Death Quotes
The poets dominate here. Edward Young, Longfellow and Seneca are tied for the most entries, with Tennyson, Pope and Byron close behind. A few lines are better known than their authors. Samuel Johnson’s remark that when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully comes from Boswell’s Life of Johnson (1791). Dryden’s “Death in itself is nothing; but we fear / To be we know not what, we know not where” is from Aureng-Zebe (1676).
The line most often credited to Stalin, that one death is a tragedy and a million is a statistic, is flagged as misattributed. Wikiquote traces a version of it to a French satirical paper in 1924, where a diplomat says it in what is probably an invented anecdote. It was pinned on Stalin by a newspaper columnist in 1947, with no evidence offered.
The babe is at peace within the womb,
The corpse is at rest within the tomb.
We begin in what we end.
Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death where is thy sting, O Grave where is thy victory?
Life that dares send
A challenge to his end,
And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend!
Two hands upon the breast,
And labor's done;
Two pale feet cross'd in rest,
The race is won.
See my lips tremble and my eyeballs roll,
Suck my last breath, and catch my flying soul!
Fond fool! six feet shall serve for all thy store,
And he that cares for most shall find no more.