John Dryden Quotes

Six feet of dirt make all men equal.

Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes.

As men, we are all equal in the presence of death.

Who's a prince or beggar in the grave?

And they die an equal death — the idler and the man of mighty deeds.

Whether people be of high or low birth, rich or poor, old or young, enlightened or confused, they are all alike in that they will one day die.

Pale death, with impartial step, knocks at the hut of the poor and the towers of kings.

There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave.

In the democracy of the dead all men are at last equal. There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave.

All men are free and equal in the grave, if it comes to that.

Death does not discriminate; whether saints or sinners, in the end, all are equal.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

[On an epitaph for herself:] Under here, we're all equal.

The Impartial Friend: Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all--the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.

Death is the great leveller.

The grave is, I suspect, the sole commonwealth which attains that dead flat of social equality that life in its every principle so heartily abhors.

This is the secret that none dares tell who fights for a cause. Dying, we are all alike.

Rich man and poor move side by side toward the limit of death.

The grave unites; where e'en the great find rest, And blended lie th' oppressor and th' oppressed!

Love like Death,, Levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook Beside the scepter

Philosophy has often attempted to repress insolence by asserting that all conditions are leveled by death; a position which, however it may defect the happy, will seldom afford much comfort to the wretched.

If thou hast no inferiors, have patience awhile, and thou shalt have no superiors. The grave requires no marshal.

Peter Lake had no illusions about mortality. He knew that it made everyone perfectly equal, and that the treasures of the earth were movement, courage, laughter, and love. The wealthy could not buy these things. On the contrary, they were for the taking.