"You only live twice: Once when you're born And once when you look death in the face."
- Ian Fleming
Awareness
"Dying is nothing to fear. It can be the most wonderful experience of your life. It all depends on how you've lived."
- Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Transformation
"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
- Mark Twain
Philosophy
"The life you have left is a gift. Cherish it. Enjoy it now, to the fullest. Do what matters, now."
- Leo Babauta
Motivation
"Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back."
- Marcus Aurelius
Courage
"If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Ambition
"What do we say to the Lord of Death? 'Not today.' "
- George R.R. Martin
Bravery
"Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality. Dying is like being born: just a change."
- Isabel Allende
Change
"For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance."
- Kahlil Gibran
Philosophy
"The meaning of life is that it stops."
- Franz Kafka
Philosophy
"If you live each day as it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right."
- Steve Jobs
Motivation
"Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it."
- Haruki Murakami
Awareness
"Those who are afraid of death will carry it on their shoulders."
- Federico García Lorca
Facing Fears
"Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them."
- George Eliot
Gratitude
"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die."
- Thomas Campbell
Love
"Even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise."
- Les Miserables
Hope
"Love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever."
- J.K. ROWLING
Love
"There is something about losing a mother that is permanent and inexpressible—a wound that will never quite heal."
- SUSAN WIGGS
Adversity
"When he shall die take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun."
- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Love
"My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it."
- CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND
Family
"My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me."
- JIM VALVANO
Empowerment
"A father is the one friend upon whom we can always rely. In the hour of need, when all else fails, we remember him upon whose knees we sat when children."
- ÉMILE GABORIAU
Family
"This is the price you pay for having a great father. You get the wonder, the joy, the tender moments—and you get the tears at the end, too."
- HARLAN COBEN
Family
"There is no expiration date on the love between a father and his child."
- Jennifer Williamson
Love
"When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him lies on the paths of men."
- HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Reflection
"I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived."
- WILLA CATHER
Ambition
"I am ready to meet my maker. Whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
- WINSTON CHURCHILL
Philosophy
"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome."
- Isaac Asimov
Philosophy
"Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people live."
- GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Philosophy
"You will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up. And you come through. It's like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly - that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp."
- Anne Lamott
Resilience
"Say not in grief 'he is no more' but live in thankfulness that he was."
- Hebrew proverb
Gratitude
"Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well."
- Buddhist saying
Awareness
"Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve."
- Earl Grollman
Healing
"The melody that the loved one played upon the piano of your life will never be played quite that way again, but we must not close the keyboard and allow the instrument to gather dust. We must seek out other artists of the spirit, new friends who gradually will help us to find the road to life again, who will walk the road with us."
- Joshua Loth Liebman
Transformation
"We do not have to rely on memories to recapture the spirit of those we have loved and lost – they live within our souls in some perfect sanctuary which even death cannot destroy."
- Nan Witcomb
Resilience
"Everybody is going to be dead one day, just give them time."
- Neil Gaiman
Awareness
"I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to."
- Jimi Hendrix
Independence
"It's not contagious, you know. Death is as natural as life. It's part of the deal we made."
- Mitch Albom
Philosophy
"We see a hearse; we think sorrow. We see a grave; we think despair. We hear of a death; we think of a loss. Not so in heaven. When heaven sees a breathless body, it sees the vacated cocoon & the liberated butterfly."
- Max Lucado
Hope
"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."
- Isaac Asimov
Philosophy
"Say not in grief that she is no more, but say in thankfulness that she was. A death is not the extinguishing of a light but the putting out of the lamp because the dawn has come."
- RABINDRANATH TAGORE
Gratitude
"If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Belief
"The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
Reflection
"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal."
- Albert Pike
Contribution
"From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity."
- Edvard Munch
Transformation
"You are gone, but thank you for all these soft, sweet things you left behind. In my home, in my head, in my heart."
- NIKITA GILL
Gratitude
"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."
- C.S. Lewis
Adversity
"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."
- Marcus Aurelius
Ambition
"The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them."
- Lois McMaster Bujold
Responsibility
"Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying."
- Jean Cocteau
Awareness
"I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens."
- Woody Allen
Facing Fears
"I intend to live forever, or die trying."
- Groucho Marx
Motivation
"I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life."
- Corazon Aquino
Belief
"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
Philosophy
"If we must die, we die defending our rights."
- Sitting Bull
Bravery
"I'll sleep when I'm dead."
- Warren Zevon
Motivation
"In the long run we are all dead."
- John Maynard Keynes
Awareness
"It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are."
- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Awareness
"Dying is easy, it's living that scares me to death."
- Annie Lennox
Facing Fears
"Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live."
- Henry Van Dyke
Facing Fears
"No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow."
- Euripides
Awareness
"When faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead."
- John Greenleaf Whittier
Belief
"I'm gonna live till I die."
- Frank Sinatra
Motivation
"The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living."
- W. H. Auden
Connection to Earth
"Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it."
- W. Somerset Maugham
Philosophy
"Cursed is the man who dies, but the evil done by him survives."
- Abu Bakr
Morality
"If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die."
- Maya Angelou
Love
"We die only once, and for such a long time."
- Moliere
Awareness
"For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity."
- William Penn
Philosophy
"Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more."
- Virginia Woolf
Awareness
"When you're dead, you're dead. That's it."
- Marlene Dietrich
Awareness
"Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality."
- Emily Dickinson
Spirituality
"Say not in grief that he is no more but live in thankfulness that he was."
- HEBREW PROVERB
Gratitude
"Those we love never truly leave us. There are things that death cannot touch."
- JACK THORNE
Love
"Grief is the price we pay for love."
- Queen Elizabeth II
Gratitude
"If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them."
- James O’Barr
Love
"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They speak more eloquently than 10,000 tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love."
- Washington Irving
Gratitude
"If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever."
- A.A. MILNE
Love
"If you ever lose someone dear to you, never say the words they’re gone. They’ll come back."
- PRINCE
Hope
"Remembering is an act of resurrection, each repetition a vital layer of mourning, in memory of those we are sure to meet again."
- NANCY COBB
Reflection
"To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead."
- SAMUEL BUTLER
Reflection
"Those we love and lose are always connected by heartstrings into infinity."
- Terri Guillemets
Love
"Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow."
- ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Gratitude
"As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well-used brings happy death."
- LEONARDO DA VINCI
Contentment
"Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened."
- Dr. Seuss
Happiness
"They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies."
- WILLIAM PENN
Love
"Every life is noted and is cherished, and nothing loved is ever lost or perished."
- MADELEINE L’ENGLE
Love
"The comfort of having a friend may be taken away but not that of having had one."
- SENECA
Relationships
"Wherever a beautiful soul has been, there is a trail of beautiful memories."
- RONALD REAGAN
Reflection
"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."
- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Compassion
"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal."
- From a headstone in Ireland
Love
"The idea is to die young as late as possible."
- ASHLEY MONTAGU
Ambition
"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."
- Dr. Seuss
Happiness
"Death is contagious; it is contracted the moment we are conceived."
- Madeleine L'Engle
Philosophy
"Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it."
- W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Positivity
"We get no choice. If we love, we grieve."
- Thomas Lynch
Love
"I’m always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize that I’m listening to it."
- GEORGE CARLIN
Positivity
"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."
- Joseph Stalin
Awareness
"There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief."
- Aeschylus
Adversity
"Immortality … a fate worse than death."
- EDGAR A. SHOAFF
Philosophy
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."
- Helen Keller
Love
"No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear."
- C.S Lewis
Adversity
"Grief is itself a medicine."
- William Cowper
Healing
"Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Gratitude
"We need never be afraid of our tears."
- Charles Dickens
Courage
"Death is nature’s way of saying, ‘Your table is ready."
- ROBIN WILLIAMS
Positivity
"Sometimes, when one person is absent, the whole world seems depopulated."
- ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
Adversity
"Our grief is as individual as our lives."
- Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Personal Growth
"Death should take me while I am in the mood."
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Motivation
"There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery."
- Dante Alighieri
Adversity
"Tears are the silent language of grief."
- Voltaire
Adversity
"Life is not the way it is supposed to be. It is the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference."
- Virginia Satir
Courage
"Life is stressful, dear. That’s why they say ‘rest in peace."
- DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI
Positivity
"Those things that hurt instruct."
- Benjamin Franklin
Learning from Mistakes
"It's better to burn out than to fade away."
- Neil Young
Motivation
"I will welcome happiness for it enlarges my heart; Yet I will endure sadness for it opens my soul. I will acknowledge rewards for they are my due; Yet I will welcome obstacles for they are my challenge."
- Og Mandino
Balance
"Some people come in your life as blessings. Some come in your life as lessons."
- Mother Teresa
Personal Growth
"Honest listening is one of the best medicines we can offer the dying and the bereaved."
- Jean Cameron
Compassion
"Death, taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them."
- Margaret Mitchell
Awareness
"Nobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death."
- William S. Burroughs
Philosophy
"People touch our lives if only for a moment, And yet we're not the same from that moment on, The time is not important, The moment is forever."
- Fern Bork
Connection to Earth
"Lives are like rivers: eventually they go where they must. Not where we want them to."
- RICHARD RUSSO
Change
"I'd rather be dead than sing 'Satisfaction' when I'm 45."
- Mick Jagger
Boldness
"Death will be a great relief. No more interviews."
- Katharine Hepburn
Contentment
"Sweet is the voice of a sister in the season of sorrow."
- Benjamin Disraeli
Compassion
"Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal."
Hope
"In the night of death, hope sees a star."
Hope
"The soul takes flight to the world that is invisible."
Spirituality
"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o’er-wrought heart and bids it break."
Gratitude
"The fact that something has happened to a million other people diminishes neither grief nor joy."
Awareness
"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live."
Philosophy
"Sorrow makes us all children again."
Adversity
"All that lives must die."
Philosophy
"Life is but a walking shadow."
Philosophy
"Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever."
Family
"Grief fills the room up of my absent child."
Gratitude
"If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to heaven and bring you home again."
Aspirations
"Although it's difficult today to see beyond the sorrow, may looking back in memory help comfort you tomorrow."
Hope
"When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure."
Relationships
"There is no friend like a sister, in calm or stormy weather."
Love
"Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die."
- Unknown
Adversity
"She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps."
Gratitude
"Why does it take a minute to say hello and forever to say goodbye?"
Gratitude