Ovid Death Quotations

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow.

An evil life is a kind of death.

Thus all things altered. Nothing dies. And here and there the unbodied spirit flies.

Nothing retains its form; new shapes from old. Nature, the great inventor, ceaselessly contrives. In all creation, be assured, there is no death - no death, but only change and innovation; what we men call birth is but a different new beginning; death is but to cease to be the same. Perhaps this may have moved to that, and that to this, yet still the sum of things remains the same.

O fool, what else is sleep but chill death's likeness?

Tis on the living Envy feeds. She silent grows When, after death, man's honor is his guard. So I, when on the pyre consumed I lie, Shall live, for all that's noblest will survive.

What we call birth Is but a beginning to be something else Than what we were before; and when we cease To be that something, then we call it death.

We beg one hour of death, that neither she With widow's tears may live to bury me, Nor weeping I, with wither'd arms, may bear My breathless Baucis to the sepulchre.

Man's last day must ever be awaited and none to be counted happy until his death, until his last funeral rites are paid.

We are all bound thither; we are hastening to the same common goal. Black death calls all things under the sway of its laws. [Lat., Tendimus huc omnes; metam properamus ad unam. Omnia sub leges mors vocat atra suas.]

Thou fool, what is sleep but the image of death? Fate will give an eternal rest. [Lat., Stulte, quid est somnus, gelidae nisi mortis imago? Longa quiescendi tempora fata dabunt.]

Man should ever look to his last day, and no one should be called happy before his funeral. [Lat., Ultima semper Expectanda dies homini est, dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo et suprema funera debet.]

Death is not grievous to me, for I shall lay aside my pains by death. [Lat., Nec mihi mors gravis est posituro morte dolores.]

Envy feeds on the living, after death it rests, then the honor of a man protects him.

Wherever I look there is nothing but the image of death.