Thomas De Quincey Quotes

Death stands above me, whispering low I know not what into my ear; Of his strange language all I know Is, there is not a word of fear.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help make the big choices in life. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

it so often happens that, when men are convinced that they have to die, a desire to bear themselves well and to leave life's stage with dignity conquers all other sensations.

The most dangerous man on earth is the man who has reckoned with his own death. All men die; few men ever really live.

This great blue world of ours is but a house of leaves, moments before the wind.

Why aren't you afraid of me? I've seen my death, and you're not it.

That is the ultimate power, to stare death in the face and be unafraid.

Happy will they be who lend ear to the words of the dead.

Winds and waters keepA hush more dead than any sleep.

I'm not afraid to die on a treadmill.

Bravery in simple soldiers is a dangerous trade, to which they have bound themselves to get their livelihood.

... life is a flickering candle we all carry around. A gust of wind, a meaningless accident, a microsecond of carelessness, and it's out. Forever.

All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.

I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later.

If you feel that you're not ready to die, never fear; nature will give you complete and adequate assistance when the time comes.

On my license, it says I'm an organ donor, but the truth is I'd consider being an organ martyr. I'm sure I'm worth a lot more dead than alive - the sum of the parts equal more than the whole. I wonder who might wind up walking around with my liver, my lungs, even my eyeballs. I wonder what poor asshole would get stuck with whatever it is in me that passes for a heart.

Will the wind ever remember the names it has blown in the past? And with its crutch, its old age, and its wisdom, it whispers no this will be the last.

When you can despise death, you have conquered all fears.

Don't worry honey, I'm too mean to die.

I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.

It is no less vain to wish death than it is cowardly to fear it.

I think that's probably the most devastating thing - when someone who is larger than life winds up a shadow of themselves in a hospital bed.

No man knows where the Castle of King Death is. All men and women, boys and girls, and even little wee children should so live that when they have to enter the Castle and see the grim King, they may not fear to behold his face.