Outlive Quotes & Sayings

After a pause, Andrew says that these buildings will always be here, that they will outlive us all. And I believe him. "But just imagine," my mammal brain says, "if you took this one we're standing in down in such a way that it toppled into that guy. — Hugh Howey

I would lie of course. I lied a lot and with good reason: to protect the truth - safeguard it like wearing fake gems to keep the real ones from getting stolen or cheapened by overuse. I guarded what truths I possessed because information was not a thing - it was colorless odorless shapeless and therefore indestructible. There was no way to retrieve or void it no way to halt its proliferation. Telling someone a secret was like storing plutonium inside a sandwich bag the information would inevitably outlive the friendship or love or trust in which you'd placed it. And then you would have given it away. — Jennifer Egan

You start to feel panic, because you realise that human beings are possessed by the idea that they must fill the world with objects and ideas that will outlive them, and you suddenly glimpse the fires that burn below human despair. — Greg Baxter

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments / Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; / But you shall shine more bright in these contents / Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time. — John Green

I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a flicker of envy. But envy did not make one lovelier. Mother Dhina had taught me that. Beauty, coveted though it was, could not outlive you. Only actions would. I never forgot that. In the harem, I might've disliked some girls for the ugliness in their hearts, but never for the beauty of their faces. — Roshani Chokshi

There is something within our biological structure that screams out and says it is morally wrong for the old to outlive the young. This is one of the times when God doesn't seem to make sense. This is the worst that life gets. — Rick Atkinson

There's something stubborn about families, unhappy ones in particular: they outlive themselves, and then they live on. — Daphne Merkin

I think a fictional invention grows according to its own development, not the author's. Characters in fiction are not simply as alive as you and me, they are more alive. Becky Sharp, Elizabeth Bennett, and Don Quixote may not outlive the burning out of the sun, but they will certainly outlive the brief candle of our lives. — Cynthia Ozick

But let me ask you this: when Canaan cloaked you with his wings and you disappeared from the Terrestrial realm, did you just...stop existing?"
"Of course not," I say, surprised by the question.
"It's the same thing, Elle. Ali and your mother have been cloaked by death. You can't see them, but they're not gone. Not really. Our spirits will outlive our physical bodies, so it's our spirits we have to take care of."

- page 285 — Shannon Dittemore

Thank God life ends - we'd never survive it. From Big Bang to weary shag, the history of the world. Our flesh is ferocious ... our bodies will kill us ... our bones will outlive us. — Patrick Marber

Must be I find you
tough and lusty as the life,
all toil and tempo,
finesse and plain fight,
with values so old they startle me.
Must be I think of you
as I do the rugged flowers
that prove themselves over and over in the spring,
that elsewhere might perish,
but here master the earth,
bloom into gangly lives of high color,
and inhale the sun, knowing the land
better than the land does.
Hardy, savvy,
they will outlive us all. — Diane Ackerman

The dream will outlive the dreamer so dream big. — Tyler Perry

I'd feel kind of like a rat abandoning ship." "Rats are intelligent mammals," he answered calmly, almost with amusement. "They will probably outlive us. Their society, at any rate, is a good deal more stable than ours. — Michel Houellebecq

Every subject's duty is the King's; but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore, should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes, it were no sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He let him outlive the day to see His greatness and to teach others how they should prepare. — William Shakespeare

It was her grandfather who'd told her the tale of this particular violin, over and over, as if the telling could stave off loss, as if the weight and scope of human history were not found in books or in those mythic universities in Rome and Naples that no one in their village had ever seen but, rather, were encoded in objects like this one, a violin touched by hundreds of hands, loved, used, stroked, pressed, made to outlive its owners, storing their secrets and lies — Carolina De Robertis

Spend all you have before you die, and do not outlive yourself. — George Bernard Shaw

A good story will always outlive the truth. — Marty Rubin

Well, the task I've set forth will long outlive our own generation. But together, we too have come through the worst. Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best- a crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny. — Ronald Reagan

Unlike people, companies outlive their founders and their leaders. — Ursula Burns

Questions outlive the answers. — Elie Wiesel

We are not different nor alike
But each strange in his leather body
sealed in skin and reaching out clumsy hands
and loving is an act
that cannot outlive
the open hand
the open eye
the door in the chest standing open. — Marge Piercy

Art is a means of memorialization of the past, a record of a rapidly vanishing world; a means of exorcising, at least temporarily, the ravages of homesickness. To speak of 'what is past, or passing or to come'-in the most meticulous language thereby to assure its permanence; to honor those we've loved and learned from and must outlive. — Joyce Carol Oates

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance? — William Shakespeare

Don't you have faith in your Saviour that He will raise you to life again? (...) Isn't that what you teach those grieving widows and bereft parents? (...) But you don't really believe that. You see nothing beyond the grave, so you are determined never to enter it. You want eternal life for yourself now, here in the flesh. You want to remain just as you are now, while all around you wither and die. (...) You crave the power that will come only when you can outlive them all. [Sylvian] — Karen Maitland

So your junk food has a shelf life of twenty-two years and will probably outlive your fat, sorry ass. — Rory Freedman

There's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year. — William Shakespeare

Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Leadership success means your mission and vision must outlive you, but this will not happen by accident. We have enough stories around us to prove that lasting legacies have to be well managed, planned and structured for continuity. If not, you will carry your name, success and influence to the grave, only leaving short-lived memories of your achievements and impact. — Archibald Marwizi

It is well known that women outlive men; could it merely be superior vanity that keeps them going? — Truman Capote

Let there be a heaven so that man may outlive his grasses. — Anne Sexton

And the thought consoled me, as it does now: everything you believe you have imagined is real. You have only to outlive it. — Joyce Carol Oates

My to-be-read pile sadly would most likely outlive me - though I tried valiantly to catch up with it, I'd never get there. The allure of new books, new writers, characters who beckoned to me would never wane. — Rebecca Raisin

So we left the spear in the wagon and I dressed and still was not sick and together we walked to the head of the century. Tears had been ready to lead them. Macer was there, holding his horn. I saw them both shrug and get ready to swap Tears' shield for the horn.
'No, stay as you are,' I said. 'It doesn't hurt to have someone else learning the signals. Tears can stay as Macer's shield-man. Taurus, stay with Horgias.'
'And you?' someone asked.
'Don't worry about me.' I grinned, careless of the listening gods. 'I'm indestructible. I'll outlive you all. — M.C. Scott

But the most gratifying message was a warm-hearted and completely unexpected letter from Robert Graves, who had just been shown Wilfred's latest poems by Sassoon. 'Don't make any mistake, Owen,' Graves wrote, 'you are a damned fine poet already & are going to be more so... you have found a new method... those assonances instead of rhymes are fine - Puff out your chest a little, Owen & be big - for you've more right than most of us... You must help S.S. and R.N. and R.G. to revolutionize English Poetry - So outlive this War. — Dominic Hibberd

It's a stark thought that when we die most of us will leave behind uneaten biscuits, unused coffee, half toilet rolls, half cartons of milk in the fridge to go sour; that everyday functional things will outlive us and prove that we weren't ready to go; that we weren't smart or knowing or heroic; that we were just animals whose animal bodies stopped working without any sort of schedule or any consent from us. — Steven Hall

I would resurrect that person in words, and once the pages had been printed and the story had been bound between covers, they would have something to hold on to for the rest of their lives. Not only that, but something that would outlive them, that would outlive us all.
One should never underestimate the power of books. — Paul Auster

Loving our parents, we bring them into us. They inhabit us. For a long time I believed that I could not bear to live without Mom and Dad - I could not bear to "outlive" them - for to be a daughter without parents did not seem possible to me. — Joyce Carol Oates

There came a time, however, when death ceased to be the enforcer of finitude and began to look, instead, like the last opportunity for radical transformation, the only plausible portal to the infinite.
But to be seen as the finite carcass in a sea of blood and bone chips and gray matter
to inflict that version of himself on other people
was a violation of privacy so profound it seemed it would outlive him.
He was also afraid that it might hurt.
And there was a very important question that he still wanted answered. His children were coming, Gary and Denise and maybe even Chip, his intellectual son. It was possible that Chip, if he came, could answer the very important question.
And the question was:
The question was: — Jonathan Franzen

I'm in my apartment in trendy Tribeca. I've been down here for 37 years, from before it was a fashionable neighbourhood. It's a wonderful place; it looks over the Hudson River. I can see 30 miles into New Jersey. My landlord would like me to die because the rent is very low. I'm trying to outlive him. He can get a lot more if I disappear. — Mark Margolis

And so," Kelly said, "you godlike ones show your godlike natures by feeling superior to the artificial humans you create. Even though androids outlive you and outperform you in most ways." "We feel superior to you and inferior at the same time, Kelly. And that's why most of us dislike and distrust you." She pondered that. "How intricate you naturals can be! Why must you be so concerned about superiority and inferiority? Why not simply accept all distinctions and concentrate on matters of real importance? — Robert Silverberg

Is the girl all right?" "She's had an ordeal but she's young," Augustus said. "She won't forget it, but she might outlive it. — Larry McMurtry

Men outlive their love, but they don't outlive the consequences of their recklessness. — George Eliot

My goal was always to be involved in music that would outlive me. And maybe that's actually happening. — Barry Manilow

In life, you gotta do something. And the medical journals keep on saying if you've got a goal or some passion in life, you'll outlive all the other guys who - the bank manager that retired. They gave him a rocking chair and he rocked himself to death. So you gotta have a passion, whatever it happens to be. Whether it's this or something else, it doesn't matter, as long as it's a reason to get out of bed every morning, as my accountant of 50 years keeps on saying. — James Wright

One single soul saved shall outlive and outweigh all the kingdoms of the
world. — J.C. Ryle

At night I sometimes see the figure of a man, on an empty road in a deserted landscape, walking behind a hearse. I am that man. It's you the hearse is taking away. I don't want to be there for your cremation; I don't want to be given an urn with your ashes in it. I hear the voice of Kathleen Ferrier singing, 'Die Welt ist leer, Ich will nicht leben mehr'* and I wake up. I check your breathing, my hand brushed over you. Neither of us wants to outlive the other. We've often said to ourselves that if, by some miracle, we were to have a second life, we'd like to spend it together.
*The world is empty. I don't want to go on living. — Andre Gorz

It had been a long time since I'd felt any desire to truly inflict pain upon another person. I tend to take the long view on dealing with irritating people - as in, I'm going to outlive whoever irritates me, so the problem will eventually go away. I had privately changed "This, too, shall pass" into "You, too, shall die," and it helped me avoid all sorts of conflict. — Kevin Hearne

The fountain of youth resides in our memory. You will never outlive your shadow. — Lorin Morgan-Richards

Audiences aren't going to get rid of me. One thing I can say, with absolute certainty, is that my shows will still be performed when I'm dead, buried and forgotten. They're going to absolutely outlive me, which is a wonderful thing to think about. — Cameron Mackintosh

Children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings, if given a chance. — Ishmael Beah

Customs will often outlive the remembrance of their origin. — Thomas Paine

Death can never kill an idea. Ideas are more powerful than death. Ideas outlive men and can never be destroyed. — Myles Munroe

Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can't think about them. I live with trees. — Annie Dillard

True, 'tis an unhappy circumstance of life that love should ever die before us, and that the man so often should outlive the lover. But say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day must be old. For my part, my youth may wear and waste, but it shall never rust in my possession. — William Congreve

I am going to outlive myself. Eat, sleep, sleep, eat. Exist slowly, softly, like these trees, like a puddle of water, like the red bench in the streetcar. — Jean-Paul Sartre

Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates. — Charles Caleb Colton

Finally, a prominent nation is taking on the homosexual agenda and rejecting it outright. A number of African nations have done the same, but third-world countries are not newsworthy to mainstream media. The irony is stunning that a Communist nation would understand that preserving the value of men and women marrying and producing children makes for demographic survival, while many American Christian leaders cower in the shadows, in fear of activist homosexuals and their leftist supporters. I say 'cheers' to the Russians on this one. That nation will probably outlive America. — Sylvia Thompson

You could spend the rest of your life trying to outlive the scars that are left by what you go through in your formative years. — Todd Edwards

To some extent, I have only lived to have something to outlive. By confiding these futile remembrances to paper, I am conscious of accomplishing the most important act of my life. I was predestined to Memory. — Oscar Milosz

I do not wish to grow old, to outlive my illusions. Only a short respite from cares and sorrow, a brief time of flowers, and music, and love, and laughter, and ecstatic tears. — Anne Reeve Aldrich

I'll never be as old as someone older than me, but I can be older than them if I outlive their lifespan. — Jarod Kintz

The United Nations research states that men with the longest life expectancy are from Japan, followed by Switzerland. I am rather surprised at this result as since time immemorial we have been doing the Karva Chauth fast to make sure our men have long lives, and the results should have definitely shown by now. I scan the list, confident that in this chart of life expectancy, the Indian man must definitely be in the top 5. Nope! There are 146 countries above us where the men have longer lifespans, and the biggest blow is that even with four wives who don't fast for them, the Arab men outlive our good old Indian dudes. — Twinkle Khanna

Whatever he writes will mean You have not silenced me. Despite all your power, you are not all powerful. Men have often reduced his voice to gasps and weeping. They have crushed the power to speak from his body, from many bodies. But words written down outlive the vulnerability of the flesh. His songs will fly through the air like swallows. Recorded words can be passed along. In one form or another, they will be passed along. Movement is their essential nature. — Karen Connelly

You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!" replied the other. "He IS the most wonderful creature! I wouldn't take ten thousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his sole support in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and attachment, a phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most astonishing birds that ever lived! — Charles Dickens

She'll outlive the last cockroach — Sue Monk Kidd

People worry that if they buy an annuity and then die before the policy starts to pay off, their heirs will lose out. I tell them, "What you should be more worried about is if you outlive your money, you will have to move in with your kids. Ask your kids which of these outcomes they are more worried about." — Richard Thaler

I hope you outlive me so I never have to know what life is like without you. — C.J. English

The planting of a tree, especially one of the long-living hardwood trees, is a gift which you can make to posterity at almost no cost and with almost no trouble, and if the tree takes root it will far outlive the visible effect of any of your other actions, good or evil. — George Orwell

What I feel is the momentary shock of realizing that most of the wood, metal and plastic fixtures, the sinks, lampshades, the shower stall, and even the drinking cups will all outlive me if my body follows the same progression that this tiny invisible-to-the-eye virus has initiated. — David Wojnarowicz

The dead do not need to rise. They are a part of the earth now and the earth can never be conquered. For the earth endureth forever. It will outlive all systems of tyranny. Those who have entered it honorably, and no men ever entered earth more honorably than those who died in Spain, already have achieved immortality. — Ernest Hemingway,

My original fear that my daughter was going to die before BettyJane and myself has now been replaced with the fear that she is going to outlive us. — JohnA Passaro

Beauty, coveted though it was, could not outlive you. Only actions would. — Roshani Chokshi

The words you write will outlive you. Choose them wisely. — Kira Hawke

Have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 4 June 1940 — Andrew Roberts

When Mother had told me that animals found quiet, unexposed places to die, I had always imagined they knew they were dying, and accepted it, almost gracefully. Now I saw that this wasn't so at all: they crept into corners in the hope of surviving, they only knew they were weakened and exposed, easy prey, and their instinct was to find a hidden place and try to outlive whatever it was they were suffering. It had been a mistake to imagine they wanted to be alone, to die in peace. Animals have no knowledge of death; for them, death is the unexpected end of life, something they resist by instinct, for no good reason. In that sense, their existence has an almost mechanical quality. — John Burnside

If what you create does not outlive you, then you have failed. — Uday Kotak

I'm only human, and I have no doubt Spock will outlive me by many years. I can only hope that, once in a while, when people look at Spock's visage, they might sometimes think of me. — Leonard Nimoy

Jubal had long ago even foresworn pets, because he outlived them, or (worse yet) it was now possible that a pet would outlive him, be orphaned. — Robert A. Heinlein

So may'st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease Gathered, not harshly plucked, for death mature: This is old age; but then thou must outlive Thy youth, thy strength, thy beauty, which will change To withered weak and grey. — John Milton

Today the law defines death, with appropriate blurriness, as the cessation of brain function. Though the heart may still throb and the unknowing bone marrow create new cells, no man's history can outlive his brain. — Sherwin B. Nuland

If two percent of all the films made in Hollywood are really artistically worthy - and I think it's a lot more than two percent - that's a pretty big percentage of things that will outlive their own generation. — Murray Horwitz

But she stepped forward and placed a finger to his lips and there it was before him. The greatest prayer to the gods he could muster with a heart so broken. Don't let me outlive this woman. Don't let me exist one moment without her. — Melina Marchetta

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish, and men do,
I shall have only good to say of you. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

It's kind of hard to outlive your past — Richelle Mead

Because the memory of those who lie below, passes away so soon. At first they tend them, morning, noon, and night; they soon begin to come less frequently; from once a day, to once a week; from once a week to once a month; then, at long and uncertain intervals; then, not at all. Such tokens seldom flourish long. I have known the briefest summer flowers outlive them. — Charles Dickens

Is there nothing I have done which will outlive me, other than the opprobrium of my first wife and sons and grandchildren?
Do I care?
Doesn't everybody?
Poor me. Poor practically everybody, with so little durable good to leave behind! — Kurt Vonnegut

If being a spokesman for a generation is a fleeting occupation, being a symbol of an era is downright dangerous for anyone who has the bad luck to outlive it. — Jay McInerney

The actions of bad men produce only temporary evil, the actions of good men only temporary good ; and eventually the good and the evil altogether subside, are neutralized by subsequent generations, absorbed by the incessant movements of future ages. But the discoveries of great men never leave us; they are immortal; they contain those eternal truths which survive the shock of empires, outlive the struggles of rival creeds, and witness the decay of successive religions. — Henry Thomas Buckle

Rules, established with reason and justice, can easily outlive their usefulness as circumstances change, yet can remain in force through inertia. It is then not only right, but useful, to break those rules as a way of advertising the fact that they have become useless - or even actually harmful. — Isaac Asimov

It appears to me as if we're doomed, then," Buttercup said. Westley looked at her. "Doomed, madam?" "To be together. Until one of us dies." "I've done that already, and I haven't the slightest intention of ever doing it again," Westley said. Buttercup looked at him. "Don't we sort of have to sometime?" "Not if we promise to outlive each other, and I make that promise now." Buttercup looked at him. "Oh my Westley, so do I. — William Goldman

The No. 1 thing that I care about is the fact that I did my job by the children because that has a legacy that will far outlive me. Because it won't only be them, it will be how they impact their children and the next generation. — Michele Bachmann

God shapes the world by prayer. Prayers are deathless. The lips that uttered them may be closed to death, the heart that felt them may have ceased to beat, but the prayers live before God, and God's heart is set on them and prayers outlive the lives of those who uttered them; they outlive a generation, outlive an age, outlive a world. — Edward McKendree Bounds

They say that art should stand the test of time. Life lasts a limited amount of time. Mountains and trees and earth will outlive human beings, but we don't know if they will be here always. Art does outlast the life span of its maker. Art should communicate to an increasing circle of strangers-people who do not know the artist, but come to know the work, and through the work, come to know something about the humanity of the artist that rings with their own humanity. — Anna Deavere Smith

A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets the most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that surely will outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is doomed and his soul has a price. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

As soon as he was gone, we opened, "Baucis and Philemon." An elderly couple living in a cottage, they're granted a wish by Jove. They confer in private before Philemon asks, "May one hour take us both away; let neither outlive the other." The wish is granted.
I said, "Simultaneous deaths? Why didn't they wish for eternal happiness instead? What else would anyone wish for?"
"They did wish for that," answered Jamie. — David Guterson

Though not really a comedy, 'Rosewater' is a demonstration of the creed behind 'The Daily Show': belief in the crucial need for impious wit against entrenched power. The freedom of the press is also the freedom to depress - and to inspire. That's a message that can outlive any Oscar season. — Richard Corliss

The riches of scholarship, the benignities of literature, defy fortune and outlive calamity. They are beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As they cannot be inherited, so they cannot, be alienated. — James Russell Lowell

And if there is water there let it be from a river. And if there is peace let it be from silence and forgetting. From the slow settle of dust on a house worn down, on a history lost, on a woman buried quietly into geography. And if there is memory let it be disjointed and nonsensical, let it disturb understanding and logic, let it rise like birds or hands into the blood blue bone of the sky, whispering its nothing beyond telling. ( ... ) Let someone lose the captions to all of the photographs; let them pile into new logics and forms that outlive us.
- "Siberia: Still Life of a Moving Image" (6. Representation) — Lidia Yuknavitch

A song is only as strong as its foundation, and when it comes so naturally in any setting, those are the songs that will hopefully outlive you, maybe even outlive the next generation of You. — Corey Taylor

Tull stopped laughing and stared into Loken's face. His blue eyes were terribly cold and hard. 'Kaos is the damnation of all mankind, Loken. Kaos will outlive us and dance on our ashes. All we can do, all we can strive for, is to recognise its menace and keep it at bay, for as long as we persist. — Dan Abnett