80 Quotes On Life And Death

Life and death are profound themes that have captivated human minds for centuries, inviting an array of perspectives that encompass wisdom, reflection, and contemplation. Our experiences with the ephemeral nature of life and the inevitability of death often evoke deep emotions and thoughts that are beautifully captured in timeless quotations. In this collection of the top 80 quotes on life and death, you'll find words that comfort, provoke, and inspire. Whether from philosophers, writers, or thinkers, each quote serves as a reminder of the beauty and fragility of existence, encouraging us to reflect on our journeys and the legacy we leave behind. Dive into this curated selection and explore the insights and truths embedded within these powerful expressions.

1. “Isn’t it so weird how the number of dead people is increasing even though the earth stays the same size, so that one day there isn’t going to be room to bury anyone anymore? For my ninth birthday last year, Grandma gave me a subscription to National Geographic, which she calls “the National Geographic.” She also gave me a white blazer, because I only wear white clothes, and it’s too big to wear so it will last me a long time. She also gave me Grandpa’s camera, which I loved for two reasons. I asked why he didn’t take it with him when he left her. She said, “Maybe he wanted you to have it.” I said, “But I was negative-thirty years old.” She said, “Still.” Anyway, the fascinating thing was that I read in National Geographic that there are more people alive now than have died in all of human history. In other words, if everyone wanted to play Hamlet at once, they couldn’t, because there aren’t enough skulls!” - Jonathan Safran Foer

2. “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.” - Mother Jones

3. “All is forgotten in the stone halls of the dead. These are the rooms of ruin where the spiders spin and the great circuits fall quiet, one by one...” - Stephen King

4. “You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly in times of great trouble?” - J.K. Rowling

5. “The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.” - Czesław Miłosz

6. “O may I join the choir invisibleOf those immortal dead who live againIn minds made better by their presence; liveIn pulses stirred to generosity,In deeds of daring rectitude...” - George Eliot

7. “Name the different kinds of people,’ said Miss Lupescu. ‘Now.’Bod thought for a moment. ‘The living,’ he said. ‘Er. The dead.’ He stopped. Then, ‘... Cats?’ he offered, uncertainly.” - Neil Gaiman

8. “Denn die Todten reiten Schnell. (For the dead travel fast.)” - Bram Stoker

9. “In the end, this volume should be read a s a collection of love stories, Above all, they are tales of love, not the love with which so many stories end – the love of fidelity, kindness and fertility – but the other side of love, its cruelty, sterility and duplicity. In a way, the decadents did accept Nordau's idea of the artist as monster. But in nature, the glory and panacea of romanticism, they found nothing. Theirs is an aesthetic that disavows the natural and with it the body. The truly beautiful body is dead, because it is empty. Decadent work is always morbid, but its attraction to death is through art. What they refused was the condemnation of that monster. And yet despite the decadent celebration of artifice, these stories record art's failure in the struggle against natural horror. Nature fights back and wins, and decadent writing remains a remarkable account of that failure.” - Asti Hustvedt

10. “Yet a mysterious gate lay open within her shadow; and all my flesh was aware of black pathways and hovels and the silence one observes when the dead are near.” - Joe Bousquet

11. “To them I'm simply an object from the past that they wish will disappear Then why do I exist? Why am I alive? When I thought about this I could find no answer. But as you live you need a reason otherwise it's the same as being dead, I then came to this conclusion I exist to kill every human besides myself. Fighting only for yourself living while only loving yourself If you think that everybody else simply exist to allow you to experience that feeling nothing is better then that world. As long as there are people in this world for me to kill and continue to feel that joy of living my existence will not vanish.” - Masashi Kishimoto

12. “Crap.It's all crap.Living is crap.Life has no meaning.None. Nowhere to be found.Crap.Why doesn't anybody realize this?” - K-Ske Hasegawa

13. “When the dead departed, they took away any falsehoods that they might have allowed us to believe while alive; we who are left behind have to embark on a different life, since the dead are no longer here to help us deceive ourselves.” - Yiyun Li

14. “Don't worry, goat boy. The milkman is dead.” - Rick Riordan

15. “There is nothing so actively alive as the dead.” - Jessie Douglas Kerruish

16. “All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead.” - Samuel Beckett

17. “But suppose the endlessly dead were to wake in us some emblem:they might point to the catkins hangingfrom the empty hazel trees, or direct us to the raindescending on black earth in early spring. ---And we, who always think of happinessrising, would feel the emotionthat almost baffles uswhen a happy thing falls.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

18. “As if the dead really do persist, even in a bottle of wine.” - Thomas Pynchon

19. “Only the forgotten are truly dead.” - Tess Gerritsen

20. “None of the dead come back. But some stay.” - St. John the Divine

21. “I got a shotgun and a backhoe and no one looks under a septic tank for a dead body. (Bubba)” - Sherrilyn Kenyon

22. “Anger as soon as fed is dead- 'Tis starving makes it fat. ” - Emily Dickinson

23. “The living are made of nothing but flaws. The dead, with each passing day in the afterlife, become more and more impeccable to those who remain earthbound.” - Anna Godbersen

24. “Think about this: You don't know when these people are going to die. They could get into a car today and be killed on the way home. Did they ever hear about Jesus? God has put you in their lives to be His ambassador. You're His megaphone, through which He wants to call out to them to come to Him and be saved.” - Ryan Dobson

25. “For now. But if I ever decide you're useless, you are a dead man."To be killed by you is to be desired more than a life excluded from your service."Bravo." Her Imperial Viciousness laughed with genuine feeling. "Bra-vo!” - Frank Beddor

26. “Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead.” - Wilfred Owen

27. “...the dead have a way of becoming saints in the eyes of their survivors...” - Rachel Vincent

28. “You don't think I'm going to deflower you under your father's roof, do you?” - Amanda Ashley

29. “The old world told men merely about to live and to die.Today men think about defeating death and resurrection.” - Toba Beta

30. “You gotta take chances in this life or you're alreadydead.” - Megan McCafferty

31. “as they die, the ones we love, we lose our witnesses, our watchers, those who know and understand the tiny little meaningless patterns, those words drawn in water with a stick. And there is nothing left but the endless flow.” - Anne Rice

32. “Sometimes dead is better” - Stephen King

33. “Before Elijah could raise a nation from the dead, he raised just one dead child.” - Lou Engle

34. “Nice. I like a little desperation ina guy. It builds character.” - Stacey Kade

35. “Here it is necessary briefly to consider the question of the cult of ancestors before venturing farther. The spirits of the departed are believed to be possessed of supernatural powers which they did not enjoy in the flesh. They may also be dissatisfied or malignant in consequence of being suddenly deprived of life, and if they are neglected by the living, are apt to be revengeful. Therefore they must be cajoled and propitiated. Fear of beings belonging to a mysterious state or sphere of which he knew nothing continually haunted and terrified primitive man and induced in him what is known as" the dread of the sacred." It was every man's personal duty to attend to the demands or requirements of his deceased ancestors. At first he would succour his own immediate forebears with food and gifts; but it must have been borne in upon him that when his parents joined the great majority, the care of the spirits of their parents likewise devolved upon him... and, by degrees, he might even come to regard himself as responsible for the well-being of a line of spirit ancestors of quite formidable genealogy. These, through his neglect, might starve in their tombs; or, alternatively, they might crave his company. Because of vengeance or loneliness they might send disease upon him, for the savage almost invariably believes illness to be brought about by the action of jealous or neglected ancestors. The loneliness of the spirit-world is the dead man's greatest excuse for desiring the company of his descendants.” - Lewis Spence

36. “The dead are jealous, jealous, jealous and they will do anything to keep you from the living, the lucky living. They will argue with you, and distract you, and if that doesn't work, they will even let you hug them, and dance for you, and kiss you, and laugh, anything to keep you. The dead are selfish. Jealous. Lonely. Desperate. Hungry. ("The Chambered Fruit")” - M. Rickert

37. “More than anything, I felt the unfairness of it, the inarguable injustice of loving someonewho might have loved you back but can't due to deadness, and then I leaned forward, my forehead against the back of Takumi's headrest, and Icried, whimpering, and I didn't even feel sadness so much as pain.” - John Green

38. “I woke up dead.Not only dead...but in hell.I had always been somewhat sketchy on what the afterlife - were there actually such a thing - would be like for a person such as I. From all accounts and all my imaginings, I figured it would be one of two things. Either I would be surrounded by great, burning masses that were endlessly immolating souls in torment... or else I would find myself trapped within my own mind as a helpless bystander, condemned to watching me live out my life over and over again and powerless to do anything to change any of it. When idle speculation prompted me to dwell on these two options, I would find myself drawn invariably to the former, since the later was just too hideous to contemplate....I was almost afraid to open my eyes, because once I did, I would know one way or the other. Perhaps I could have just lain there forever. Perhaps I was supposed to. Perhaps that was my true condemnation: to simply reside in hell with my eyes closed afraid of opening them lest matters deteriorate even further than they already had. This, in turn, made me dwell on the fact that every time I had believed things couldn’t get worse, they promptly had done so with almost gleeful enthusiasm .” - Peter David

39. “Một người này có thể sống trong ký ức của một người kia, không chỉ hình ảnh mà cả tiếng nói lẫn thái độ.Bạn đã bao giờ bắt gặp những cuộc trò chuyện trong tâm tưởng chưa? Trong nhiều trường hợp, những cuộc trò chuyện như vậy lại sống động hơn và chân thật hơn khi đối mặt ngoài đời.Có thể bạn không tin những điều tôi nói nhưng nếu bạn biết rằng trong vương quốc của tâm tưởng, nơi con người ta không cần phải vót nhọt thái độ theo hoàn cảnh, không cần phải thu xếp lời ăn tiếng nói để sự thẳng thắn khỏi bị đánh lưới thì bờ cõi của sự chân thật được mở rộng đến vô biên và mỗi ý kiến cá nhân đều có một ngai vàng tráng lệ của riêng mình.” - Nguyễn Nhật Ánh

40. “If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes.” - Chuck Palahniuk

41. “Free, I think. They're free.(is this why she joined them?)I feel so-So relieved.I pick up the pace as I near the opening, my hands gripping my rifle but I have a feeling I ain't gonna need it.(ah, Viola, I knew I could count-)Then I reach the opening and stop.Everything stops.My stomach falls right thru my feet."They're all gone?" Davy says, coming up beside me.Then he see what I see."What the-?" Davy says.The Spackle ain't all gone.They're still here.Every single one.All 1150 of them.Dead.” - Patrick Ness

42. “He just summoned the dead with coke and cheeseburgers” - Rick Riordan

43. “With horror he perceived that, by uniting himself as he had with the dead, he had cut himself off from the living. Stripped of all earthly hope, bereft of every consolation, he was rendered as poor as mortal can possiblybe on this side of the grave.” - Ludwig Tieck

44. “Life is but a dream for the dead.” - Gerard Way

45. “In tombs of gold and lapis lazuliBodies of holy men and women exudeMiraculous oil, odour of violet.But under heavy loads of trampled clayLie bodies of the vampires full of blood;Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet("Oil and Blood")” - W.B. Yeats

46. “The exhilaration of battle was agreeable to him, but the sight of the dead, with their clay faces, blank eyes, and stiff bodies, which, when not unnaturally shrunken, were unnaturally swollen, had always intolerably affected him. He felt toward them a kind of reasonless antipathy which was something more than the physical and spiritual repugnance common to us all. Doubtless this feeling was due to his unusually acute sensibilities - his keen sense of the beautiful, which these hideous things outraged. Whatever may have been the cause, he could not look upon a dead body without a loathing which had in it an element of reselltment. What others have respected as the dignity of death had to him no existence - was altogether unthinkable. Death was a thing to be hated. It was not picturesque, it had no tender and solemn side - a dismal thing, hideous in all its manifestations and suggestions. Lieutenant Byring was a braver man than anybody knew, for nobody knew his horror of that which he was ever ready to encounter. ("A Tough Tussle")” - Ambrose Bierce

47. “The dead think they can get away with anything because you'll feel sorry for them. If you play cards with the dead, make sure you deal and don't let them buy you drinks. They'll slip you a formaldehyde roofie and pry the gold fillings out of your teeth.” - Richard Kadrey

48. “I wonder what it's like to be dead.” - Sebastian Faulks

49. “You cannot do anything good for a dead man! Whatever goodness you want to do for him, do it when he is alive!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

50. “And won’t he grow up to be the healthiest of young men, all because she kept him safe? Ready for the world. Ready to one day conquer it. To travel. Get on a train. Go to work. Get blown out of her life.Maybe she should be having that glass of wine and cigarette after all.” - Melina Marchetta

51. “Quisiera entrar en la muerte sin miedo y sin culpa” - Pablo Simonetti

52. “But maybe that's what the dead do. They stay. They linger. Benign and sweet and painful. They don't need us. They echo all by themselves.” - Sangu Mandanna

53. “I sit alone in a dead world. The wind blows hot and dry, and the dust gathers like particles of memory waiting to be swept away. I pray for forgetfulness, yet my memory remains strong, as does the outstretched arm of the oppressive air. It seems as if the wind has been there since the beginning of the nightmare. Sometimes loud and harsh, a thousand sharp needles scratching at my reddened skin. Sometimes a whisper, a curious sigh in the black of night, of words more frightening than pain. I know now the wind has been speaking to me. Only I couldn't understand because I was too scared. I am scared now as I write these words. Still, there is nothing else to do.” - Christopher Pike

54. “Of course I want to kill you," said Skulduggery. "I want to kill most people. But then where would I be? In a field of dead people with no one to talk to.” - Derek Landy

55. “The Romans feared their dead. In fact, Roman funeral customs derived from a need to propitiate the sensibilities of the departed. The very word funus may be translated as dead body, funeral ceremony, or murder. There was a genuine concern that, if not treated appropriately, the spirits of the dead, or manes, would return to wreak revenge” - Catharine Arnold

56. “The faithful clamoured to be buried alongside the martyrs, as close as possible to the venerable remains, a custom which, in anthropological terms, recalls Neolithic beliefs that certain human remains possessed supernatural properties. It was believed that canonized saints did not rot, like lesser mortals, but that their corpses were miraculously preserved and emanated an odour of sanctity, a sweet, floral smell, for years after death. In forensic terms, such preservation is likely to be a result of natural mummification in hot, dry conditions.” - Catharine Arnold

57. “Can I be blamed for wanting a real body, to put my arms around? Without it I too am disembodied. I can listen to my own heartbeat against the bedsprings...but there’s something dead about it, something deserted.” - Margaret Atwood

58. “The dead weren’t scary. It was the living you had to watch out for.” - Eileen Wilks

59. “Madoka: Won't anyone notice that Mami-san is dead?Homura: Mami Tomoe's only relatives are distant relations. It will be quite some time before anyone files a missing persons report. When one dies on that side of the wards, not even a body is left behind. She'll wind up forever a "missing person"... That is what happens to magical girls in the end.Madoka: ...That's too cruel! Mami-san has been fighting all alone for a long time for everyone's sake! For no one to even notice that she's gone... That's just too lonely a fate...Homura: It is just that kind of contract that gives us the power in the first place. It isn't for anyone else's sake. We fight on for the sake of our own prayer. So for no one to notice... for the world to forget us... That is just something we have to accept.” - Magica Quartet

60. “[...]It is as if after surviving so much, there was no longer reason to survive.” - Jonathan Safran Foer

61. “A hero is not measured by the lives that he has saved. A hero is measured by the number of the dead that he did not join.” - Robert J.A. Gilbert

62. “Dead, but not allowed to die. Alive, but as good as dead.” - Suzanne Collins

63. “The dead can be even more frustrating to deal with than are many of the living, which is astonishing when you consider it's the living who run the Department of Motor Vehicles.” - Dean Koontz

64. “Dead or alive, true leaders can inspire an entire army.” - Peter Mohrbacher

65. “How quickly the dead faded into each other,” - Ian McEwan

66. “Better a live dog than a dead lion.” - Paul Hoffman

67. “Until two days ago what had driven him was the will to survive: deep, animal, full of rage—but always part of him had not cared at all whether he lived or died. Now he did care, and very deeply, and so for the first time in a long time he was afraid. To love life is, of course, a wonderful thing, but not on this day of all days.” - Paul Hoffman

68. “For most people, art is only valuable if other people say it is; and artists are only worthwhile if they are either rich and famous, or dead.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

69. “Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living” - Emily Brontë

70. “The death of loved ones often awakens the death inside of us.” - Sandra Chami Kassis

71. “The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead.” - William Lloyd Garrison

72. “When I got home, I seemed in a dream. My windows looked upon hers; I remained all the day looking at them, and all the day they were closed and dark. I forgot everything for this woman; I slept not, I eat nothing. That evening I fell into a fever, the next morning I was delirious, and the next evening I was DEAD!' 'Dead!' cried his hearers. 'Dead!' answered the narrator, with a conviction in his voice which words alone cannot give; 'dead as Fabian, the cast of whose dead face hangs from that wall!' 'Go on,' whispered the others, holding their breath. The hail still rattled against the windows, and the fire had so nearly died out, that they threw more wood on the feeble flame which penetrated the darkness of the studio and cast a faint light upon the pale face of him who told the story. ("The Dead Man's Story” - Hain Friswell

73. “The difference between the one who remembers Allah and the one who doesn’t is like the living and the dead.” - Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf

74. “The least I can do is speak out for the hundreds of chimpanzees who, right now, sit hunched, miserable and without hope, staring out with dead eyes from their metal prisons. They cannot speak for themselves.” - Jane Goodall

75. “This would have once been a place for contemplation. He looked up at the towers surrounding him. Many of the dead bodies had been removed. Their places had been taken by the living.” - Rupert Thomson

76. “Better off dead than giving in; not taking what you want.” - Carol Ann Duffy

77. “I alone knew what I had suffered. I alone knew what it felt like to be alive but dead.” - Phoolan Devi

78. “Saige, Mother is . . .” I briefly close my eyes and swallow, clearing my mouth from saliva. “Mother is dead.” - Jada Berglund

79. “(ghost of)ACHILLES: How can I force obedience on this? In other times I've used the fear of death to make a woman bow herself to me. If not the fear of her own death, then fear for someone else, a husband or a child. How can I bend this woman to my will?(ghost of)POLYXENA: I think I will not bend.IPHIGENIA: You see, it's as we've tried to tell you, Great Achilles. Women are no good to you dead.” - Sheri S. Tepper

80. “Nothing is more difficult than to understand the dead, I've found; but nothing is more dangerous than to ignore them.” - Margaret Atwood