Life And Death Quotes

The issue is fear. But the deeper issue is trust. Can we trust our lives, our futures, and the lives of those we love to God? Can we trust a God we can't control? Can we trust this God whose take on life and death and suffering and joy is so very different from our own? Yes. Yes, we can. Because we know him. And we know he is good. ~ Stasi Eldredge

Live to ask. Die to answer. ~ Raheel Farooq

Uselessness
Let mine not be the saddest fate of all,
To live beyond my greater self; to see
My faculties decaying, as the tree
Stands stark and helpless while its green leaves fall
Let me hear rather the imperious call,
Which all men dread, in my glad morning time,
And follow death ere I have reached my prime,
Or drunk the strengthening cordial of life's gall.
The lightning's stroke or the fierce tempest blast
Which fells the green tree to the earth to-day
Is kinder than the calm that lets it last,
Unhappy witness of its own decay.
May no man ever look on me and say,
'She lives, but all her usefulness is past. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Do not weep for those who have found Death's embrace early, for they weep for us that linger on in this mortal world of pain. ~ Stewart Stafford

Love is the crown that glorifies; the curse That brands and burdens; it is life and death. It is the great law of the universe; And nothing can exist without its breath. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When I say history is a matter of life and death, I mean this: If you really don't know history, you are a victim of whatever the authorities tell you. You have no way of checking up on them. You have no way of deciding whether there is any truth in what they are saying. ~ Howard Zinn

How many boys like him were out there in the ether, holding on to their big brothers and sisters who were still alive? How many husbands were floating between life and death, clinging to their wives in this world? And how may millions and millions of people were there in the world like Charlie who wouldn't let go of their loved ones when they're gone? ~ Ben Sherwood

We are born, we live, and we perish, perhaps to be born again in some other form ... Galaxies are but one living entity burning with the energy from all of us. Life and death are but siblings who turn the universe continually. Endlessly. ~ Tony DiTerlizzi

Only when all conceptions of space and time, life and death, are exploded, when the grip of the past and fear of the future become merely conditions of one's past, only then can one live in the present fully. ~ Alberto Villoldo

It's great to have two cars and a swimming pool. But there are disappointments. After you've made some money and acquired some things, and after the initial excitement has passed, life goes on, just as bewildering as it always was, and the great problems of life and death once again come to the fore. ~ Robert Heilbroner

Love's over brimming mystery joins death and life. It has filled my cup of pain with joy. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

The anxiety arising from the perpetual activity of the death instinct, though never eliminated, is counteracted and kept at bay by the power of the life instinct. ~ Melanie Klein

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows. ~ Socrates

Nothing you can do can prevent your death. Nothing you can do can prevent your rebirth. To step beyond life and death is self-discovery. ~ Frederick Lenz

Death is the destiny of every man. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The greatest loss is the lost of life. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

There are places on the face of earth where rules - all rules, without exception - are suspended until further notice. Places where evil prospers, unobstructed, and the secret nature of men can be let loose without limitations. In these deserts of egotism, life and death have a relative value and another person's suffering becomes a bargaining chip. ~ Donato Carrisi

The place of horror turns out to be no more than a green scoop, sometimes shadowed, sometimes shining with the bilberries and grass within it, as if a mouth had opened from which streamed a beam of light. So my uncle Robert's death, which had looked from a distance to be an all-consuming tragedy was, close-up, the story of a man finding release from his pain and how his brother had showed such defiant love. The past was a grave, a trap - and yet, also neither of these. Just light, coming and going.
At the wolf pit you imagine you will stare into a hole littered with bones, but what draws you to that place is not what you take from it. The wolf pit seems a delicate illusion. You walk towards it; there is nothing, just a curve of the moor; then it is a soft green light, and then it is nothing again. ~ Will Cohu

Can life be counted upon to limit itself? No. It is the mindless striving of two to become infinity. Can death be counted upon to limit itself? Never. It is the equally mindless effort of zero to encompass infinity. ~ Roger Zelazny

I knew tht we all have the capacity to act in self-destructive ways, nevertheless i had a kind of faith that the desire to live was more powerful. now, instead, i felt its fragility. peter's suicide made me feel that the battle between the forces of life and death was far more evenly pitched. ~ Stephen Grosz

I am going to say something that will knock your lights off. God has the power to take life but he can't. He's got the power to do it but he won't. He's bound, he can't. He says, "Death and life are in the power" of whose tongue? Yours. ~ Jesse Duplantis

One thing which even the most seasoned and discerning masters of the art of choice do not and cannot choose, is the society to be born into - and so we are all in travel, whether we like it or not. We have not been asked about our feelings anyway. Thrown into a vast open sea with no navigation charts and all the marker buoys sunk and barely visible, we have only two choices left: we may rejoice in the breath-taking vistas of new discoveries - or we may tremble out of fear of drowning. One option not really realistic is to claim sanctuary in a safe harbour; one could bet that what seems to be a tranquil haven today will be soon modernized, and a theme park, amusement promenade or crowded marina will replace the sedate boat sheds. The third option not thus being available, which of the two other options will be chosen or become the lot of the sailor depends in no small measure on the ship's quality and the navigation skills of the sailors. Not all ships are seaworthy, however. And so the larger the expanse of free sailing, the more the sailor's fate tends to be polarized and the deeper the chasm between the poles. A pleasurable adventure for the well-equipped yacht may prove a dangerous trap for a tattered dinghy. In the last account, the difference between the two is that between life and death. ~ Zygmunt Bauman

Yes, there is death in this business of whaling - a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot. CHAPTER ~ Herman Melville

Wise people are able to give themselves gracefully to seemingly contradictory experiences, because they know that they belong to different seasons of life, all of which are necessary to the whole. Spring and winter, growth and decay, creativity and fallowness, health and sickness, power and impotence, and life and death all belong within the economy of being. ~ Sam Keen

One wants to live, of course, indeed one only stays alive by virtue of the fear of death, but I think, as I thought then, that it is better to die violently and not too old. ~ George Orwell

Love's Question "
And is this all true,
My ever-loving friend?
That the lightning-flash of the light in my eyes
Makes the clouds in your heart explode and blaze,
Is this true?
That my sweet lips are red as a blushing new bride,
My ever-loving friend,
Is this true?

That a tree of paradise flowers withing me,
That my foosteps ring like vinas beneath me,
Is this true?
That the night sheds drops of dew at the sight of me,
That the dawn surrounds me with light from delight in me,
Is this true?
That the touch of my hot cheek intoxicates the breeze,
My ever-loving friend,
Is this true?

That daylight hides in the dark of my hair,
That my arms hold life and death in their power,
Is this true?
That the earth can be wrapped in the end of my sari,
That my voice makes the world fall silent to hear me,
Is this true?
That the univrse is nothing but me and what loves me,
My ever-loving friend,
Is this true?

That for me alone your love has been waiting
Through worlds and ages awake and wandering,
Is this true?
That my voice, eyes, lips have brought you relief,
In a trice, from the cycle of life after life,
Is this true?
That you read on my soft forehead inginite Truth,
My ever-loving friend,
Is this true? ~ Rabindranath Tagore

It's already figured out. ~ Anonymous

We walk on the ground and give sparse recognition to the mud that will be the eternal homes for the bodies that we praise so much. Ground might not worth much but it holds billions of history and some of humanity's greatest treasures, One day it will become our permanent home. Maybe we should begin a mud religion and give reverence to the dirt, in the end, it is the dirt, ground and Mother Earth that wins and reigns supreme throughout the centuries. ~ Crystal Evans

Riches I hold in light esteem,
And love I laugh to scorn,
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanished with the morn.
And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, 'Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!'
Yes, as my swift days near their goal,
'Tis all that I implore -
In life and death, a chainless soul,
With courage to endure. ~ Emily Bronte

He was a thing of flesh and blood, of life and death, not an Immanent Will. A tree drew strength from light, but it was not light itself. And life was a process of changing, but it was not change itself. That was what death was for. ~ Bruce Sterling

In cold weather states like Vermont, where the weather can get to 20 below zero, home heating assistance is critically important. In fact, it is a life and death issue. ~ Bernie Sanders

In many ways ... the completeness of biography, the achievement of its professionalization, is an ironic fiction, since no life can ever be known completely, nor would we want to know every fact about an individual. Similarly, no life is ever lived according to aesthetic proportions. The "plot" of a biography is superficially based on the birth, life and death of the subject; "character," in the vision of the author. Both are as much creations of the biographer, as they are of a novelist. We content ourselves with "authorized fictions. ~ Ira Bruce Nadel

Human stories are practically always about one thing, really, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death ...
... (quoting an obituary) 'There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that ever happens to man is natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die, but for every man his death is an accident, and even if he knows it he would sense to it an unjustifiable violation.' Well, you may agree with the words or not, but those are the key spring of The Lord Of The Rings ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

When a volcano erupts, people get surprised, but it is a volcano! There is no 'place' for the surprise! The biggest problem with people is that they are not serious about the matters of life and death! Be serious or alternatively lose your existence! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The celebrated Parisian doctor Professor Xavier Bichat developed a fully materialist theory of the human body and mind in his lectures Physiological Researches on Life and Death, translated into English in 1816. Bichat defined life bleakly as 'the sum of the functions by which death is resisted ~ Richard Holmes

Life and Death
or Life and Love...
We each decided how to view our world.
RBA ~ R.B. Anderson

The aim of all life is death. Life is the apprenticeship that we serve preparing for death. Life is the fleeting spark of divinity that precedes a deathless eternity. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Omniscience about life and death is not within a physician's purview. A doctor should never write off a person a priori. ~ Jerome Groopman

The world, as it is, is not a permanent reality, but is a temporary product of our choices as creators. ~ Bryant McGill

Please keep off the grass. ~ Peter Ustinov

Personally I don't endorse the notion of mortality. It's fine for other folk, but I disapprove of the concept for me and my loved ones. Seems unfair that we're not allowed to vote on the matter and not one of us is excused. Who made up that rule? - Kinsey Millhone ~ Sue Grafton

I love the psychological thriller piece of it. Because we are trapped in this isolated environment with a deadly virus, what's really interesting is that everyone's darkness comes out because we've got these life-and-death stakes going on. And then, there're these interesting relationships going on, but we can't quite deal with the relationship right now because we've got something better to do, which is survive. ~ Kyra Zagorsky

When you meditate deeply, you will see beyond life and death. You will see that you can't die and you can't be reborn. You are existence itself. ~ Frederick Lenz

She has the mysterious solitude of ambiguous states; she hovers in a no-man's land between life and death, sleeping and waking. ~ Angela Carter

The worker picked up Pakhom's spade, dug a grave, and buried him - six feet from head to heel, exactly the amount of land a man needs. ~ Leo Tolstoy

A man who imagines that because he has a head full of knowledge that he is sufficient for these things had better start learning again. 'Who is sufficient for these things?' What are you doing? You are not simply imparting information, you are dealing with souls, you are dealing with pilgrims on the way to eternity, you are dealing with matters not only of life and death in this world, but with eternal destiny. ~ D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

If you start parsing the cause-and-effect chain backward through time, eventually you land in cosmology - does the story begin with the Big Bang or the out-of-nothing creation of the world by the word of a Southern Baptist god? And that question is even more fraught than any of the others. The stakes couldn't be any higher, because not it's not just a question of life and death, but also a question of life after death or eternal torture after death. ~ Kyle Minor

...could a face have been fashioned to fit the attitude of his consciousness where it lay suspended between life and death that face would have worn a snarl. ~ William Golding

It was cold. Space, the air we breathed, the yellow rocks, were deadly cold. There was something ultimate, passionless, and eternal in this cold. It came to us as a single constant note from the depths of space. We stood on the very boundary of life and death. ~ Frank Smythe

What gives us word-users the right to make life-and-death decisions concerning other living creatures that have no words? Why do we find ourselves in positions of such anguish (at least for some of us)? In the final analysis, it is simply because might makes right, and we humans, thanks to the intelligence afforded us by the complexity of our brains and our embeddedness in rich languages and cultures, are indeed high and mighty, relative to the "lower" animals (and vegetables). By virtue of our might, we are forced to establish some sort of ranking of creatures, whether we do so as a result of long and careful personal reflections or simply go along with the compelling flow of the masses. Are cows just as comfortably killable as mosquitoes? Would you feel any less troubled by swatting a fly preening on a wall than by beheading a chicken quivering on a block? ~ Douglas R. Hofstadter

To gain a true understanding of human experience, we must understand both our conscious and our unconscious selves, and how they interact. Our subliminal brain is invisible to us, yet it influences our conscious experience of the world in the most fundamental of ways: how we view ourselves and others, the meanings we attach to the everyday events of our lives, our ability to make the quick judgment calls and decisions that can sometimes mean the difference between life and death, and the actions we engage in as a result of all these instinctual experiences. ~ Leonard Mlodinow

She isn't a storm or a leader or a king or a war or anyone whose life and death makes noise. The problem is words. There is skin, yes. And then, inside that, there is your language, the casual, inherited magic spells taht make your skin real. It's too late now
even if we could say "Shut up" or "Where's my dinner?" in the first language, the real language, the words weren't born in us. And unless your skin and your language touch each other without interruption, there is no word strong enough to make you understand that it matters that you live. The things that really "stay" are an Orisha, a kind night, a pretended boy, a garden song that made no sense. Those come closer to being enough. ~ Helen Oyeyemi

What she thinks and feels is this: This is a world of men. They come into your country, they invade your home, they kill your family. They turn your body into the battlefield - the territory of all violence - all power - all life and death. And we take it. We do. We keep taking it. We have lost track of the reasons we do not slaughter the world of men, but we do not. Yes, there are good men. She sees the face of her father. She sees how the filmmaker loves the writer. She sees the yet-unwritten life of the writer's son. She sees her. brother. Beautiful smear. But it is the world of men that creates pure destruction. And this is a truth we cannot bear: Since we bear them into the world, we cannot kill them. Cannot be done with them. Cannot exile them into oblivion. ~ Lidia Yuknavitch

Raith smiled. "There. You already feel yourself weakening. I've taken thousands like you, lovely child. Taken them and broken them. There was nothing they could do. There is nothing you can do. You were made to feel desire. I was made to use it against you. It is the natural cycle. Life and death. Mating and death. Predator and Prey."
Raith leaned closer with each word, and brushed his lips against Murphy's throat as he spoke. "Born mortal. Born weak. And easily taken."
...
"And that's only a taste, child. When you know what it is to be truly taken later this night, you will understand that your life ended the moment I wanted you. ~ Jim Butcher

Laughter and books and wine are holy things; and living is good; and death is a breathlessness with the whole adventure of finding everywhere the traces of one great beauty... ~ Henry Rago

We poets have no need for drugs to attain the borderline between life and death. ~ Louis Malle

For those who seek to understand it, death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death. ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross

Nobody has the right to remove any single experience from another. Life and death are promised. We have a right to pain. ~ John Steinbeck

We bloomed in Spring. Our bodies are the leaves of God. The apparent seasons of life and death our eyes can suffer; but our souls, dear, I will just say this forthright: they are God Himself, we will never perish until He does. ~ Teresa Of Avila

Into this life of cruel wonder sent,
Without a word to tell us what it meant,
Sent back again without a reason why -
Birth, life, and death - 'twas all astonishment. ~ Richard Le Gallienne

Life and death issues are a universal concern. A person can learn about life by investigating the psychological and social aspects related to dying. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

We are so rebellious that when we die our cells refuse to live a second longer. But our souls they live always ... ~ Shawna Mae Lewis

I am a black bird, a Raven, I am Raven. I know and I am knowing - I know and see life and death, expansion and contraction and I do not shiver and cry - I am unafraid.

I am Raven. I am black as liquid night with wings and my eyes are stars to see by.

The light within me leads the way and it is revealed through my eyes and I am what lies between the dark and light.

I am the balance between. ~ Sophia Rose

And the worst part is before it gets any better we're heading for a cliff. And in the free fall I will realize I'm better off when I hit the bottom ~ Hayley Williams

Under the pathologist's microscope, life and death fight in an illuminated circle in a sort of cellular bullfight. The pathologist's job is to find the bull among the matador cells ~ Yann Martel

Nature has granted man no better gift than the shortness of life. The senses grow dull, the limbs are numb, sight, bearing, gait, even the teeth and alimentary organs die before we do, and yet this period is reckoned a portion of life. - Pg. 82 ~ Robert Harris

...There is a duty of solidarity among all us impossible, near-invisible people: a duty, out of sheer cussedness, not to disappear completely, simply to ease the conscience of the rest. ~ Anna Lyndsey

Life and death are in constant battle. There is no way in this world for happiness to exist alone ... ~ Nancy Farmer

There is a moment between life and death when the chain of time is broken. ~ Gillian Bronte Adams

If I had a choice, I wouldn't be here ... I wouldn't be anywhere. ~ Faraaz Kazi

Sometimes people feel they need to control everything, as if they could! Matters of life and death are out of your hands. The more you come to realize this, the harder you try to prove that you can control SOMETHING, anything. All you can really control is your response to what happens. You cannot control matters of life or death and because of this you are not accountable. You cannot be held liable for anything that you have no power over. Guilt, shame and blame make no sense when circumstances are beyond your control. ~ Kate McGahan

As we learn to give thanks for all of life and death, for all of this given world of ours, we find a deep joy. It is the joy of trust, the joy of faith in the faithfulness at the heart of all things. It is the joy of gratefulness in touch with the fullness of life. ~ David Steindl-Rast

In my worst moments, all I had to do was recall the love that I felt emanating from those heavenly lights and I could press on. ~ Dannion Brinkley

There is a very, narrow, thinness of line between the living and the dead; actually, it's just a lack of a heartbeat away. ~ Wes Adamson

Life is measured by - the ones left behind? Or his Faith? By Love? or by the people aside you? Or it has no meaning at all? ~ Aman Jassal

It comes out from no source, it goes back in through no aperture. It has reality yet no place where it resides; it has duration yet no beginning or end. Something emerges, though through no aperture - this refers to the fact that it has reality. It has reality yet there is no place where it resides - this refers to the dimension of space. It has duration but no beginning or end - this refers to the dimension of time. There is life, there is death, there is a coming out, there is a going back in - yet in the coming out and going back its form is never seen. This is called the Heavenly Gate. The Heavenly Gate is nonbeing. The ten thousand things come forth from nonbeing. Being cannot create being out of being; inevitably it must come forth from nonbeing. Nonbeing is absolute nonbeing, and it is here that the sage hides himself. ~ Zhuangzi

Destiny is another name for humanity's half-hearted yet persistent search for death. Again and again peoples have had the chance to live and show what would happen if human life were irrigated by continual happiness; and they have preferred to blow up the canals and perish of drought. ~ Rebecca West

In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death. ~ Alfred Russel Wallace

No waiting the beyond, no peering toward it,
but longing to degrade not even death;
we shall learn earthliness, and serve its ends,
to feel its hands about us like a friend's. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

The following story is true. There was a little boy, and his father said, "Do try to be like other people. Don't frown." And he tried and tried, but could not. So his father beat him with a strap; and then he was eaten up by lions.

Reader, if young, take warning by his sad life and death. For though it may be an honour to be different from other people, if Carlyle's dictum about the 30 million be still true, yet other people do not like it.

So, if you are different, you had better hide it, and pretend to be solemn and wooden-headed. Until you make your fortune. For most wooden-headed people worship money; and, really, I do not see what else they can do. In particular, if you are going to write a book, remember the wooden-headed. So be rigorous; that will cover a multitude of sins. And do not frown. ~ Oliver Heaviside

What kind of life have you lived, little one, that everything seems to be a question of fair and unfair? Life and Death just are. Fair has nothing to do with it. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Each stage of your life
is like petals of a flower...
unfolding and opening until it comes to full bloom...You will blossom and then you die...But know that this is not your ending. ~ Summerlyn Guthrie

Hope as evidence of life. Life as evidence of death. ~ Lara Biyuts

Jesus' sinless life was given as a gift to the world - the ultimate gift. Some would receive Him, and others wouldn't. Nonetheless, He continues to be our gift, and His life and death makes it possible for His children to receive eternal life with Him. That's a reason to give God glory. ~ Monica Johnson

The only way to win audiences is to tell people about the life and death of Christ. Every other approach is a waste. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

What kind of miracle ripped out your heart, and left you breathing? ~ A.B. Shepherd

It doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? ~ Ronald Reagan

All things grow, flourish, die, and re-grow. Life and death are continuous and fluid. Like the Sun and the Moon which die and are reborn, so do the seasons and all living things. ~ Brandi L. Bates

Those who remain have forgotten they are alive. They think they have more in common with their fallen than with their enemy. Nothing could be further from the truth. I know the difference between life and death. Two live beings from the opposite boundaries of the galaxy have infinitely more in common with each other than the living and the dead from the same family. ~ Ilona Andrews

8. EARTH comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and death. 9. The COMMANDER stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerely, benevolence, courage and strictness. ~ Sun Tzu

While his one live leg made lively echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap. On life and death this old man walked. ~ Herman Melville

There is much to be done, there is much that can be done ... one person of integrity can make a difference, a difference of life and death. As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs. ~ Elie Wiesel

A certain song can mean the difference between life and death for someone who is depressed and suicidal. Music can inspire and give hope. It can show adulation and worship and praise love and people. ~ Katie Ashley

Would we believe their story; if the dead should return? ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I who know many present things by my art," replied the Hermit with a smile, "have yet little knowledge of things future. Therefore I do not know whether any man or woman or beast in the whole world will be alive when the sun sets tonight. But be of good hope. The damsel is likely to live as long as any her age. ~ C.S. Lewis

I'm sucking on a cancer stick trying to think of something inspiring to say to help someone have a better life. That's "Irony". ~ Stanley Victor Paskavich

In the realm between life and death, time, as we know it, does not exist. ~ Brunonia Barry

Student: I don't feel like living anymore. Teacher: If you don't feel like doing something then don't do. This means that in finding many ways how not to live your life, you have the possibility to discover how to live your life. ~ Santosh Kalwar

Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it. ~ Ray Kurzweil