Death - christiansquoting.org.uk

death



Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out if it alive.

The high cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.

Relax - otherwise you might die all tensed up .

Stanton's Law of Minimum Requirements. Bad breath is better than no breath at all.

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Many who plan to seek God at the eleventh hour die at 10:30.

A "Frisbeterian" believes that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof, and you can't get it back down.

It's not the pace of life that concerns us, it's the sudden stop at the end.

Die, v.: To stop sinning suddenly.

My uncle taught me not to say anything about the dead unless it was good. So, is he dead? Good! -- heard on drivetime radio

Forget not Death, O man! for thou may'st be
Of one thing certain--he forgets not thee.
Persian saying

What is Dying?
A ship sails
and I stand watching
till she fades on the horizon
and someone at my side says,
"She is gone."
Gone Where?
Gone from my sight, that is all:

She is just as large as when I saw her.
The diminished size,
and total loss of sight
Is in me, not in her,

And just at the moment
when someone at my side says
"She is gone"
There are others
who are watching her coming,
and other voices take up a glad shout,

"There she comes!"

and that, is dying.

Rejoice not over thy greatest enemy being dead, but remember that we die all. --The Apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus 8:7

To the good man to die is gain. The foolish fear death as the greatest of evils, the wise desire it as a rest after labours and the end of ills. -- Ambrose

Rebirth brings us into the Kingdom of grace, and death into the Kingdom of glory.-- - Richard Baxter

On this side of the grave we are exiles, on that, citizens; on this side, orphans; on that, children; on this side, captives; on that, freemen.
Henry Ward Beecher

I'd rather be dead than think about death. --Brendan Behan

Ignorance of death is destroying us. Death is the dark backing a mirror needs if we are to see anything. --Saul Bellow

Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours. --Yogi Berra

Death is part of this life and not of the next. -- Elizabeth Bibesco, _Haven_, 1951

Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.
He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.
Job 14:1-2

Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.-- Ambrose Bierce.

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever. --Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

Nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a substitute .... It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; he does not fill it, but on the contrary, he keeps it empty and so helps us to keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain.-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The waters are rising, but so am I. I am not going under but over. Do not be concerned about dying; go on living well, the dying will be right.
Last words of Catherine Booth, 61, wife of Salvation Army founder William Booth. 4.10.1890

What then is there left for me to do? Not count the weeks, the days and the hours which will bring me again into her sweet company.....My work plainly is to fill up the weeks, the days and the hours and cheer my poor heart as I go alongwith the thought that, when I have served my Christ and my generation according to the will of God -- which I vow this afternoon I shall do with the last drop of my blood -- then I trust that He will bid me to the skies as he bade her.
William Booth at the grave of his wife, in Blood and Fire, Roy Hattersley, 1999

YES, thou art gone ! and never more
Thy sunny smile shall gladden me ;
But I may pass the old church door,
And pace the floor that covers thee.
May stand upon the cold, damp stone,
And think that, frozen, lies below
The lightest heart that I have known,
The kindest I shall ever know.

Yet, though I cannot see thee more,
'Tis still a comfort to have seen ;
And though thy transient life is o'er,
'Tis sweet to think that thou hast been ;

O think a soul so near divine,
Within a form so angel fair,
United to a heart like thine,
Has gladdened once our humble sphere.
BRONTE, ANNE. A REMINISCENCE 1844.

THERE 's little joy in life for me,
And little terror in the grave ;
I 've lived the parting hour to see
Of one I would have died to save.

Calmly to watch the failing breath,
Wishing each sigh might be the last ;
Longing to see the shade of death
O'er those beloved features cast.

The cloud, the stillness that must part
The darling of my life from me ;
And then to thank God from my heart,
To thank Him well and fervently ;

Although I knew that we had lost
The hope and glory of our life ;
And now, benighted, tempest-tossed,
Must bear alone the weary strife.
BRONTE, CHARLOTTE. ON THE DEATH OF ANNE BRONTE,1849

All the kings throughout history sent their people out to die for them Only one person ever died for their people willingly and lovingly. DAVE BROWN

After this it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant-for-truth was taken with a summons by the same post as the other, and had this for a token that the summons was true, "That his pitcher was broken at the fountain." Eccl. 12:6. When he understood it, he called for his friends, and told them of it. Then said he, I am going to my Father's; and though with great difficulty I have got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who will now be my rewarder. When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the river-side, into which as he went, he said, "Death, where is thy sting?" And as he went down deeper, he said, "Grave, where is thy victory?" 1 Cor. 15:55. So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.
John Bunyan, Pilgrims Progress

That person will not be proud of his rich and fine clothes who is sensible that he may be stripped by death tomorrow, and sent out of the world, as he came naked into it. He will not today be very proud of his personal beauty, who hath no dependence on escaping tomorrow that stroke of death which will mar all his beauty, and make that face which he now thinks so comely appear ghastly and horrid; when instead of a ruddy and florid countenance, there will be the blood settled, cold and congealed, the flesh stiff and clayey, the teeth set, the eyes fixed and sunk into the head. Nor will he today very much affect to beautify and adorn with gaudy and flaunting apparel, that body concerning which he is sensible that it may be wrapped in a winding sheet tomorrow, to be carried to the grave, there to rot, and be covered and filled with worms. --Jeremiah Burroughs

I eveywhere teach that no one can be justly condemned and perish except on account of actual sin; and to say that the countless mortals taken from life while yet infants are precipitated from their mother's arms into eternal death is a blasphemy to be universally detested.
John Calvin , in Augustus H. Strong "Systematic Theology", page 663.

I John Calvin, servant of the Word of God in the church of Geneva, weakened by many illnesses...thank God that he has not only shown mercy to me, his poor creature....and suffered me in all sins and weaknesses, but what is more than that, he has made me a partaker of his grace to serve him through my work...I confess to live and die in this faith which he has given me, inasmuch as I have no other hope or refuge than his predestination upon which my entire salvation is grounded. I embrace the grace which he has offered me in our Lord Jesus Christ, and accept the merits of his suffering and dying that through him all my sins are buried; and I humbly beg him to wash me and cleanse me with the blood of our great Redeemer, as it was shed for all poor sinners so that I, when I appear before his face, may bear his likeness."
Calvin's Last Will (April 25, 1564) Letters of John Calvin, 29

Come Love, come Lord, and that long day
For which I languish, come away.
When this dry soul those eyes shall see
And drink the unseal'd source of Thee,
When glory's sun faith's shades shall chase,
Then for Thy veil give me Thy face.
Richard Crashaw (1613-1649)

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. John Donne Devotions XVII

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
John Donne
All our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.--John Donne (1572-1631)_Sermons_ No. 4

Since.....the children of believers are holy......in virtue of the covenant of grace, in which they, together with the parents, are comprehended, godly parents have no reason to doubt of the election and salvation of their children, whom it pleaseth God to call out of this life in their infancy
(Canons of Dordt, I/17).

Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.
John Dryden. 1631-1701. Aurengzebe. Act iv. Sc. 1.
So softly death succeeded life in her,
She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.
John Dryden (1631-1700)_Eleonora_, Line 315

Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.... Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

When it comes time to die, make sure that all you have to do is die. -- Jim Elliot , journal: 25 March 1951

My son, a perfect little boy of five years and three months, had ended his earthly life. You can never sympathize with me; you can never know how much of me such a young child can take away. A few weeks ago I accounted myself a very rich man, and now the poorest of all. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)_Letter to Thomas Carlyle_ [February 28, 1842]

Since the last communion here, one of our dear helpers in this presbytery from whose lips you used to hear the joyful sound, is gone away to the communion-table above; and glory be to God that he got a full gale of heavenly wind, to drive him in with holy joy and triumph to the harbor of glory. RALPH ERSKINE

Death comes to all
But great achievements build a monument
Which shall endure until the sun grows cold.
Georg Fabricius

Most men need patience to die, but a saint who understands what death admits him to should rather need patience to live. I think he should often look out and listen on a deathbed for his Lord's coming; and when he receives the news of his approaching change he should say, 'The voice of my beloved! behold, He cometh leaping over the mountains, skipping upon the hills' (Song of Solomon 2:8)--JOHN FLAVEL

A Christian in this world is but gold in the ore; at death the pure gold is melted out and separated and the dross cast away and consumed. -- Flavel

If this were the last day of your life, my friend
Tell me, what do you think you would do then?
Stand up to the blow, that fate has struck upon you?
Make the most of all you still have coming to you? or
Lay down on the ground and let the tears flow from you
Crying to the grass and trees
And heaven finally on your knees:

Let me live again
Let life come find me wanting
Spring must strike again
Against the shield of winter
Let me feel once more
The arms of love surround me
Telling me the danger's past
I need not fear the icy blast again.
S Genesis "Undertow"

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Gray's Elegy
Now, as touching my death, rejoice as I do, my dearest sister, that I shall be delivered of this corruption, and put on incorruption; for I am assured that I shall for losing a mortal life win one that is immortal, joyful and everlasting...Lady Jane Grey (1537-54) before execution

This machine will take off a head in a twinkling, and the victim will feel nothing but a sense of refreshing coolness. We cannot make too much haste, gentlemen, to allow the nation to enjoy this advantage. -- . I. Guillotin

I want to die in my sleep peacefully like my grandfather not screaming and in terror like his passengers. --Jack Handey

He whose head is in heaven need not fear to put his feet into the grave. -- Matthew Henry

Death will be the funeral of all our evils and the resurrection of all our joys. --GEORGE HERBERT.

When the cancer that later took his life was first diagnosed, Senator Richard L. Neuberger remarked upon his "new appreciation of things I once took for granted--eating lunch with a friend, scratching my cat Muffet's ears and listening for his purrs, the company of my wife, reading a book or magazine in the quiet of my bed lamp at night, raiding the refrigerator for a glass of orange juice or a slice of toast. For the first time, I think I actually am savoring life. _Better Homes and Gardens_

I suppose all of us hover between two ways of regarding death, which appear to be in hopeless contradiction with each other. First there is the familiar and instinctive recoil from it as embodying the supreme and irrevocable disaster...But, then, there is another aspect altogether which death can wear for us. It is that which first comes to us, perhaps, as we look down upon the quiet face, so cold and white, of one who has been very near and dear to us. There it lies in possession of its own secret. It knows it all. So we seem to feel. And what the face says in its sweet silence to us as a last message from one whom we loved is:
'Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!'
So the face speaks. Surely while we speak there is a smile flitting over it; a smile as of gentle fun at the trick played us by seeming death...
Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) `The King of Terrors.' Sermon in St. Paul's on 15 May 1910), at which time the body of King Edward VII was lying in state atWestminster.

God hath my daily petitions, for I am at peace with all men, and He is at peace with me . . . and this witness makes the thoughts of death joyful.
Richard Hooker died at 46 His last words

We are all under sentence of death, but with a sort of indefinite reprieve. --Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

It is important to speak of suffering and death in a way that dispels fear. Indeed, dying is a part of life. - Pope John Paul II in Austria: Message to the sick and suffering June 1998

It is, indeed, apparent, from the constitution of the world, that there must be a time for other thoughts; and a perpetual meditation upon the last hour, however it may become the solitude of a monastery, is inconsistent with many duties of common life. But surely the remembrance of death ought to predominate in our minds, as an habitual and settled principle, always operating, though not always perceived; and our attention should seldom wander so far from our own condition as not to be recalled and fixed by the sight of an event which must soon, we know not how soon, happen likewise to ourselves, and of which, though we cannot appoint the time, we may secure the consequence." -- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #78

He is gone, and we are going.-- Samuel Johnson, letter to Mrs Thrale on the death of her son, Harry: 25 March 1776.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)

Since business and gaiety are always drawing our attention away from a future state, some admonition is frequently necessary to recall it to our minds, and what can more properly renew the impression than the examples of mortality which every day supplies? The great incentive to virtue is the reflection that we must die; it will, therefore, be useful to accustom ourselves, whenever we see a funeral, to consider how soon we may be added to the number of those whose probation is past, and whose happiness or misery shall endure forever. Samuel Johnson: Rambler #78

Every funeral may justly be considered as a summons to prepare for that state into which it shows us that we must some time enter; and the summons is more loud and piercing as the event of which it warns us is at less distance. To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege; but to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack. - Samuel Johnson: Rambler #78

Nothing confers so much ability to resist the temptations that perpetually surround us, as an habitual consideration of the shortness of life, and the uncertainty of those pleasures that solicit our pursuit; and this consideration can be inculcated only by affliction. 'O Death! how bitter is the remembrance of thee, to a man that lives at ease in his possessions!' If our present state were one continued succession of delights, or one uniform flow of calmness and tranquility, we should never willingly think upon its end; death would then surely surprise us as 'a thief in the night;' and our task of duty would remain unfinished, till 'the night came when no man can work.'- Samuel Johnson: Adventurer #120

Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour;
Improve each moment as it flies!
Life's a short summer, man a flower;
He dies -- alas! how soon he dies!
Samuel Johnson from "Winter, An Ode",

If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a 'wandering to find home,' why should we not look forward to the arrival?
C.S. Lewis letter:7 June 1959

Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

In the chapter, "Farewell to Shadowlands," the children are afraid of being sent away from Narnia. Aslan assures them that they will not - and a wild hope rises in them. Aslan tells them that there was a real railway accident. "Your father and mother and all of you are -- as you used to call it in the Shadowlands -- dead. The term is over: the holiday has begun. The dream is ended. This is the morning...things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And as for us, this is the end of all stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia have only been the cover of the Great Story which none on earth has read; which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before." C. S. LEWIS, Last Battle

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection not in words alone,but in every leaf in springtime. --Martin Luther

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;
But as Thou dwell'st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea&emdash;
Come, Friend of sinners, and thus abide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
Henry Francis Lyte - 1793-1847

"Now I leave off to speak any more to creatures, and turn my speech to Thee, O Lord. Now I begin my intercourse with God which shall never be broken off. Farewell, father and mother, friends and relations.
Farewell, meat and drink.
Farewell, the world and all delights.
Farewell, sun, moon, and stars.
Welcome God and Father.
Welcome sweet Lord Jesus, Mediator of the New Covenant.
Welcome Blessed Spirit of Grace, God of all Consolation.
Welcome Glory.
Welcome Eternal Life.
Welcome death."
Dr. Matthew MacKail stood below the gallows, and as his martyr cousin writhed in the tautened ropes, he clasped the helpless jerking legs together and clung to them that death might come the easier and sooner. And so, with Christ was Hugh MacKail "with his sweet boyish smile."
The martyrdom of Hugh MacKail

After the fever of life &emdash; after weariness, sicknesses, fightings and despondings, languor and fretfulness, struggling and failing, struggling and succeeding &emdash; after all the changes and chances of this troubled and unhealthy state, at length comes death &emdash; at length the white throne of God &emdash; at length the beatific vision. J. H. Newman

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.--George S. Patton, Jr

Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective. -- P.J. O'Rourke

United with his fellowmen by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom, the free man finds that a new vision is with him always, shedding over every daily task the light of love. The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instil faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in grudging scales their merits and demerits, but let us think only of their need, of the sorrows, the difficulties, perhaps the blindnesses, that make the misery of their lives; let us remember that they are fellow-sufferers in the same darkness, actors in the same tragedy with ourselves.-- Bertrand Russell The Free Man's Worship" [1903]

Death--the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening.-- Walter Scott

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Hamlet, Act III
Farewell! a long farewell to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: today he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; tomorrows blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do.
William Shakespeare, King Henry VIII, III,ii.351

"What!" cries one, "Is there not a terrible amount of pain connected with death?" I answer, No. It is life that has the pain; death is the finis of all pain. You blame death for the disease of which he is the cure.--Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) _Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_

No believer dies an untimely death. Long life is not to be reckoned by years as men count them. He lives longest who lives best. Many a man has crowded half a century into a single year. God gives his people life, not as the clock ticks, but as he helps them to serve him, and he can make them to live much in a short space of time. There are no untimely figs gathered into God's basket. The great Master of the vineyard plucks the grapes when they are ripe and ready to be taken, and not before.--Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)_Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_ Vol. 18 [1872]

Old and young, we are all on our last cruise. --Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) _Virginibus Puerisque_ [1881], Part 2, "Crabbed Age and Youth"

Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end? --Tom Stoppard (1937-____) In "Quote Disk 1,2,3," by DBUG, 1991.

To a true believer, death is but going to Church: from the Church below to the Church above.-Augustustus Toplady--Works, p.543

I did not attend his funeral, but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved of it. - Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Let us endeavour so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.--Mark Twain

If a wicked man seems to have peace at death, it is not from the knowledge of his happiness, but from the ingnorance of his danger.
THOMAS WATSON

I want to go ahead of Father Time with a scythe of my own. -- H G Wells

You have now such faith as is necessary for your living unto God. As yet you are not called to die. When you are, you shall have faith for this also.
John Wesley letter: 17 April 1776

Our birth is nothing but our death begun, as tapers waste the moment they take fire.-- Edward Young