Death Is Only The Beginning Quotes & Sayings

Selfish little flower dancing beneath flames do you dare drift in this wind alongside me? Take my hand and let us see skies untouched by night. You are not alone. Never have, and never will be. Death is only the beginning, but our breath shall reign forever. — H.S. Crow

Although I am far too frequently convinced otherwise, with God a dead-end is only the death of an end. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

You are unwilling to pay that price, even knowing that the consolation prize is not only to learn every philosophy that has ever existed, but ones which have not yet been conceived? Even knowing that if you do not accept, you will soon cease to learn anything at all?"
Raimund tilted his head, still staring into my eyes, and I knew he must see the tears filling them, though I held them back from falling.
"My friend," he whispered, "do you really believe your own words, I wonder? Your pain makes me think you know that death is not the end of learning, but only the beginning. — Krisi Keley

What has been attained may again be lost. Only when you realise the true peace, the peace you have never lost, that peace will remain with you for it was never away. Instead of searching for what you do not have, find out what is it that you have never lost. That which is there before the beginning and after the ending of everything, to That there is no birth nor death. That Immovable state, which is not affected by the birth and death of a body or a mind, that state you must perceive. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

If the soul is immortal, it demands our care not only for that part of time which we call life, but for all time: and indeed it would seem now that it will be extremely dangerous to neglect it. If death were a release from everything, it would be a boon for the wicked. But since the soul is clearly immortal, it can have no escape or security from evil except by becoming as good and wise as it possibly can. For it takes nothing with it to the next world except its education and training: and these, we are told, are of supreme importance in helping or harming the newly dead at the very beginning of his journey there. — Socrates

Death is only the beginning of the reunion you did not know you wanted, — Jason Mott

When Jesus cried, 'It is finished!' He was not speaking of the plan of redemption. There were still three days and nights to go through before He went to the throne ... Jesus' death on the cross was only the beginning of the complete work of redemption. — Kenneth Copeland

It is ... highly probable that from the very beginning, apart from death, the only ironclad rule of human experience has been the Law of Unintended Consequences. — Ian Tattersall

The first memory I have in the world is of death and tears. That is how I would mark the beginning of my life: the way people mark the end of one. My family had gathered at Papa Joe's house because Mam' Grace was slipping away, only I didn't register it that way. For some reason I thought that it was her birthday. — Charles M. Blow

I was finally beginning to perceive that no matter how many dead people I might see, or people at the instant of their death, I would never manage to grasp death, that very moment, precisely in itself. It was one thing or the other: either you are dead, and then in any case there's nothing else to understand, or else you are not yet dead, and in that case, even with the rifle at the back of your head or the rope around your neck, death remains incomprehensible, a pure abstraction, this absurd idea that I, the only living person in the world, could disappear. Dying, we may already be dead, but we never die, that moment never comes, or rather it never stops coming, there it is, it's coming, and then it's still coming, and then it's already over, without ever having come. — Jonathan Littell

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.
Nothing can last, I do believe, for long
In the same image. — Ovid

I think our lives are mapped out for us. They are too complex, too perfect to be an accident of randomness. They have an inescapable narrative - a beginning , middle and end - unnecessary except by design. Birth, life and death, neatly seperated and sequenced. Authored, if you will, by the universe's own hand. We are gifted existence in three acts, but we can only ever understand our middle third. We cannot control our birth, yet though we have no power over this first act of ours we believe we can manipulate our second act, our life, to control our death. We cannot choose either, and it is right we cannot. We think we are the lightning or the thunder, but we're merely raindrops in a storm. We forget we are ordained a time to live and a time to die. They are chosen for us, only when that time is right. — Tom Wood

A book can only end one of two ways: truthfully or artfully. If it ends artfully, then it never feels quite right. It feels forced, manipulated. If it ends truthfully, then the story ends badly, in death. It's the reason most theories and religions and economic systems break down before you get too far into them
and the reason Buddhism and the Beach Boys make sense to teenagers, because they're too young to know what life really is: a frantic struggle that always ends the same way. The only thing that varies is the beginning and the middle. Life itself always ends badly. — Jess Walter

Death, the beginning of eternal things, is only the end of earthly cares. -Priest — Jules Verne

The dreamers dream from the neck up, their bodies securely strapped to the electric chair. To imagine a new world is to live it daily, each thought, each glance, each step, each gesture killing and recreating, death always a step in advance. To spit on the past is not enough. To proclaim the future is not enough. One must act as if the past were dead and the future unrealizable. One must act as if the next step were the last, which it is. Each step forward is the last, and with it a world dies, one's self included. We are here of the earth never to end, the past
never ceasing, the future never beginning, the present never ending. The never-never world which we hold in our hands and see and yet is not ourselves. We are that which is never
concluded, never shaped to be recognized, all there is and yet not the whole, the parts so much greater than the whole that only God the mathematician can figure it out. — Henry Miller

For our kind, death is only the beginning. — Claudia Gray

As every blossom fades
and all youth sinks into old age,
so every life's design, each flower of wisdom,
attains its prime and cannot last forever.
The heart must submit itself courageously
to life's call without a hint of grief,
A magic dwells in each beginning,
protecting us, telling us how to live.

High purposed we shall traverse realm on realm,
cleaving to none as to a home,
the world of spirit wishes not to fetter us
but raise us higher, step by step.
Scarce in some safe accustomed sphere of life
have we establish a house, then we grow lax;
only he who is ready to journey forth
can throw old habits off.

Maybe death's hour too will send us out new-born
towards undreamed-lands,
maybe life's call to us will never find an end
Courage my heart, take leave and fare thee well. — Hermann Hesse

Life is eternal; death only punctuates it for a short while. After a little break life starts again. Death is ultimate truth; life is truth beyond ultimate. Life is never destroyed; it just keeps on changing shapes. Endless processes are attached with this life; many stages are there in this grand journey of life. From an insect to an enlightened soul it keeps on changing. Creation is always beautiful in the beginning. It can be beautiful all the time also. What is purpose of life? It's evolution to higher levels — Mahesh Babu

I cannot help thinking that the death of the young is not in the plan of our being, and that we are ourselves greatly responsible for it. Indeed I believe we are at the beginning only of the art of living. — Georgiana Burne-Jones

We deceive ourselves in thinking that death only follows life whereas it both goes before and will follow after it for where is the difference in not beginning or ceasing to exist the effect of both is not to be — Seneca.

Love is the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet it is not found only at the end of the rainbow. Love is at the beginning also, and from it springs the beauty that arched across the sky on a stormy day. Love is the security for which children weep, the yearning of youth, the adhesive that binds marriage, and the lubricant that prevents devastating friction in the home; it is the peace of old age, the sunlight of hope shining through death. How rich are those who enjoy it in their associations with family, friends, and neighbors! Love, like faith, is a gift of God. It is also the most enduring and most powerful virtue. — Gordon B. Hinckley

It may remain for us to learn, ... that our task is only beginning; and that there will never be given to us even the ghost of any help, save the help of unutterable unthinkable Time. We may have to learn that the infinite whirl of death and birth, out of which we cannot escape, is of our own creation, of our own seeking;
that the forces integrating worlds are the errors of the Past;
that the eternal sorrow is but the eternal hunger of insatiable desire;
and that the burnt-out suns are rekindled only by the inextinguishable passions of vanished lives. — Lafcadio Hearn

I wanted love and goodness in this which is living death,' I said. 'It was impossible from the beginning, because you cannot have love and goodness when you do what you know to be evil, what you know to be wrong. You can only have the desperate confusion and longing and the chasing of phantom goodness in its human form. I knew the real answer to my quest before I ever reached Paris. I knew it when I first took a human life to feed my craving. It was my death. And yet I would not accept it, could not accept it, because like all creatures I don't wish to die! And so I sought for other vampires, for God, for the devil, for a hundred things under a hundred names. And it was all the same, all evil. And all wrong. Because no one could in any guise convince me of what I myself knew to be ture, that I was damned in my own mind and soul. — Anne Rice

Anna, I only know this: when it is your turn to die - my turn, anyone's - when it is time for you to let go of one life and reach out for another, you will be left with no choice but to hurl yourself willingly into the mother arms of transfiguration. It's not an end. It's a beginning. — Jill Alexander Essbaum

Back there in the beginning, as I see now, my life was all time and almost no memory. Though I knew early of death, it still seemed to be something that happened only to other people, and I stood in an unending river of time that would go on making the same changes and the same returns forever.

And now, nearing the end, I see that my life is almost entirely memory and very little time. — Wendell Berry

You see death is a tool to degrade and destroy people, I see it as a life lesson that I use to empower myself and I remind myself that the dead are still alive. However, only the ones who are good, not evil pieces of shit like you will enjoy peace of mind — Angel Ramon Medina

Seeking knowledge is mandatory for every human being, as the quest for truth is the true purpose of living. We are given an entire lifetime to collect and assemble truths. Truths are acquired only when we learn to filter all information, including those valuable lessons and insights gained from our own personal experiences, through our conscience. And as we near death, the knowledge in our hearts at the end must match the knowledge which was put in our hearts in the very beginning. All else is irrelevant. — Suzy Kassem

I am beginning to understand that the stream the scientists are studying is not just a little creek. It's a river of energy that moves across regions in great geographic cycles. Here, life and death are only different points on a continuum. The stream flows in a circle through time and space, turning death into life across coastal ecosystems, as it has for more than a million years. But such streams no longer flow in the places where most of us live. — Kathleen Moore

They live ill who are always beginning to live. 10. You are right in asking why; the saying certainly stands in need of a commentary. It is because the life of such persons is always incomplete. But a man cannot stand prepared for the approach of death if he has just begun to live. We must make it our aim already to have lived long enough. No one deems that he has done so, if he is just on the point of planning his life. 11. You need not think that there are few of this kind; practically everyone is of such a stamp. Some men, indeed, only begin to live when it is time for them to leave off living. And if this seems surprising to you, I shall add that which will surprise you still more: Some men have left off living before they have begun. Farewell. — Seneca.

There is romantic nonsense these days about the beauty of death, about the terrible end becoming the lovely beginning, and I think that's wrong, a diminution of the beauty of life. Death is as terrible as birth is wonderful. The laws of physics and nature - not romance - dictate this. It occurs to me that sometimes even nature - raw, silent, solemn, and joyous nature - fears, even if only slightly, rot. — Rick Bass

Nations do not plunge at once into ruin - governments do not change suddenly - the causes which bring about the final blow, are scarcely perceptible in the beginning; but they increase in numbers, and in power; they press harder and harder upon the energies and virtue of a people; and the last steps only are alarmingly hurried and irregular. A republic without industry, economy, and integrity, is Samson shorn of his locks. A luxurious and idle republic! Look at the phrase! - The words were never made to be married together; every body sees it would be death to one of them. — Lydia Maria Francis Child

God's way of being alive is distinguishable from other forms of life. Plants, animals, and humans enjoy life at different scales of consciousness, movement, and self-determination. But in all plants, animals, and humans, bodily life ends in death. From the moment of conception, the processes of decay and death are at work in our bodies. Not so in God's life. God's life is eternally alive. God's life is not only without end but without beginning. — Thomas C. Oden

The moment one is born, the 'saw starts cutting'. People consider it as death only when the wood breaks in two pieces [during funeral]. But it was being cut from the very beginning. — Dada Bhagwan

And then Lucas is walking up the incline, to his own death. He doesn't spare a glance for me. Not that I deserve one. He's dying, not just because of what we made him do but for what I am. Like the others, he knew there was something strange about me. And like the others, he will die. When he disappears through the far gate, I have to turn away and stare at the wall. The gunshots are hard to ignore. The crowd roar, pleased by the violent display.
Lucas was only the beginning, the opening act. We are the show. — Victoria Aveyard

To tell the truth, I don't really understand the causes behind my runner's blues. Or why now it's beginning to fade. It's too early to explain it well. Maybe the only thing I can definitely say about it is this: That's life. Maybe the only thing we can do is accept it, without really knowing what's going on. Like taxes, the tide rising and falling, John Lennon's death, and miscalls by referees at the World Cup. — Haruki Murakami

One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which one willl only in time come to hate. In this there is also a residue of belief that during the move the master will chance to come along the corridor, look at the prisoner and say: This man is not to be locked up again, He is to come with me. — Franz Kafka

Remember this: a simple pen is much more swift and much more precise than a camera. That's my advice to both beginning and experienced authors: don't write with a camera. A camera is slow. All these modern writers usually make the same mistake - they write books with a film in mind. When you read their works, you don't hear the voice of a real author, you hear that horribly cheesy Hollywood voice-over. Frankly, that's not a novel, it's a movie script. If you write books, use a pen. A pen is swift, it has tempo, you can kill people with it. You cannot kill people with a camera, you can only perhaps bore them to death with it. — Martijn Benders

Time," the Captain said, "is not what you think." He sat down next to Eddie. "Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning. — Mitch Albom

He knows that there will be days ahead, long, tedious days which have no real beginning or ending, but which run together into night and out of it without changing color, or sound, or meaning. He will lie in his bed feeling the minutes and the hours pass through his body like an endless ribbon of pain because time becomes pain then. Light and darkness become pain; all his senses exist only to receive it, to transmit to his mind again and again, with ceaseless repetition, the simple fact that now he is dying. — Beryl Markham

Once you decide that you're going to have the death of Spock, then how does that affect the other people? Why is it there? I got a lot of stick from a lot of people from the very beginning about the idea of killing Spock. Somebody said, "You can't kill him." And I said, "Sure you can; the only question is whether you do it well." — Nicholas Meyer

What are the sources of poetry? Love and death and the paradox of love and death. All poetry from the beginning is about Eros and Thanatos. Those are the only subjects. And how Eros and Thanatos interweave. — Erica Jong

I will die the way I learned to live. Fully aware. At peace. With a heart so full of love that even as it slows, it is still full.
Because I know something the Scientists refuse to acknowledge.
Death is only the beginning. — Krista McGee

So there you have it: Nature is a rotten mess. But that's only the beginning. If you take your eyes off it for one second, it will kill you. Thorns, insects, fungus, worms, birds, reptiles, wild animals, raging rivers, bottomless ravines, dry deserts, snow, quicksand, tumbleweeds, sap, and mud. Rot, poison and death. That's Nature."
"It's a wonder you even step outside of your cabin," I said.
"My bravery exceeds my good sense," he said. — Lee Goldberg

What is the matter with you?" asked Shcherbatsky.
"Nothing much, but there is little to be happy about in this world."
"Little? You'd better come with me to Paris instead of going to some Mulhausen or other. You'll see how jolly it will be!"
"No, I have done with that; it is time for me to die."
"That is a fine thing!" said Shcherbatsky, laughing. "I am only just beginning to live."
"Yes, I thought so too till lately; but now I know that I shall soon die."
Levin was saying what of late he had really been thinking. He saw death and the apprroach of death in everything; but the work he had begun interested him all the more. After all, he had to live his life somehow, til death came. Everything for him was wrapped in darkness; but just because of the darkness, feeling his work to be the only thread to guide him through the darkness, he seized upon it and clung to it with all his might. — Leo Tolstoy

Death is only the beginning... — Jeremy Shory

It is hard doctrine, but I was beginning to understand it then, and I have not repudiated it till now: that love, not sin, costs us Eden. Love is a carrier of death - the only thing, in fact, that makes death significant. — Wallace Stegner

Welcome to the house of Gray and Graves where we never lie still and death is only the beginning ... — C.M. Stunich