WIST Quotations

Shakespeare, William -- Hamlet, Act 5, sc. 2, l. 396ff (5.2.396-397) (c. 1600)

Dave — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 16:32:26 +0000

HORATIO: Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 5, sc. 2, l. 396ff (5.2.396-397) (c. 1600)
(Source)

After Hamlet's death words.

Marlowe, Christopher -- Tamburlaine the Great, Part 2, Act 5, sc. 3 (c. 1587)

Dave — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 23:33:49 +0000

AMYRUS: Let Earth and Heaven his timeless death deplore,
For both their worths shall equal him no more.

Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (1564-1593) English dramatist and poet
Tamburlaine the Great, Part 2, Act 5, sc. 3 (c. 1587)

Final lines of the play. More on Timur (Tamerlane, Tamburlaine).

Serling, Rod -- Letter to the Editor, Los Angeles Times (8 Apr 1968)

Dave — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 15:36:31 +0000

There is a bitter sadness and special irony that attends the passing of Martin Luther King. Quickly and with ease, we offer up a chorus of posthumous praise — the ritual dirge so time-honored and comfortable and undemanding of anything but rhetoric. In death, we offer the acknowledgement of the man and his dream that we denied him in life.

In his grave, we praise him for his decency — but when he walked amongst us, we responded with no decency of our own. When he suggested that all men should have a place in the sun — we put a special sanctity on the right of ownership and the privilege of prejudice by maintaining that to deny homes to Negroes was a democratic right.

Now we acknowledge his compassion — but we exercised no compassion of our own. When he asked us to understand that men take to the streets out of anguish and hopelessness and a vision of that dream dying, we bought guns and speculated about roving agitators and subversive conspiracies and demanded law and order.

We felt anger at the effects, but did little to acknowledge the causes. We extol all the virtues of the man — but we chose not to call them virtues before his death. And now, belatedly, we talk of this man’s worth — but the judgment comes late in the day as part of a eulogy when it should have been made a matter of record while he existed as a living force.

Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
Letter to the Editor, Los Angeles Times (8 Apr 1968)
(Source)

Quoted in Anne Serling, As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling (2013).

Churchill, Winston -- Eulogy for Neville Chamberlain (1940)

Dave — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 03:26:16 +0000

The only guide to a man is his conscience, the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and the sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
Eulogy for Neville Chamberlain (1940)

In The Second World War, Vol. 2: Their Finest Hour (1949)

Allen, Elizabeth Akers -- “Until Death”

Dave — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 12:20:30 +0000

Carve not upon a stone when I am dead,
The praises which remorseful mourners give
To women’s graves — a tardy recompense,
But speak them while I live.

Elizabeth Chase Akers Allen (1832-1911) American author, journalist, poet [pseud. Florence Percy]
“Until Death”

Published anonymously in William Cullen Bryant (ed.), A New Library of Poetry and Song (1876)

Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Speech (1882-01-08), “At a Child’s Grave,” Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D. C.

Dave — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 10:56:40 +0000

Why should we fear that which will come to all that is? We cannot tell, we do not know, which is the greater blessing — life or death. We do not know whether the grave is the end of this life, or the door of another, or whether the night here is not somewhere else at dawn. Neither can we tell which is the more fortunate — the child dying in its mother’s arms, before its lips have learned to form a word, or he who journeys all the length of life’s uneven road, painfully taking the last slow steps with staff and crutch.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Speech (1882-01-08), “At a Child’s Grave,” Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D. C.
(Source)

Eulogy at the burial of Harry Miller.

Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Speech (1882-01-08), “At a Child’s Grave,” Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D. C.

Dave — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:32:53 +0000

The dead do not suffer. And if they live again, their lives will surely be as good as ours. We have no fear. We are all children of the same mother, and the same fate awaits us all. We, too, have our religion, and it is this: Help for the living, Hope for the dead.