Life and Death

After I'm dead, I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.

Marcus Porcius Cato, in Life and Death

To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.

James Carse, in Life and Death

In our society, any man who doesn't cry at his mother's funeral is liable to be condemned to death.

Albert Camus, The Stranger, in Life and Death

All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.

Samuel Butler, in Life and Death

Beauty: That power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Life and Death and Men and Women

It's like déjà vu all over again.

Yogi Berra, in Life and Death

It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not the opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed the same kind.

George Bernard, in Law and Politics and Life and Death

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

Hector Berlioz, in Life and Death and Wisdom and Ignorance

Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.

Stephen Vincent Benét, in Life and Death

Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.

John Barrymore, (dying words), in Life and Death

Luck can't last a lifetime unless you die young.

Russell Banks, in Life and Death and Success and Failure

"How long does getting thin take?" Pooh asked anxiously.

A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh, in Food and Drink and Life and Death

Figure it out. Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it and there's no one to live in it.

Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman, in Life and Death and Wealth and Poverty

If death did not exist today it would be necessary to invent it.

Count Jean Baptiste Milhoud, in Life and Death

Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.

W. Somerset Maugham, in Life and Death

Genealogy is based on the obviously silly idea that there is no such thing as a bastard.

Nicolas Martin, in Life and Death and Science and Religion

Life is ours to be spent, not saved.

D. H. Lawrence, in Happiness and Misery and Life and Death

Few things are more satisfying than seeing your own children have teenagers of their own.

Doug Larson, in Life and Death

A child is a person who can't understand why someone would give away a perfectly good kitten.

Doug Larson, in Life and Death

There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. Everybody's crew.

Marshall McLuhan, (reprinted in the Hope Heart Health Newsletter), in Life and Death