Quotes · Skopia

26 quotes

To be or not to be—that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep— No more—and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep— To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause.

William Shakespeare

Hamlet · 1616

★ 8.7

Novel

We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast. But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what if it’s one little room, like a bath house in the country, black and grimy and spiders in every corner, and that’s all eternity is?

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Crime and Punishment · 1866

★ 7.3

Play

We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.

Anton Chekhov

Uncle Vanya · 1898

★ 6.2

Novel

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter · 1836

★ 6.1

Poem

Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep.

Clare Harner

Immortality · 1934

★ 4.5

Courtroom speech · Speech · Philosophical literature

To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know.

Socrates

Plato, Apology · 399 BC

★ 4.0

Philosophical literature

Either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is to gain; for eternity is then only a single night.

Socrates

Plato, Apology · 339 BC

★ 3.9

Scripture · Religious literature

For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God.

Job

Job 19:25-26 KJV · 500 BC

★ 3.7

Poem · Magazine

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Knickerbocker · 1838

★ 3.7

Film · Epic (film) · War (film) · Epic · War

In this world, a man, himself, is nothing. And there ain't no world but this one.

1st Sgt. Welsh

The Thin Red Line · 1998

★ 3.7

Scripture · Religious literature

The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.

Psalm 115:17

450 BC

★ 3.6

Poem

I that have not your faith, how shall I know That in the blinding light beyond the grave We’ll find so good a thing as that we have lost?

W.B. Yeats

1910

★ 3.6

Inscription · Poem

There is no one who returns from beyond that he may tell of their state that he may tell of their lot that he may set our hearts at ease until we make our journey to the place where they have gone.

Harper's Songs

1700 BC

★ 3.5

Play · Tragedy (play)

The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveler returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?

William Shakespeare

Hamlet · 1616

★ 3.0

Scripture · Religious literature

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Apostle Paul

Romans 8:18 · 56

★ 2.9

Play · Comedy (play)

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where, To lie in cold obstruction and to rot, This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice.

William Shakespeare

Measure for Measure · 1616

★ 2.9

Courtroom speech · Speech · Philosophical literature

But already it is time to depart, for me to die, for you to go on living; which of us takes the better course, is not known to anyone except God.

Socrates

Plato, Apology · 399 BC

★ 2.4

Poem · Epic poem

The immortals will send you to the Elysian plain at the ends of the earth, where fair-haired Rhadamanthys is. There life is supremely easy for men. No snow is there, nor ever heavy winter storm, nor rain, and Ocean is ever sending gusts of the clear-blowing west wind to bring coolness to men.

Homer

The Odyssey · 700 BC

★ 2.3

Courtroom speech · Speech · Philosophical literature

Death is, you see, one or the other of two things: either to be dead is to be non-existent, as it were, and a dead person has no awareness of anything at all; or else, as we are told, the soul undergoes some sort of transformation, or exchanging of this present world for another.

Socrates

Plato, Apology · 399 BC

★ 2.2

Philosophical dialogue · Dialogue · Philosophical literature

It is perfectly certain that the soul is immortal and imperishable, and our souls will actually exist in another world.

Socrates

Plato, Phaedo · 347 BC

★ 2.2

Scripture · Religious literature

The present life is naught but a diversion and a sport; surely the Last Abode is Life, did they but know.

Muhammad

The Quran, The Koran, 29:64 · 632

★ 2.2

Scripture · Religious literature

They say, "There is nothing but our present life; we die and we live, and nothing but Time destroys us." Of that they have no knowledge; they merely conjecture.

Muhammad

The Quran, The Koran, 45:24 · 632

★ 2.1

Wisdom literature

Remember: it is not given to man to take his goods with him. No one goes away and then comes back.

The Song of the Harper

2600 BC

★ 2.0

Scripture · Religious literature

If a man die, shall he live again?

Job

Job 14:14 · 500 BC

★ 1.9

Poem

One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

John Donne

Songs and Sonnets · 1631

★ 1.9

Were the happinesse of the next world as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdom to live.

Sir Thomas Browne

1658

★ 1.9

Sourced and curated.