Death quotes
3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside death — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Thou fool, what is sleep but the image of death? Fate will give an eternal rest. [Lat., Stulte, quid est somnus, gelidae nisi mortis imago? Longa quiescendi tempora fata dabunt.]"
"Death is not grievous to me, for I shall lay aside my pains by death. [Lat., Nec mihi mors gravis est posituro morte dolores.]"
"Of all the events which constitute a person's biography, there is scarcely one ... to which the world so easily reconciles itself as to his death."
"The same thing that makes you live can kill you in the end."
"Are not the thoughts of the dying often turned towards the practical, painful, obscure, visceral aspect, towards the "seamy side" of death which is, as it happens, the side that death actually presents to them and forces them to feel, and which far more closely resembles a crushing burden, a difficulty in breathing, a destroying thirst, than the abstract idea to which we are accustomed to give the name of Death?"
"Here will I live in the rainy season, here in the autumn and in the summer: thus muses the fool. He realizes not the danger (of death)."
"Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home."
"One of the fathers saith . . . that old men go to death, and death comes to young men."
"It is natural to die as to be born."
"What, then, remains but that we still should cry, For being born, and, being born, to die?"
"The constant recollection of death is the test of human conduct."
"Death hangs over thee, While thou still live, while thou may, do good."
"Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills."
"Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live; death is nigh at hand: while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good."
"I depart from life as from an inn, and not as from my home. [Lat., Ex vita discedo, tanquam ex hospitio, non tanquam ex domo.]"
"The nearer I approach death the more I feel like one who is in sight of land at last and is about to anchor in one's home port after a long voyage."
"There is, I know not how, a certain presage, as it were, of a future existence; and this takes the deepest root, and is most discoverable, in the greatest geniuses and most exalted souls."
"Nor do I regret that I have lived, since I have so lived that I think I was not born in vain, and I quit life as if it were an inn, not a home."
"I do not wish to die: but I care not if I were dead. [Lat., Emori nolo: sed me esse mortuum nihil aestimo.]"
"For a courageous man cannot die dishonorably, a man who has attained the consulship cannot die before his time, a philosopher cannot die wretchedly."
