2:8^9.

  • To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: Atimeto be born, and atimeto die; atimetoplant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; Atimetoweep, and atimeto laugh; atimetomourn, and a time to dance: A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Ecclesiastes 3:1^8.

  • And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Isaiah 22:13.

  • As I live, saith the Lord G, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his wayand live: turnye, turnye from yourevil ways; for why will ye die,O house of Israel?

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ODEzekiel 33:11.

  • All flesh waxeth old as a garment: for the covenant from the beginning is,Thou shalt die the death.

    -Bible (Apocrypha)
    Ecclesiasticus14:17.

  • If thou hast heard a word, let it die with thee; and be bold, it will not burst thee.

    -Bible (Apocrypha)
    Ecclesiasticus19:10.

  • Whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Romans14:8.

  • But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Corinthians15:20^2.

  • What advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die. See Parker 638:61.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Corinthians15:32.

  • For to me to live is Christ, and to die isgain.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Philippians1:21.

  • It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Hebrews 9:27.

  • Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth:Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Revelation14:13.

  • The only possible regret I have isthe feeling that I will die without having played enough tennis.

    -Jean Borotra
    Quoted in Colin  Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

  • It's a mighty pleasant thing to die like this, once in a way, and hear all the good things said about ye afther you're dead and gone, when they can do you no good. 146

    -Lardner Bursiquot
     Aside by Conn. The Shaughraun, act 3, sc.2.

  • Do not take up music unless you would rather die than not do so.

    - Nadia Boulanger
    Advice to her pupils. Quoted in  Alan Kendall The Tender Tyrant: Nadia Boulanger (1976).

  • I'm sixty-two, and it's ecological sense to die while you're still productive, die and clear a space for others, old and young.

    - Harold Brodkey
      This Wild Darkness: The Story of My Death.

  •   If I should die, thinkonly this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich dust a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

    - Rupert Chawner Brooke
      'The Soldier'.

  • I am as content to die for God's eternal truth on the scaffold as in any other way.

    -John Brown
      Letter to his children on the eve of his execution, 2 Dec.

  • There was three kings into the east, Three kings both great and high, And they hae sworn a solemn oath John Barleycorn should die.

    - Robert Burns
      'John Barleycorn.  A Ballad', stanza1.

  • Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die!

    - Robert Burns
      'Bruce's  Address at Bannockburn', stanza 3.

  • Old man! 'tis not so difficult to die. Don Juan

    -Rochdale
      Manfred (2nd edn), act 3, sc.4.

  • Iacta est alea. The die is cast.

    - Irving Caesar
      BC  Comment on crossing the river Rubicon (the border between his province and Italy) with his troops, thereby committing himself to civilwar. Quoted in Suetonius Lives of the Twelve Caesars,'Divus Iulius', section 32.

  • To-morrow let us do or die!

    -Thomas Campbell
      'Gertrude of  Wyoming', pt.3, stanza 37.

  • La plupart des gens ne meurent qu'au dernier moment; d'autres commencent et s'y prennent vingt ans d'avance et parfois davantage. Ce sont les malheureux de la terre. Most people only die at the last moment; others begin earlyand take twenty years and sometimes more. These are the most miserable people on earth.

    -Destouches
      Voyage au bout de la nuit ( Journey to the End of Night, translated by John H P Marks,1960).

  • He could not die when the trees were green, For he loved the time too well.

    -John Clare
    'The Dying Child' (published1873).

  • When I die people will say it is the best thing for me. It is because they know it is the worst. They want to avoid the feeling of pity.

    - Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett
    The Mighty and Their Fall, ch.4.

  • All beauteous things for which we live By laws of space and time decay. But Oh, the very reason why I clasp them, is because they die.

    -William originally  WilliamJohnson Cory
      Ionica, Poems,'Mimnermus in Church'.

  • The best of men cannot suspend their fate: The good die early, and the bad die late.

    - Daniel Defoe
      'Character of the Late Dr  Annesley'.

  • I'd better go into the house, and die and be a riddance!

    - CharlesJohn Huffam Dickens
    ^50  Mrs Gummidge. David Copperfield, ch.3.

  • 'People can't die, along the coast,'said Mr Peggotty, 'except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born, unless it's pretty nigh innot properly born, till flood. He's a going out with the tide.'

    - CharlesJohn Huffam Dickens
    ^50  On the death of Barkis. David Copperfield, ch.30.

  • When I die I want to decompose in a barrel of porterand have it served in all the pubs in Dublin. I wonder would theyall know it was me?

    -J(ames) P(atrick) Donleavy
      The Ginger Man, ch.31.

  • Sweetest love I do not go, For weariness of thee, Nor in hope the world can show A fitter Love for me; But since that I Must die at last,'tis best, To use myself in jest Thus by feigned deaths to die.

    -John Donne
    c.1595^1605  'Song: Sweetest love I do not go', collected in Songs and Sonnets (1633).

  • One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!

    -John Donne
    c.1610^1615  Holy Sonnets, no.10.

  • And doomed to death, though fated not to die.

    -John Dryden
      The Hind and the Panther, pt.1, l.8.

  • A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch's wife said of his servant, of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging; but to makea malefactordiesweetly was only belonging toher husband.

    -John Dryden
      A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire, 'The  Art of Satire'.

  • Since every man who lives is born to die, And none can boast sincere felicity, With equal mind, what happens, let us bear, Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care. Like pilgrims to th'appointed place we tend; The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.

    -John Dryden
      Palamon and  Arcite, bk.3, l.883^8.

  • My wealth is health and perfect ease; My conscience clear my chief defence; I neither seek by bribes to please, Nor by deceit to breed offence. Thus do I live; thus will I die. Would all did so well as I!

    - Sir Edward Dyer
      'In Praise of a Contented Mind'.

  • I've a great fancy to see my funeral before I die.

    - Maria Edgeworth
      Sir Cody to Thady. Castle Rackrent,'History of Sir Conolly Rackrent'.

  • A person seldom falls sick, but the bystanders are animated with a faint hope that he will die.

    - RalphWaldo Emerson
      The Conduct of Life,'Considerations by the Way'.

  • We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, We Poets of the proud old lineage Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why What shall we tell you? Tales, marvellous tales Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest.

    -James Elroy Flecker
      'The Golden  Journey to Samarkand', epilogue.

  • Live and Let Die.

    - Ian Lancaster Fleming
       Title of novel.

  • 'Tis my destiny That you must either love, or I must die.

    -John Ford
      ' Tis Pity She's a Whore, act1, sc.2.

  • I die happy.

    - CharlesJames Fox
      Last words. Quoted in Lord John Russell Life and Times of C  J Fox, vol.3 (1860), ch.9.

  • Even if I die in the service of this nation,I would be proud of it. Every drop of my blood,I am sure, will contribute to the growth of this nation and make it strong and dynamic.

    - Indira Priyad Arshini Gandhi
      Speech at Orissa, 31 Oct, the day before her assassination.

  • As in a month you've got to die If Ko-Ko tells us true, 'Twere empty compliment to cry 'Long life to Nanki-Poo!' But as one month you have to live As fellow-citizen, This toast with three times three we'll give 'Long life to youtill then!'

    - Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert
      Pooh-Bah's solo, The Mikado, act1.

  • You don't need to be 'straight'to fight and die for your country.You just need to shoot straight.

    - Barry M(orris) Goldwater
      On homosexuals in the military. In Life, Dec.

  • Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse, The place of fame and elegy supply: And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die.

    -Thomas Gray
    Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, l.81^4.

  • 'Be thine despair and sceptred care; To triumph, and to die, are mine.' He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.

    -Thomas Gray
      The Bard.  A Pindaric Ode, l.141^4.

  • Dilexi iustitiam et odi iniquitatem, propterea morior in exilio. I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile.

    -Pope Gregory VII also known as Hildebrand
      Last words. Quoted in Christopher Brooke Europe in the Central Middle Ages 962^1154 (1964), ch.15.

  •    God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.

    - Dag HjalmarAgne Carl Hammarskjo«  ld
      Va«  gmarken (translated by L Sjsy«  berg and W H  Auden as Markings,1964).

  • Fish got to swim and birdsgot to fly I got to love one man till I die Can't help lovin'dat man of mine.

    - Oscar, II Hammerstein
      Song from Show Boat (music by  Jerome Kern).

  • He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive.

    -Joseph Heller
      OfYossarian. Catch-22, ch.3.

  • And a man who lay with a beast, said the Lord, would surelydie. And if he doesn't lie with a beast,Iwould have countered, he won't die?

    -Joseph Heller
      King David. God Knows, ch.2.

  • 'Oh,'she said,'I die each time. Do you not die?' 'No. Almost. But did thee feel the earth move?' 'Yes. As I died. Put thy arm around me, please.'

    - Ernest Millar Hemingway
      For Whom  the Bell Tolls, ch.7.

  • Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky: The dew shall weep thy fall tonight, For thou must die.

    - George Herbert
    'Virtue', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

  • It is no shame for a man to die fighting for his country. Honorius of Autun

    -Homer   8c
    c.700  BC  Iliad, bk.15, l.496 (translated by Martin Hammond).

  • Democracy is not a polite employer† The only way out of elective office is to get sick or die or get kicked out.

    - Herbert Clark Hoover
      The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, vol.2.

  • Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. It is a sweet and seemly thing to die for one's country. See Owen 632:57.

    -Horace full name  Quintus Horatius Flaccus   65
    Odes, bk.3, no.2, l.13.

  •    The poet as well Builds his monument mockingly; For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun Die blind, his heart blackening: Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found The honey peace in old poems.

    - (John) Robinson Jeffers
      Tamar and Other Poems,'To  the Stone-Cutters'.

  •    Theyalways must be with us, or we die.

    -John Keats
      Endymion, bk.1, l.33.

  • I know the colour of that blood; it is arterial blood; I cannot be deceived in that colour; that drop of blood is my death-warrantI must die.

    -John Keats
    On examining a drop of blood that fell from his mouth as he lay dying from tuberculosis. Quoted in  John Sutherland  The Oxford Book of Literary  Anecdotes (1975).

  • If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

    - Martin LutherJr King
      Speech in Detroit, 23  Jun.

  • Now this is the Law of the Jungleas old and as true as the sky; 471

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling

  • Je vis, je meurs; je me br u" le et me noie. I live, I die; I am on fire and I drown.

    - Louise Labe 
      Sonnets, no.8.

  • Il fera demain ce qu'il fait aujourd'hui et ce qu'il fit hier; et il meurt ainsi apre'  s avoir ve  cu. What he does tomorrow will be what he did today and yesterday; and he shall die after having lived this way.

    -Jean de La Bruye'  re
      Les Caracte'  res ou les m½urs de ce sie'  cle,'De la ville', no.12.

  • That vast moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die.

    - Philip Arthur Larkin
      Of religion.'Aubade'.

  • 'Dying for an idea,'again, sounds well enough, but why not let the idea die instead of you?

    -Jose Lezama Lima
      The Art of Being Ruled, pt.1, ch.1.

  •    Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

    -Joe pseudonym of  Joseph Louis Barrow Louis
      In Sports Illustrated,'Scorecard',19  Jul.

  • He is out of bounds now. He rejoices in man's lovely peculiar power to choose life and die when he leads his black soldiers to death, he cannot bend his back.

    - RobertTraill Spence,Jr Lowell
      'For The Union Dead'.'He'refers to Colonel Shaw, the white commander of the black regiment commemorated in the monument.

  • The elect, the elected†theycome here bright as dimes, and die dishevelled and soft.

    - RobertTraill Spence,Jr Lowell
      'July in Washington'.

  • It has always been my belief that I, too, will die by violence. I have done all that I can to be prepared.

    -Malcolm X originally Malcolm Little
      The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

  • Yo soy un hombre sincero De donde crece la palma, Yantes de morirme quiero Echar mis versos del alma. I am a sincere man from where the palm tree grows; and before I die I want to loose my verses from my heart.

    -Jose Mart| 
    Versos sencillos ('Simple Verses'), no.1.

  • Death opens unknown doors. It is most grand to die.

    -John Edward Masefield
      Pompey the Great, act 2.

  • But mark it well, if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is too bad because we are all born and must die one day.I have onlycommitted this mistake of believing in you, the Americans.

    - Sirik Matak
      Letter to  John Dean, US  Ambassador to Cambodia (1974^5),  Apr.

  • Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later. For another thing, they die earlier.

    - H(enry) L(ouis) Mencken
      Chrestomathy, ch.30

  • On ne meurt qu'une fois, et c'est pour si longtemps! We only die once; and it's for such a long time!

    -Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molie'  re
      Le de p it amoureux, act 5, sc.3.

  •    A for adrenalin, the original A-bomb, fuel and punishment of aspiration, the Enlightenment's air-burst Back when God made me, I had no script. It was better. For all the death, we also die unrehearsed. 604

    - Les(lie Allan) Murray
    In Collected Poems (1998). Irish   novelist   and  philosopher,   of   Anglo-Irish  descent.   Her novels,   exploring   human   relationships    with   subtlety    and humour,  include The Sea,The Sea  (1978)  and The Philosopher's Pupil (1983).

  • If I advance, follow me. If I retreat, kill me. If I die, avenge me.

    - Benito also called Il Duce [the Leader] Mussolini
      Said to senior officials after an attempt on his life, 6  Apr.

  • Drink and dance and laugh and lie, Love, the reeling midnight through, For tomorrow we shall die! (But, alas, we never do). See Bible121:16.

    - Dorothy ne  e Rothschild Parker
      Not So Deep as AWell,'The Flaw in Paganism'.

  • A new scientific truth does not triumph byconvincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

    - Max Karl Ernst Planck
    A ScientificAutobiography and Other Papers (translated by Frank Gaynor, published1949).

  • One should die in silence.

    -Plato
    Phaedo,117e (translated by D Gallop,1993).

  • Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest, In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer, Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much.

    - Alexander Pope
      An Essay on Man, epistle 2, l.1^12.

  • Oh Happiness! our being's end and aim! Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name: That something still which prompts th'eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die.

    - Alexander Pope
      An Essay on Man, epistle 4, l.1^4.

  •    What is our life? a play of passion; Our mirth the music of division; Our mothers' wombs the tiring-houses be Where we are dressed for this short comedy. Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is, That sits and marks still who doth act amiss; Our graves that hide us from the searching sun Are like drawn curtains when the play is done. Thus march we, playing, to our latest rest, Only we die in earnestthat's no jest.

    - Sir Walter Raleigh
      'On the Life of Man'.

  • Un sourire est souvent l'essentiel. On est paye   par un sourire. On est re  compense   par un sourire.On est anime par un sourire. Et la qualite   d'un sourire peut faire que l'on meure. A smile is often the key thing.One is paid with a smile. One is rewarded with a smile.One is brightened by a smile. And the quality of a smile can make one die.

    - Antoine de Saint-Exupe  ry
      Lettre a'   un otage.

  • People can say what they like about the decay of Christianity; the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die.

    -Saki pseudonym of  Hector Hugh Munro
      Reginald,'Reginald on Christmas Presents'.

  • And when war is done and youth stone dead I'd toddle safely home and diein bed.

    - Siegfried Louvain Sassoon
      'Base Details'.

  • Look not thou on beauty's charming, Sit thou still when kings are arming. Taste not when the wine-cup glistens, Speak not when the people listens, Stop thine ear against the singer, From the red gold keep thy finger, Vacant heart, and hand, and eye, Easy live and quiet die.

    - Sir Walter Scott
      The Bride of Lammermoor, ch.3 (LucyAshton's song).

  • You see, family life is all the life she knows: she's like a bird bornina cage, that would dieif you let it looseinthe woods.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Bill Collins about his wife. Getting Married.

  • I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die, For after the rain when with never a stain The pavilion of Heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      'The Cloud'.

  • O cease! must hate and death return, Cease! must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy. The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die or rest at last!

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      'Hellas', l.1096^101.

  • [This] much curse I must send you, in the behalf of all poets, that while you live, you live in love, and never get favour for lacking skill of a sonnet, and, when you die, your memorydie fromthe earth for want of an epigraph.

    - Sir Philip Sidney
      The Defence of Poetry.

  • When I was a boy the Sioux owned the world; the sun roseand set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle.Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them?† What law have I broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am a Sioux; because I was born where my father lived; because I would die for my country?

    -Sitting Bull real name Tatanka Iyotake
    c.1866  Quoted inT C McLuhan Touch the Earth (1973).

  • The British Bourgeosie Is not born And does not die, But, if it is ill, It has a frightened look in its eyes.

    - Sir (Francis) Osbert Sitwell
    At the House of Mrs Kinfoot.

  •    One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washe'  d it away; Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. 'Vain man,'said she,'that doest in vain assay A mortal thing so to immortalise, For I my self shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wipe'  d out likewise.' 'Not so,'quod I,'let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: My verse your virtues rare shall eternise, And in the heavens write your glorious name. Where when as death shall all the world subdue, Our love shall live, and later life renew.'

    - Edmund Spenser
      Amoretti, sonnet 75.

  • Yet never can he die, but dying lives, And doth himself with sorrow new sustain, That death and life attonce unto him gives, And painful pleasure turns to pleasing pain.

    - Edmund Spenser
      The Faerie Queen, bk.3, canto10, stanza 60.

  •    When Jesus came to Birmingham they simply passed Him by, They never hurt a hair of him, they only let Him die. For menhadgrownmoretenderandthey wouldnot give Him pain, Theyonlyjust passeddownthestreet, and left Himinthe rain.

    -'Woodbine Willie'
    Peace Rhymes of a Padre,'Indifference'.

  • People die when curiosity goes.People have to find out, people have to know. How can there be any true revolution till we know what we're made of? 830

    - Graham Swift
      Waterland, ch.27.

  •   Home they brought her warrior dead. She nor swooned, nor uttered cry: All her maidens, watching said, 'She must weep or she will die.'

    -Tennyson
      The Princess, pt.6, added song, stanza1.

  • Ask me no more: what answer should I give? I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: Yet,O my friend, I will not have thee die! Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live.

    -Tennyson
      The Princess, pt.7, added song, stanza 2.

  • Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art just.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., prologue, l.10^12.

  • O last regret, regret can die!

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 78, l.17.

  • Their meetings made December June, Their every parting was to die.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 97, l.11^12.

  • Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year isgoing, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto106, l.1^8.

  • 'Forward, the Light Brigade!' Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew In Memoriam A.H.H. Some one had blundered: Their's not to make reply, Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volleyed and thundered.

    -Tennyson
      'The Charge of the Light Brigade', l.9^21.

  • Of happy men that have the power to die, And grassy barrows of the happier dead.

    -Tennyson
      'Tithonus' (revised1864),1.70^1.

  • Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the sky! Ayoung man will be wiser byand by; An old man's wit may wander ere he die.

    -Tennyson
      Idylls of the King,'The Coming of Arthur', l.402^4.

  • Iwenttothewoodsbecause Iwishedto live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

    - Henry David Thoreau
      Walden, or Life in theWoods,'Where I Lived, andWhat I Lived For'.

  • After I die I am coming back to earth as the doorkeeper of a bordello. And I won't let a one of you in.

    - Arturo Toscanini
    To an uncooperative orchestra. Quoted in Norman Lebrecht Discord (1982).

  • Hope I die before I get old.

    - Pete Townshend
      'My Generation'.

  • Not onlyareselves conditional buttheydie.Eachday, we wake slightlyaltered, and the person we were yesterday is dead.

    -John Hoyer Updike
      Self-Consciousness,VI.'On Being A Self Forever'.

  • Yas | , enfermos, ojo alerta, y a ning u n me  dico admitan; mueran de gorra, sin dar un real a la medicina. Be careful then, patients, and don't accept any doctor; die for free and do not give a single coin to medicine.

    -Juan del Valle y Caviedes
      Diente del Parnaso ('Parnassus' Tooth'),'Pro  logo al que leyere este tratado'.

  • Me morire   en Par|s con aguacero, un d|a del cual tengo ya el recuerdo. Me morire   en Par|sy no me corro tal vez un jueves, como es hoy, de oton‹  o. I will die in Paris with a sudden shower, a day I can already remember. I will die in Parisand I don't budge maybe aThursday, like today is, in autumn.

    - Ce  sarAbraham Vallejo
      Poemas humanos,'Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca' (translated as'Black Stone on aWhite Stone',1968).

  • Iseriouslyadviseall sensitive composersto dieattheage of thirty-seven. I know I've gone through the first halcyon period, and am just about ripe for my critical damnation.

    - Sir WilliamTurner Walton
      Letter.

  • The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves† The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army.Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance or abject submission.We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.

    - BookerTaliaferro Washington
      General orders, 2 Jul. Quoted inJ C Fitzpatrick (ed) Writings of GeorgeWashington (1932), vol.5.

  • O, the rare tricks of a Machiavellian! He doth not come, like a gross plodding slave, And buffet you to death; no, my quaint knave, He tickles you to death, makes you die laughing.

    -John Webster
      TheWhite Devil, act 5, sc.3.

  • The word 'revolution' is a word for which you kill, for which you die, for which you send the labouring masses to their deaths; but which does not contain any content.

    - Simone Weil
    Oppression and Liberty (translated byA F Wills andJ Petrie, published1958).

  • All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, Whitman And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

    -Walt(er) Whitman
      Leaves of Grass,'Song of Myself', section 6.

  • Now God be praised, I will die in peace.

    -James Wolfe
      Last words, on hearing of the defeat of the French at Quebec. Quoted inJ Knox HistoricalJournal of the Campaigns in North America (1909), ch.17.

  • My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

    -William Wordsworth
      'My heart leaps up when I behold', complete poem (published1807).

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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