James Shirley Quotes

Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.

You weren't put on earth to be remembered. You were put here to prepare for eternity.

When I'm killed, don't think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good. And there's one thing that I know well, I'm damned if I'll be damned to Hell!

I know not whether, in the eyes of the world, a brilliant death is not preferred to an obscure life of rectitude. Most men are remembered as they died, and not as they lived. We gaze with admiration upon the glories of the setting sun, yet scarcely bestow a passing glance upon its noonday splendor.

Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.

The body is the one thing you have to say goodbye to. You can hold on to your memories. You can hold on to the spirit. That's part of the package that you love and the part that comforts you.

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground.

I suppose that every one of us hopes secretly for immortality; to leave, I mean, a name behind him which will live forever in this world, whatever he may be doing, himself, in the next.

When you're dead, you're dead. No one is going to remember me when I'm dead. Oh, maybe a few friends will remember me affectionately. Being remembered isn't the most important thing, anyhow. It's what you do when you are here that's important.

I know if I were to drop dead now, people would probably write nice things in the obit.

The first requisite for immortality is death.

I just wish that people will be kinder to me when I pass away.

It's funny the way most people love the dead. Once you are dead, you are made for life.

Who tracks the steps of glory to the grave?

Our bodies will be recycled one way or another, but what about our ideas and minds and characters? Primordial soup? The bourne from which no traveller returns? Interesting and exciting.

Let there be no inscription upon my tomb; let no man write my epitaph: no man can write my epitaph.

The only 'afterlife' is what other people remember of you.

Biography is one of the new terrors of death.

After I die, I'll be forgotten.

Biography lends to death a new terror.

Behind every citizen lies a graveyard.

When I die.

It's funny how most people love the dead, once you're dead, you're made for life.

I expect my immortality will last about six seconds after my funeral.