Death Quotes

These death quotes can offer some comfort and compassion to people who are grieving.

The description of dying I prefer is…
Making a Peaceful Transition into the Flow of Eternal Life.

This page contains the shorter quotes from known authors, there is also a page of Death Sayings for comforting words from unknown sources.

For longer poems and readings suitable for a funeral service take a look at: Sympathy Poems (known authors) Words Of Sympathy (unknown sources and my Inspirational Sympathy Poems.

Death quotes are listed alphabetically on authors surname

A Death Quotes

The reason that you call it ‘grief’ is because you’ve been programmed to believe that you should feel bad about death.
Abraham-Hicks

Give truth its due, and it will give you yours. You were not meant to suffer and to die. Your Father wills these dreams gone. Let truth correct them all.
A Course In Miracles

No one can grieve, nor fear, nor think him sick, unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And no one dies without his consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish and nothing is omitted that you choose.
A Course In Miracles

The Holy Spirit guides you into life eternal, but you must relinquish your investment in death, or you will not see life, though it is all around you.
A Course In Miracles

There is no death because what God created shares His life. There is no death because an opposite to God does not exist.
A Course In Miracles

Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the Light are merely covering their eyes. The Light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all.
A Course In Miracles

I think immortality is the passing of a soul through many lives or experiences, and such as are truly lived, used and learned, help on to the next, each growing richer, happier and higher, carrying with it only the real memories of what has gone before.
Louisa May Alcott 1832 – 1888

The first and the most important thing is to know that life is one and immortal. Only the forms, countless in number, are transient and brittle. The life everlasting is independent of any form but manifests itself in all forms. Life then does not die.. But the forms are dissolved.
Sri Aurobindo 1872 – 1950

The hour I have long wished for is now come.
St Teresa of Avila 1515 – 1582 (her final words)

B Death Quotes

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
Richard Bach 1936

It is as natural to die, as to be born.
Francis Bacon 1561 – 1626

To die will be an awfully big adventure.
James Matthew Barrie 1860 – 1937

We go to the grave of a friend saying “A man is dead.” But angels throng about him saying, “A man is born.”
Henry Ward Beecher 1813 – 1887

I shall hear in heaven (his final words)
Ludwig van Beethoven 1770 – 1827

The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.
Irving Berlin 1888 – 1989

As a man leaves an old garment and puts on one that is new, the Spirit leaves his mortal body and wanders on to one that is new.
Bhagavad Gita

For beyond time he dwells in these bodies, though these bodies have an end in their time; but he remains immeasurable immortal.
Bhagavad Gita

He is never born, and he never dies. He is in Eternity: he is evermore. Never-born and eternal, beyond times gone or to come, he does not die when the body dies.
Bhagavad Gita

Invisible before birth are all beings and after death invisible again. They are seen between two unseen, why in this truth find sorrow?
Bhagavad Gita

Invisible is he to mortal eyes, beyond thought and beyond change. Know that he is and cease to sorrow.
Bhagavad Gita

The Spirit is beyond destruction. No one can bring to an end the Spirit which is everlasting.
Bhagavad Gita

Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Bible

God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble.
Bible

Lord, when doubts fill my mind, when my heart is in turmoil, quiet me and give me renewed hope.
Bible

Set me as a seal upon your heart. As a ring upon your arm. For love is as strong as death. It’s flashes are flashes of fire. A flame of the Eternal.
Bible

The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in Spirit.
Bible

It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this Earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death. He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real.
Black Elk 1863 – 1950

I am going to that country which I have all my life wished to see.
William Blake 1757 – 1927 his final words

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, “I used everything you gave me.”
Erma Bombeck 1927 – 1996

Sometimes in tragedy we find our life’s purpose.. The eye sheds a tear to find its focus.
Robert Brault

Loss leaves us empty – but learn not to close your heart and mind in grief. Allow life to replenish you. When sorrow comes it seems impossible – but new joys wait to fill the void.
Pam Brown 1948

My sun sets to rise again.
Robert Browning 1812 – 1889

My prayer is that many of the poems in this book may help to bring joy and peace and understanding to those souls who may be grieving for loved ones whom they call ‘dead’ but who, in reality, are still living in a real world of beauty, being able to manifest to their dear ones of earth when the door is opened for them to come in.
Gertrude T. Buckingham 1880 – ?

There’s one gift, dear Father, which I have received
That has kept despair from my heart when I’ve grieved
‘Tis knowledge that loved ones, when they’ve been called home
Do not go far away, I’m never alone
Gertrude T. Buckingham 1880 – ?

Everything that has a beginning has an end. Make your peace with that and all will be well.
Buddha 624BC – 543BC

Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.
Samuel Butler 1835 – 1902

If life must not be taken too seriously, then so neither must death.
Samuel Butler 1835 – 1902

The sadness and pain surrounding the death of a parent, brother or sister, can bring with it an unexpected gift, and help families to become closer. It can help bring shared memories to light, and be a reminder of love that was shared in the past.
Lorna Byrne 1953

Death, so called is a thing which makes men weep. And yet, a third of life is passed in sleep.
Lord Byron 1788 – 1824

The dew of compassion is.. A tear.
Lord Byron 1788 – 1824

C Death Quotes

I loved my mother too, I said. I still do. That’s the thing – it never goes away, even if the person does.
Anna Carey

Love was death’s only adversary, the only thing powerful enough to combat its clawing, desperate grasp.
Anna Carey

Love is truly eternal and lasts forever. It is the core of our connection and expression of life.
Anna Carey

When my dad died a lot of songs came, and they’re still coming.
Rosanne Cash 1955

Friends, thought absent, are still present.
Marcus Tullius Cicero 106BC – 43BC

A little while and I will be gone from among you, when I cannot tell. From nowhere we came, into nowhere we go.

What is life?
It is the flash of firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass
And loses itself in the sunset.
Crowfoot (Blackfoot Chief) 1830 – 1890

Do not save your loving speeches for your friends till they are dead. Do not write them on their tombstones. Speak them rather now instead.
Anna Cummins

D Death Quotes

If I had a bucket list.. I’d say raising my four girls to be strong, good women would be number one.
Matt Damon 1970

Unable are the loved to die.. For love is immortality.
Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886

Choose to see death as simply removing a garment or moving from one room to another.. It’s merely a transition.
Wayne Dyer 1940 – 2015

Eternity is now. Right now, right here, you’re an infinite being. Once you get past the fear of death as an end, you merge with the infinite and feel the comfort and relief that this realization brings.
Wayne Dyer 1940 – 2015

Even though our rational mind has been trained to believe that when a person dies his spirit is gone, the truth is that the spirit does not die, it simply changes form. Your spirit can’t die because it has no boundaries, no beginning and no end.
Wayne Dyer 1940 – 2015

I have a suit in my closet with the pocket cut out. It’s a reminder to me that I won’t be taking anything with me. The last I wear won’t need any pockets.
Wayne Dyer 1940 – 2015

Opening to the power of intention, you begin knowing that conception, birth and death are all natural aspects of the energy field of creation.
Wayne Dyer 1940 – 2015

E Death Quotes

It is very beautiful over there. (final words)
Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931

Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.
Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955

It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire a little from sight and afterward return again.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882

Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short. But when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat, we say, we have had our day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882

No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.
Euripides 480BC – 1882BC

F Death Quotes

Life continues on forever and ever, whether or not you are ‘dead or alive’ upon your particular Planet!
Federation Of Light-Blossom Goodchild

Death never takes the wise man by surprise, he is always ready to go.
Jean de la Fontaine 1621 – 1695

Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life.
Charles Frohman 1860 – 1915

G Death Quotes

We only part to meet again.
John Gay 1685 – 1732

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931

He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly.
Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931

I want to see written on my grave: I am alive like you, and I am standing beside you. Close your eyes and look around, you will see me in front of you. (Written next to his grave)
Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931

If the ignorant say to you that the Soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower perishes, but the seeds remain. This is the law of God.
Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931

Life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. In the depths of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow, your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931

Love knows not its depth till the hour of separation.
Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931

Love, like death, changes everything.
Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931

We fear death, yet we long for slumber and beautiful dreams.
Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931

H Death Quotes

When an old person dies, it’s like a library burning.
Alex Haley 1921 – 1992

I asked the leaf whether it was frightened because it was autumn and the other leaves were falling. The leaf told me, “No. During the whole spring and summer I was completely alive. I worked hard to help nourish the tree, and now much of me is in the tree. I am not limited by this form. I am also the whole tree, and when I go back to the soil, I will continue to nourish the tree. So I don’t worry at all. As I leave this branch and float to the ground, I will wave to the tree and tell her, ‘I will see you again very soon.”

That day there was a wind blowing and, after a while, I saw the leaf leave the branch and float down to the soil, dancing joyfully, because as it floated it saw itself already there in the tree. It was so happy.

I bowed my head, knowing that I have a lot to learn from the leaf because it is not afraid – it knew nothing can be born and nothing can die.
Thich Nhat Hanh 1926

Let us not be afraid of decreasing. It is like the moon, we see the moon increasing and decreasing, but it is always the moon.
Thich Nhat Hanh 1926

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 1942 – 1970

The greatest gift Jerry gave me was by presenting to me a condition over which I had no control.. His transition.
Esther Hicks 1948

I shall not altogether die.
Horace 65BC – 8BC

Soon after you’re dead – we’re not sure how long – but not long, you’ll be united with the most ecstatic love you’ve ever known. As one of the best things in your life was human love, this will be love, but much more satisfying, and it will last forever.
Cardinal Basil Hume 1923 – 1999

People never die if they live on the lips of the living.
Gloria Hunniford 1940

J Death Quotes

If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.
Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009

This world we live in is the dance of the Creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye, but the dance lives on.
Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009

One of the uncovenanted benefits of living for a long time is that, having so many more dead than living friends, death can appear as a step backwards into the joyous past.
Storm Jameson 1891 – 1986

Nothing lasts. Not even a great sorrow.
Storm Jameson 1891 – 1986

Grief tells our hearts things like, ‘How can I possibly find joy again when so much was lost?’ Gratitude responds softly, ‘Yes, it hurts, but what a blessing it was, even if only a short time.
Chris Jones

What happens after death is so unspeakably glorious that our imagination and our feelings do not suffice to form even an approximate conception of it. The dissolution of our time-bound form in eternity brings no loss of meaning.
Carl Jung 1875 – 1961

K Death Quotes

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.
John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963

Heaven comes to people – and their loved ones – when they are dying. It is not uncommon for angels to appear when people are on the edge of death, and people who have had near-death experiences often describe feelings of indescribable peace.. Angels.
Gary Kinnaman

At the end of life, our questions are very simple.. Did I live fully? Did I love well?
Jack Kornfield 1945

In the end, just three things matter… how well we have lived. How well we have loved. How well we have learned to let go.
Jack Kornfield 1945

It is when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross 1926 – 2004

L Death Quotes

What will survive of us is.. Love.
Philip Larkin 1922 – 1985

The dead don’t die. They look on and help.
D. H. Lawrence 1885 – 1930

I’m not afraid of death because I don’t believe in it. It’s just getting out of one car and into another.
John Lennon 1940 – 1980

It is not I who die, when I die, but my sin and misery.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729 – 1781

There are far, far better things ahead, than any we leave behind.
C. S. Lewis 1898 – 1963

Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime. And, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 – 1882

Grief is.. Love turned into an eternal missing.
Rosamund Lupton

Time stops making any sense, when someone you love has died.
Rosamund Lupton

Do what you can do. As well as you can do it, every day of your life and you will end up dying one of the happiest individuals that had ever died.
Howard Lyman 1938

M Death Quotes

Death is nothing but a gateway to Divinity and Eternity.
Gobind Singh Mansukhani

The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
Somerset Maugham 1874 – 1965

There is no death, the stars go down To rise upon some other shore And bright in heaven’s jewelled crown They shine forever more.
John McCreery 1835 – 1906

The idea is to die young as late as possible.
Ashley Montagu 1905 – 1999

Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
St Thomas More 1478 – 1535

Pray for me, as I will for thee, that we may merrily meet in heaven.
St Thomas More 1478 – 1535

Dying is something big and beautiful and greater than me.
Movie – The Martian

Nothing is lost… Everything is transformed.
Movie – The Neverending Story

A whole human life is just a heartbeat here in heaven. Then we’ll all be together forever.
Movie – What Dreams May Come

I know well there is no comfort for this pain of parting. The wound always remains, but one learns to bear the pain, and learns to thank God for what he gave. For the beautiful memories of the past, and the yet more beautiful hope for the future.
Max Muller 1823 – 1900

Believe in the immortality and everlasting effects of your goodness.
Robert Muller 1923 – 2010

Dying persons should leave a message to the living and tell them how they could better live. For it is at the moment of losing something that one appreciates its full value.
Robert Muller 1923 – 2010

Humans will not admire my bank account after my death, but they might admire me for the person I was, for my writings, my achievements, my efforts, the messages I left.
Robert Muller 1923 – 2010

I will spend my afterlife as a spiritual being, working for peace and happiness on Earth. Like St. Therese, I pledge to spend my Heaven doing good on Earth.
Robert Muller 1923 – 2010

The end of our journey is not calvary and death, but Heaven and resurrection.
Robert Muller 1923 – 2010

To those who see this world as part of God’s Creation, death will come naturally and gently.
Robert Muller 1923 – 2010

N Death Quotes

All who have died are equal.
Native American – Comanche

Life is not separate from death. It only looks that way.
Native American

There is no death, only a change of worlds.
Native American

They are not dead who live in the hearts they leave behind.
Native American

O Death Quotes

Maybe death isn’t darkness after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us.
Mary Oliver 1935 – 2019

When it’s over, I want to say.. “All my life I was a bride married to Amazement.”
Mary Oliver 1935 – 2019

Peace of heart – without it, no good can make up happy. With it, every trial, even the approach of death, can be borne.
Frederic Ozanam 1813 – 1853

P Death Quotes

We shall not die alone.
Blaise Pascal 1623 – 1662

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the man who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
George S. Patton 1885 – 1945

I believe there are two sides to the phenomenon known as death – this side where we live, and the other side where we shall continue to live. Eternity does not start with death. We are eternal now.
Norman Vincent Peale 1898 – 1993

What you leave behind is not what is engraves in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.
Pericles 495BC – 429BC

Death is only a level crossing from one life to another, from life in its beginnings to life in full achievements. From this incomplete life to that transformed one.
Raoul Plus 1882 – 1958

The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends and where the other begins.
Edgar Allan Poe 1809 – 1849

R Death Quotes

Death is the greatest illusion of all.
Osho Rajneesh 1931 – 1990

Paradise is not somewhere else.. It is within you. And it is not in some other time, after death.. It is in you right now.
Osho Rajneesh 1931 – 1990

Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance.
Ruth E. Renkel

When the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name, He marks not that you won or lost, but how you played the game.
Grantland Rice 1880 – 1954

Each departed friend is a magnet that attracts us to the next world.
Jean Paul Richter 1763 – 1825

Out Of Reach
You think them ‘out of reach’ your dead?
Nay, by my own dead, I deny
Your ‘out of reach’ be comforted
‘Tis not so far to die

O by their dear remembered smiles
And out-held hands and welcoming speech
They wait for us, thousands of miles
This side of ‘out of reach’
James Whitcomb Riley 1849 – 1916

Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes, because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.
Jalal Uddin Rumi 1207 – 1273

What comes will go. What is found, will be lost again. But, what you are is beyond coming and going and beyond description. You are it.
Jalal Uddin Rumi 1207 – 1273

What strikes the oyster does not damage the pearl.
Jalal Uddin Rumi 1207 – 1273

S Death Quotes

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay more present than the living man.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery 1900 – 1944

There is no death, only a change of worlds.
Chief Seattle 1780 – 1866

Countless people close to death have conversed with spirit people who were waiting to accompany them on their journey. The joy on their faces when they have recognized their loved ones is indescribable. This phenomenon happens far too often to be ignored or passed off as the fantasy of a dying person.
Betty Shine 1929 – 2002

Death is far from being the end. It is a birth into a new kind of life, and into further spiritual progress.
Betty Shine 1929 – 2002

Dying can be a joyful and even exciting experience, and there really is nothing to fear. When we die, we are taken care of, there have been many accounts by people who have had near-death experiences, describing how they travelled down a tunnel at the end of which they came to a bright light and were greeted by someone who loved them.
Betty Shine 1929 – 2002

Dying is very like being born.
Betty Shine 1929 – 2002

In both this dimension and the next, we learn lessons which help us to progress. Most of us go through many reincarnations, each one with a specific purpose. As we progress through numerous journeys of enlightenment our spirituality hopefully increases, and as the mind expands the mind energy becomes finer and finer.
Betty Shine 1929 – 2002

No one is ever the same after a near-death experience. A new spirituality enters the very substance of their being, and their thought processes change totally.
Betty Shine 1929 – 2002

There is no such thing as death. We have all lived before and we are all going to experience new lives.
Betty Shine 1929 – 2002

What is most important to my spiritual beliefs is the certainty that we continue living after death. Like all forms of energy, mind energy is indestructible; therefore the mind cannot die. Only the brain, which is matter, dies. I have seen mind energy leaving the dying, and I am convinced that this is the part of them that lives on – the spirit in fact.
Betty Shine 1929 – 2002

It is truly a great cosmic paradox that one of the best teachers in all of life turns out to be death. No person or situation could ever teach you as much as death has to teach you. While someone could tell you that you are not your body, death shows you. While someone could remind you of the insignificance of the things that you cling to, death takes them all away in a second. While people can teach you that men and women of all races are equal and that there is no difference between the rich and the poor, death instantly makes us all the same.
Michael Singer

The grave is but the threshold of eternity.
Robert Southey 1774 – 1843

If this is death, it is easier than life. (final words)
Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 – 1894

Every exit is an entry somewhere else.
Tom Stoppard 1937

T Death Quotes

Death is not extinguishing the light, it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.
Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941

I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, He will not ask, “How many good things have you done in your life?” Rather He will ask, “How much love did you put into what you did?”
Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997

We all live on in the differences we make.
TV – Good Witch

If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, thre is nothing you cannot achieve.
Lao Tzu C.600

V Death Quotes

Love is the greatest link that we have with those who have temporarily left us.
Toots Venables

As well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well-spent brings happy death.
Leonardo da Vinci 1452 – 1519

W Death Quotes

Every man dies..not every man really lives.
William Ross Wallace 1819 – 1881

Death does not kill love; in some ways it deepens it.
J. Neville Ward

You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.
Alan Watts 1915 – 1973

And so for me there is no sting of death
And so the grave has lost its victory
It is but crossing-with abated breath
And white, set face-a little strip of sea
To find the loves ones waiting on the shore
More beautiful, more precious than before
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1850 – 1919

There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love… the only survival, the only meaning.
Thornton Wilder 1897 – 1975

There are no limits to the amount of love and wisdom one can take to heaven.
Anthony Douglas Williams

May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, sweet prince.
Robin Williams 1951 – 2014 (talking about Christopher Reeve)

The dial on the wheel of sorrow eventually points to each of us. At one time or another, everyone must experience sorrow. No one is exempt. Learning to endure times of disappointment, suffering and sorrow is part of our on-the-job training. These experiences, while often difficult to bear at the time, are precisely the kinds of experiences that stretch our understanding, build our character and increase our compassion for others.
Joseph B. Wirthlin 1917 – 2008

Memories.. Images and precious thoughts that shall not die and cannot be destroyed.
William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850

Z Death Quotes

My father died when I was a child, and I escaped somehow into the music and music has been my best friend.
Hans Zimmer 1957

Death Sayings
Sympathy Poems
Words Of Sympathy unknown sources
Inspirational Sympathy Poems by Trina Graves
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