Farewell quotes
335 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"Night steals on; and the day takes its farewell, like the words of a departing friend, or the last tone of hallowed music in a minister's aisles, heard when it floats along the shade of elms, in the still place of graves."
"Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance. Good-by is short and final, a word with teeth sharp to bite through the string that ties past to the future."
"Our evenings are farewells. Our parties are testaments. So that the secret stream of suffering. May warm the cold of life."
"And now, farewell to kindness, humanity and gratitude... I have substituted myself for Providence in rewarding the good; may the God of vengeance now yield me His place to punish the wicked."
"The third day comes a frost, a killing frost."
"Farewell, good Salisbury, and good luck go with thee!"
"And mind, with my heart in't; and now farewell Till half an hour hence."
"Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars That make ambition virtue! O, farewell! Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife, The royal banner, and all quality, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!"
"ROMEO There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls, Doing more murders in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell. I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none. Farewell: buy food, and get thyself in flesh. Come, cordial and not poison, go with me To Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee."
"Farewell! a long farewell to all my greatness!"
"The ship's boards were still sticky with new resin. We leaned over the railing to wave our last farewell, the sun-warm wood pressed against our bellies. The sailors heaved up the anchor, square and chalky with barnacles, and loosened the sails. Then they took their seats at the oars that fringed the boat like eyelashes, waiting for the count. The drums began to beat, and the oars lifted and fell, taking us to Troy."
"Like flowers scattered in a storm, a man's life is a long farewell."
"Robb: Uncle Benjen said to send you to the stables if I saw you. Jon: I have one more farewell to make. Robb: Then I haven't seen you."
"When I died last, and, Dear, I die As often as from thee I go Though it be but an hour ago, And lovers' hours be full eternity."
"To say good-bye is to deny separation; it is to say Today we play at going our own ways, but we'll see each other tomorrow. Men invented farewells because they somehow knew themselves to be immortal, even while seeing themselves as contingent and ephemeral."
"I always made an awkward bow."
"There is pleasure in the pathless woods."
"It's all nonsense. It's only nonsense. I'm not afraid of the rain. I am not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn't."
"And should I not, had I but known, have flung the machine this way and that, once more to feel it live under my hand, have sported in the sky and laughed and sung, knowing that never after should I feel so free, so sure in hazard, so secure, riding the daylight in the pride of youth? No more horizons wider than Hope! No more the franchise of the sky, the freedom of the blue! No more! Farewell to wings! Down to the little earth!"
"Little do such men know the toil, the pains, the daily, nightly racking of the brains, to range the thoughts, the matter to digest, to cull fit phrases, and reject the rest."
