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Death... openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth

envy.

Bacon: Essays. Of Death.

Bacon Essays. Of Death.

1073
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark.
1074
Death is not an end. It is a new impulse.

1075

Henry Ward Beecher: Proverbs from Plymouth

Pulpit.

Going out into life-that is dying. Christ is the door out

of life.

1076

Henry Ward Beecher: Proverbs from Plymouth
Pulpit.

The angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings.

1077

John Bright: Speech. House of Commons,
Feb. 23, 1855.

There is a remedy for everything but death, who, in spite of our teeth, will take us in his clutches.

1078

Cervantes: Don Quixote. Pt. ii. Ch. 10. (Jarvis, Translator.)

The sleeping partner of life -a change of existence.

1079

Paul Chatfield, M.D. (Horace Smith): The Tin
Trumpet. Death.

Death is dreadful to the man whose all is extinguished with his life; but not to him whose glory never can die. 1080 Cicero: Offices and Moral Works. Paradoxes. II. (Edmonds, Translator.)

Death but supplies the oil for the inextinguishable lamp of life. 1081 Coleridge: Table Talk. Additional Table Talk. Death.

Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console.

1082

Colton: Lacon.

Death is appalling to those of the most iron nerves, when it comes quietly and in the stillness and solitude of night.

1083 James Fenimore Cooper: Homeward Bound. Ch. 30.

Death is the only physician, the shadow of his valley the only journeying that will cure us of age and the gathering fatigue of years.

1084 George Eliot: Life of George Eliot by J. W. Cross. Ch. 18. Letter to Madame Bodichon, Sept. 6, 1876. Those only can thoroughly feel the meaning of death who know what is perfect love.

1085

George Eliot: Life of George Eliot by J. W. Cross.
Ch. 12. Letter to Madame Bodichon, Feb. 15, 1862.

Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave. 1086

Joseph Hall: Epistles. Dec. iii. Ep. 2.

The greatness of man forbids that the grave ends all.
1087
Moses Harvey: Where Are We and Whither
Tending? Appendix iv.

It is very singular, how the fact of a man's death often seems to give people a truer idea of his character, whether for good or evil, than they have ever possessed while he was living and acting among them. Death is so genuine a fact that it exciudes falsehood, or betrays its emptiness; it is a touch-stone that proves the gold, and dishonors the baser metal. 1088

Hawthorne: House of the Seven Gables. Ch. 21.
The Departure.

Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope.

1089 We do not die wholly at our deaths: we have mouldered away gradually long before. Faculty after faculty, interest after interest, attachment after attachment disappear; we are torn from ourselves while living, year after year sees is no longer the same, and death only consigns the last fragment of what we were to the grave.

Hazlitt: Characteristics. No. 35.

1090 Hazlitt: Table Talk. Second series. Pt. i. Essay i. On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth.

Death is but a word to us. One's own experience alone can teach us the real meaning of the word. The sight of the dying does little. What one sees of them is merely what precedes death: dull unconsciousness is all we see. Whether this be so, - how and when the spirit wakes to life again, this is what all wish to know, and what never can be known until it is experienced.

Vol. ii. No. 15.

1091 Wilhelm von Humboldt: Letters to a Female Friend. (Catharine M. A. Couper, Trans.) If one was to think constantly of death the business of life would stand still.

1092

Johnson: Boswell's Life of Johnson. V. 316. (George Birkbeck Hill, Editor, 1887.)

The time will come to every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die.

1093 Johnson: Works. VI. 499.

(Oxford edition, 1825.)

The uncertainty of death is, in effect, the great support of the whole system of life.

1094 Johnson: Works. IX. 382. (Oxford edition, 1825.) Death never happens but once, yet we feel it every moment of our lives.

1095 La Bruyère: Characters. Of Man. iRowe, Trans.)

Death brings us again to our friends. They are waiting for us, and we shall not be long. They have gone before us, and are like the angels in heaven. They stand upon the borders of the grave to welcome us with the countenance of affection which they wore on earth, - yet more lovely, more radiant, more spiritual.

1096 Longfellow: Prose Works. Appendix ii. The BlankBook of a Country Schoolmaster. XVIII. The Death of the Young.

Death is easier to bear without thinking of it, than the thought of death without peril.

1097

Pascal: Thoughts. Ch. viii. xliii. (Wight,
Translator. Louandre edition.)

Is it courage in a dying man to go, in weakness and in agony, to affront an almighty and eternal God?

1098

Pascal: Thoughts. Ch. xxiv. xli. (
(Wight,
Translator. Louandre edition.)

For the fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretended knowledge of the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is there not here conceit of knowledge, which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance?

1099

Plato: Apology. I. 327. (Jowett, Translator.)

If thou expect death as a friend, prepare to entertain it; if thou expect death as a enemy, prepare to overcome it; death has no advantage, but when it comes a stranger.

1100

Quarles: Enchiridion. Cent. IV. No. 37.

O eloquent, just and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet!

1101

Sir Walter Raleigh: History of the World.
Bk. v. Pt. i.

Death is a release from and an end of all pains.

1102 Seneca: Minor Dialogues. Bk. vi. Of Consolation. Ch. 19. (Stewart, Translator.)

The most happy ought to wish for death.

1103

Seneca: Works. Of Consolation. Ch. 21. (Thomas Lodge, Editor.)

This day which thou fearest so much, and which thou

callest thy last, is the birthday of an eternity.

1104 Seneca: Works. Epistles. No. 101.

Lodge, Editor.)

(Thomas

A man can die but once.

1105 Shakespeare: King Henry IV. Pt. ii. Act iii. Sc. 2. Be absolute for death; either death or life shall thereby bu the sweeter.

1106 Shakespeare: Measure for Measure.

Act iii. Sc. 1.

Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die.
1107 Shakespeare: King Henry IV. Pt. ii. Act iii. Sc. 2.
He that dies pays all debts.
1108

Shakespeare: The Tempest.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

It is silliness to live when to live is a torment; and then we have a prescription to die when death is our physician. 1109 Shakespeare: Othello. Act i. Sc. 3. Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

1110

Act iv. Sc. 1.

Act iv. Sc. 1.

Shakespeare: As You Like It. There are few die well that die in a battle. 1111 Shakespeare: King Henry V. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death. 1112 Shakespeare: The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 1. Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.

1113 Alexander Smith: Dreamthorp. Death and Dying. There is no pleasure, no shape of good fortune, no form of glory, in which death has not hid himself, and waited silently for his prey.

1114 Alexander Smith: Dreamthorp. Death and Dying. To have to die is a distinction of which no man is proud. 1115 Alexander Smith; Dreamthorp. On the Writing of Essays.

DEATH-WOUNDS -see Death.

Rom. Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

Mer. No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.

1116 Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 1.

DEBT -see Revenge.

Debt is an inexhaustible fountain of dishonesty.

1117

Henry Ward Beecher: Proverbs from Plymouth
Pulpit. Business.

Debt is to a man what the serpent is to the bird; its eye fascinates, its breath poisons, its coil crushes both sinew and bone, its jaw is the pitiless grave.

1118

Bulwer-Lytton: Caxtoniana. Essay xxi.
the Management of Money.

On

Industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them.
1119 Benjamin Franklin: Poor Richard's Almanac.

Lying rides upon Debt's back.

1120

Benjamin Franklin: Poor Richard's Almanac.

Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.

1121 Benjamin Franklin: Poor Richard's Almanac. Nothing is more easy than to clear debts by borrowing. Johnson: Debates. Works. X. 179. (Oxford edition, 1825.)

1122

DECAY.

Man passes away; his name perishes from record and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin.

1123

Washington Irving: The Sketch-Book.
Westminster Abbey.

DECEIT -see Deception, Subtilty, Trustfulness.

There is no killing the suspicion that, deceit has once begotten. 1124 George Eliot: Romola. Ch. 58. Cheats easily believe others as bad as themselves; there is no deceiving them, nor do they long deceive.

1125 La Bruyère: Characters. Of Man. (Rowe, Trans.) Our distrust of another justifies his deceit.

1126

La Rochefoucauld: Reflections; or, Sentences and Moral Maxims. No. 86.

A quicksand of deceit.

1127 Shakespeare: King Henry VI. Pt. iii. Act v. Sc. 4.

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It is in vain to find fault with those arts of deceiving wherein men find pleasure to be deceived.

1128 John Locke: Human Understanding.

DECISION.

Bk. iii. Ch. 2.

The power of uncontrollable decision is of the most delicate and dangerous nature.

1129

James A. Bayard: Speech, Feb. 19, 1802. The

I'll not budge an inch.
1130

DECLINE.

Judiciary Act.

Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew. Sc. 1.
Introduction.

History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs but characters written in the dust?

1131

Washington Irving: The Sketch-Book.
Westminster Abbey.

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