William Shakespeare Quotes on Death & Dying (82 Quotes)




    When beggars die, there are no comets seen The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.








    Now if you have a station in the file,
    Not i' the worst rank of manhood, say it,
    And I will put that business in your bosoms
    Whose execution takes your enemy off,
    Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
    Who wear our health but sickly in his life,
    Which in his death were perfect.




    An earnest conjuration from the King,
    As England was his faithful tributary,
    As love between them like the palm might flourish,
    As peace should still her wheaten garland wear
    And stand a comma 'tween their amities,
    And many such-like as's of great charge,
    That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
    Without debatement further, more or less,
    He should the bearers put to sudden death,
    Not shriving time allow'd.


    So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck
    He threw his wounded arm and kiss'd his lips;
    And so, espous'd to death, with blood he seal'd
    A testament of noble-ending love.

    Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man
    in his bed- wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so,
    death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly
    lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes
    it were not sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He
    let him outlive that day to see His greatness, and to teach
    others how they should prepare.





    Learn, good soul,
    To think our former state a happy dream;
    From which awak'd, the truth of what we are
    Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,
    To grim Necessity; and he and
    Will keep a league till death.





    First, her father slain;
    Next, Your son gone, and he most violent author
    Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
    Thick and and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
    For good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly
    In hugger-mugger to inter him; Poor Ophelia
    Divided from herself and her fair-judgment,
    Without the which we are Pictures or mere beasts;
    Last, and as such containing as all these,
    Her brother is in secret come from France;
    And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
    Feeds on his wonder, keep, himself in clouds,
    With pestilent speeches of his father's death,
    Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
    Will nothing stick Our person to arraign
    In ear and ear.

    Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

    Methought I heard a voice cry Sleep no more Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief n

    Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,It seems to me most strange that men should fearSeeing that death, a necessary end,Will come when it will come.

    Love, whose month is ever May,
    Spied a blossom passing fair
    Playing in the wanton air:
    Through the velvet leaves the wind
    All unseen 'gan passage find;
    That the lover, sick to death,
    Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.


    Our dole more deadly looks than dying;
    Balms and gums and heavy cheers,
    Sacred vials fill'd with tears,
    And clamours through the wild air flying!




    For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life

    If Brutus will vouchsafe that Antony
    May safely come to him and be resolved
    How Caesar hath deserved to lie in death,
    Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead
    So well as Brutus living, but will follow
    The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus
    Thorough the hazards of this untrod state
    With all true faith.

    Death lies on her like an untimely frostUpon the sweetest flower of all the field.

    God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,
    His deputy anointed in His sight,
    Hath caus'd his death; the which if wrongfully,
    Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift
    An angry arm against His minister.

    For God's sake let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings.


    Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought;
    Adonis lives, and Death is not to blame;
    It was not she that call'd him all to naught:
    Now she adds honours to his hateful name;
    She clepes him king of graves and grave for kings,
    Imperious supreme of all mortal things.

    The lily I condemnèd for thy hand,
    And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair;
    The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
    One blushing shame, another white despair;
    A third, nor red, nor white, had stol'n of both,
    And to his robbery had annexed thy breath,
    But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
    A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

    Look, how the world's poor people are amazed
    At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,
    Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed,
    Infusing them with dreadful prophecies;
    So she at these sad signs draws up her breath
    And sighing it again, exclaims on Death.


    Ay me for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. But, either it was different in blood, Or else it stood upon the choice of friends, Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentany as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold' The jaws of darkness do devour it up So quick bright things come to confusion.

    But that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from who bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than to fly to others that we know not of

    The weariest and most loathed worldly life, that age, ache, penury and imprisonment can lay on nature is a paradise, to what we fear of death.



    More William Shakespeare Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Love - Man - Mind - Kings & Queens - World - Time - Life - God - Friendship - Death & Dying - Belief & Faith - Heaven - War & Peace - Fairness - Fear - Night - Speaking - Fool - Soul - View All William Shakespeare Quotations

    More William Shakespeare Quotations (By Book Titles)


    - A Midsummer Night's Dream
    - As You Like It
    - Julius Caesar
    - King Lear
    - Much Ado About Nothing
    - Othello
    - The Merchant of Venice
    - The Taming of the Shrew
    - Twelfth Night

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    Oscar Wilde - George Bernard Shaw - Richard Steele - Philippe Quinault - Lady Gregory - Jean Racine - George S. Kaufman - George Colman - Anton Chekhov - Alexandre Dumas


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