Are they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon society and inspire the people with nobler motives and more heroic patriotism?
The world belongs primarily to the dead, and we only rent it from them for a little while. They created it, they wrote its literature and its songs, and they are deeply invested in how children are treated, because the children are the ones who will keep it going. The idea that each of us has the right to change everything is a deep insult to them.
Death is no enemy, but the foundation of gratitude, sympathy, and art. Of all life's pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.
We carry the dead with us only until we die too, and then it is we who are borne along for a little while, and then our bearers in their turn drop, and so on into the unimaginable generations.
I'm not scared of dyin', and I don't really care if it's peace you find in dyin'. Well then let the time be near. And when I die and when I'm gone there'll be one child born and a world to carry on.
The death of a famous person is different from the death of a loved one, whether it is Michael Jackson, Frank McCourt, or Walter Cronkite. We didn't know any of them personally, and yet, we experience a sense of loss.
What's so noble about being dead?
The dead can survive as part of the lives of those that still live.
A whole world is taken to the grave with the dead person; each one of us is unique and unrepeatable.
It is the responsibility of the living to make meaningful the sacrifices of the dead.
