- WIST is my personal collection of quotations, curated for thought, amusement, turn of phrase, historical significance, or sometimes just (often-unintentional) irony.
WIST currently holds 19,638 quotations by 3,058 authors. Please feel free to browse and borrow.
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Author Cloud
Aristotle • Asimov, Isaac • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterfield (Lord) • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Cicero, Marcus Tullius • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Homer • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Martial • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Sophocles • Tolkien, J.R.R. • Twain, Mark • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
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action age America author beauty belief change character courage death democracy education ego error evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history human nature humanity integrity liberty life love morality perspective politics power progress reality religion science society success truth virtue war wealth wisdom writing- I've been adding topics since 2014, so not all quotes have been given one. Full topic list.
Popular Quotables
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- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,970)
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Quotations about dying
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
It takes more courage to live than to die; which is proved by the fact that so many more men die well than live well.
William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943) American educator and critic
Representative Plays by J. M. Barrie, Introduction, § 2 (1926)
(Source)
Added on 17-Jun-22 | Last updated 17-Jun-22
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Topics: bravery, courage, dying, good living, living
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The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he’s intelligent. He simply doesn’t mention them.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) American writer
A Farewell to Arms, ch. 21 [Catherine] (1929)
(Source)
Referring to a common paraphrase of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (2.2.34) "The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one."
Added on 27-Dec-21 | Last updated 27-Dec-21
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Topics: bravery, courage, cowardice, dying, fear
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For the world, I count it not an Inne, but an Hospitall, and a place, not to live, but to die in.
Thomas Browne (1605-1682) English physician and author
Religio Medici, Part 2, sec. 11 (1643)
(Source)
Added on 3-Aug-21 | Last updated 3-Aug-21
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Topics: dying, hospice, hospital, inn, life, meaning of life, world
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Topics: dying, hospice, hospital, inn, life, meaning of life, world
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It’s a blessing to die for a cause, because you can so easily die for nothing.
Andrew Young (b. 1932) American politician, diplomat, activist
Interview by Peter Ross Range, Playboy (Jul 1977)
(Source)
Added on 25-Feb-21 | Last updated 25-Feb-21
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Topics: cause, death, dying, meaning, purpose, random
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He bent drooping his head to one side, as a garden poppy
bends beneath the weight of its yield and the rains of springtime;
so his head bent slack to one side beneath the helm’s weight.[Μήκων δ’ ὡς ἑτέρωσε κάρη βάλεν, ἥ τ’ ἐνὶ κήπῳ
καρπῷ βριθομένη νοτίῃσί τε εἰαρινῇσιν,
ὣς ἑτέρωσ’ ἤμυσε κάρη πήληκι βαρυνθέν.]Homer (fl. 7th-8th C. BC) Greek author
The Iliad [Ἰλιάς], Book 8, l. 306ff (8.306-308) (c. 750 BC) [tr. Lattimore (1951)]
(Source)
Describing the death of Gorgythion, son of Priam.
Alt. trans.:And, as a crimson poppy flow’r, surchargéd with his seed,
And vernal humours falling thick, declines his heavy brow,
So, of one side, his helmet’s weight his fainting head did bow.
[tr. Chapman (1611), ll. 265-67]
As full-blown poppies, overcharged with rain,
Decline the head, and drooping kiss the plain, --
So sinks the youth; his beauteous head, depressed
Beneath his helmet, drops upon his breast.
[tr. Pope (1715-20)]
As in the garden, with the weight surcharged
Of its own fruit, and drench’d by vernal rains
The poppy falls oblique, so he his head
Hung languid, by his helmet’s weight depress’d.
[tr. Cowper (1791), l. 351ff]
And as a poppy, which in the garden is weighed down with fruit and vernal showers, droops its head to one side, so did his head incline aside, depressed by the helmet.
[tr. Buckley (1860)]
Down sank his head, as in a garden sinks
A ripen'd poppy charg'd with vernal rains;
So sank his head beneath his helmet's weight.
[tr. Derby (1864), ll. 349-51]
Now he bowed his head as a garden poppy in full bloom when it is weighed down by showers in spring -- even thus heavy bowed his head beneath the weight of his helmet.
[tr. Butler (1898)]
And he bowed his head to one side like a poppy that in a garden is laden with its fruit and the rains of spring; so bowed he to one side his head, laden with his helmet.
[tr. Murray (1924)]
Fallen on one side, as on the stalk a poppy falls, weighed down by showring spring, beneath his helmet's weight his head sank down.
[tr. Fitzgerald (1974)]
As a garden poppy, burst into red bloom, bends
by its full seeds and a sudden spring shower,
so Gorgythion's head fell limp over one shoulder,
weighed down by his helmet.
[tr. Fagles (1990), ll. 349-53]
Off to one side his head he let drop, like a poppy that in some
garden is heavy with its own seed and the showers of springtime --
so to one side did his head incline, weighed down by his helmet.
[tr. Merrill (2007), ll. 306-08]
Trust me, the being-dead part is much easier than the dying part. If you can watch much television, then being dead will be a cinch. Actually, watching television and surfing the Internet are really excellent practice for being dead.
Added on 30-Jun-20 | Last updated 30-Jun-20
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Topics: afterlife, death, dying, voyeurism, watching
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Oh, let it be a night of lyric rain
And singing breezes, when my bell is tolled.
I have so loved the rain that I would hold
Last in my ears its friendly, dim refrain.
Added on 30-Mar-20 | Last updated 30-Mar-20
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Topics: death, dying, rain, sound
More quotes by Parker, Dorothy
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Topics: death, dying, rain, sound
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There’s nothing noble about dying. Not even if you die for honor. Not even if you die the greatest hero the world ever saw. Not even if you’re so great your name will never be forgotten and who’s that great? The most important thing is your life, little guys. You’re worth nothing dead except for speeches. Don’t let them kid you any more. Pay no attention when they tap you on the shoulder and say come along we’ve got to fight for liberty, or whatever their word is. There’s always a word.
Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976) American screenwriter and novelist [James Dalton Trumbo]
Johnny Got His Gun (1938)
(Source)
Added on 6-Mar-19 | Last updated 6-Mar-19
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Topics: death, dying, fame, glory, heroism, honor, manipulation, nobility, war
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Dying is an art.
Like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I have a call.
Added on 13-Dec-17 | Last updated 13-Dec-17
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Topics: death, dying, mortality
More quotes by Plath, Sylvia
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Topics: death, dying, mortality
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Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) Welsh poet and writer
“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” (1947)
(Source)
First published in Botteghe Oscure (Nov 1951).
Added on 2-Nov-17 | Last updated 2-Nov-17
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Topics: age, anger, death, dying, henoed, meme, peace, rage, requiem, RIP, struggling
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DEATH: You see. No shock. No engulfment. No tearing asunder. What you feared would come like an explosion is like a whisper. What you thought was the end is the beginning.
Added on 17-Apr-17 | Last updated 17-Apr-17
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Topics: afterlife, death, dying, passage, transition, trauma
More quotes by Johnson, George Clayton
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What sort of a lover am I to think so much about my affliction and so much less about hers? Even the insane call, ‘Come back,’ is all for my own sake. I never even raised the question whether such a return, if it were possible, would be good for her. I want her back as an ingredient in the restoration of my past. Could I have wished her anything worse? Having got once through death, to come back and then, at some later date, have all her dying to do over again? They call Stephen the first martyr. Hadn’t Lazarus the rawer deal?
Added on 13-Sep-16 | Last updated 13-Sep-16
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Topics: death, dying, grief, grieving, martyrdom, resurrection
More quotes by Lewis, C.S.
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“Gun-wielding recluse gunned down by local police” isn’t the epitaph I want. I am hoping for “Witnesses reported the sound up to two hundred kilometers away” or “Last body part finally located”.
Added on 7-Mar-16 | Last updated 7-Mar-16
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Topics: death, dying, epitaph, legacy
More quotes by Nicoll, James
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Topics: death, dying, epitaph, legacy
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Remember, though we struggle against things because we are afraid of them, it is often the other way round — we get afraid because we struggle. Are you struggling, resisting? Don’t you think Our Lord says to you ‘Peace, child, peace. Relax. Let go. Underneath are the everlasting arms. Let go, I will catch you. Do you trust me so little?’ Of course, this may not be the end. Then make it a good rehearsal.
Added on 23-Sep-15 | Last updated 23-Sep-15
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Topics: death, dying, faith, God, let go, trust
More quotes by Lewis, C.S.
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A Good life fears not Life nor Death.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English writer, physician
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, # 157 (1732)
(Source)
Added on 17-Aug-11 | Last updated 26-Jan-21
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Topics: death, dying, fear, living, virtue
More quotes by Fuller, Thomas (1654)
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I want death to find me planting my cabbages.
Added on 24-Jul-09 | Last updated 19-Dec-19
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Topics: death, dying, end, fate, meme, mundane
More quotes by Montaigne, Michel de
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It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
Woody Allen (b. 1935) American comedian, writer, director [b. Allan Steward Konigsberg]
“Death (A Play)”, Without Feathers (1975)
Sometimes misattributed to Spike Milligan.
Added on 17-Jun-09 | Last updated 9-Jul-15
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Topics: death, dying, fear, mortality
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Death is not the worst evil, but rather when we wish to die and cannot.
Added on 16-Jun-08 | Last updated 17-Aug-16
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Topics: death, dying, life support, suffering, suicide
More quotes by Sophocles
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Live as you will wish to have lived when you are dying.
[Lebe, wie Du, wenn du stirbst, / Wunschen wirst, gelebt zu haben.]
Christian Gellert (1715-1769) German poet, moralist
Geistliche Oden und Lieder, “Vom Tode” (1757)
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 11-Jan-22
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Topics: dying, life, regrets, retrospect
More quotes by Gellert, Christian
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