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It must be so--Plato, thou reasonest well!--
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
O falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
Author: Joseph Addison
Source: Cato (act V, sc. 1)
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The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years,
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the wars of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
Author: Joseph Addison
Source: Cato (act V, sc. 1)
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I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to
achieve immortality through not dying.
Author: Joseph Addison
Source: Cato (act V, sc. 1)
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No, no! The energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing--only he
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.
Author: Matthew Arnold
Source: Sonnet--Immortality
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On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending,
And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.
Author: James Beattie
Source: The Hermit (st. 6, last lines)
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Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the
spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
Author: Bible
Source: Ecclesiastes (ch. XII, v. 7)
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Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
Author: Rupert Brooke
Source: Heaven
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There is nothing strictly immortal, but immortality. Whatever
hath no beginning may be confident of no end.
Author: Sir Thomas Browne
Source: Hydriotaphia (ch. V)
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If I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time; I press God's lamp
Close to my breast; its splendor soon or late
Will pierce the gloom; I shall emerge one day.
Author: Robert Browning
Source: Paracelsus (last lines)
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I have been dying for twenty years, now I am going to live.
Author: James Drummond Burns
Source: His Last Words
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A good man never dies.
Author: Callimachus
Source: Epigrams (X)
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Immortality is the glorious discovery of Christianity.
Author: William Ellery Channing
Source: Immortality
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'Tis immortality to die aspiring,
As if a man were taken quick to heaven.
Author: George Chapman
Source: Byron's Conspiracy (act I, sc. 1, l. 254)
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No one could ever meet death for his country without the hope of
immortality.
[Lat., Nemo unquam sine magna spe immortalitatatis se pro patria
offerret ad mortem.]
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: Tusculanarum Disputationum (I, 15)
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For I never have seen, and never shall see, that the cessation of
the evidence of existence is necessarily evidence of the
cessation of existence.
Author: William de Morgan
Source: Joseph Vance (ch. XL)
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I don't want to achieve immortality by being inducted into the
Hall of Fame. I want to achieve immortality by not dying.
Author: William de Morgan
Source: Joseph Vance (ch. XL)
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Do you believe in immortality? No, and one life is enough for
me.
Author: William de Morgan
Source: Joseph Vance (ch. XL)
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Thus God's children are immorall whiles their
Father hath anything for them to do on earth.
Author: Thomas Fuller
Source: Church History (bk. II, century VIII, 18, On Bede's Death)
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Yet spirit immortal, the tomb cannot bind thee,
But like thine own eagle that soars to the sun
Thou springest from bondage and leavest behind thee
A name which before thee no mortal hath won.
Author: Thomas Fuller
Source: Church History (bk. II, century VIII, 18, On Bede's Death)
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'Tis true; 'tis certain; man though dead retains
Part of himself; the immortal mind remains.
Author: Homer ("Smyrns of Chios")
Source: The Iliad (bk. XXIII, l. 122), (Pope's translation)
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The muse does not allow the praise-de-serving here to die: she
enthrones him in the heavens.
[Lat., Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori;
Coelo Musa beat.]
Author: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Source: Carmina (IV, 8, 28)
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But all lost things are in the angels' keeping, Love;
No past is dead for us, but only sleeping, Love;
The years of Heaven with all earth's little pain
Make Good
Together there we can begin again
In babyhood.
Author: Helen Hunt Jackson (Helen Hunt)
Source: At Last (st. 6)
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No, no, I'm sure,
My restless spirit never could endure
To brood so long upon one luxury,
Unless it did, though fearfully, espy
A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.
Author: John Keats
Source: Endymion (bk. I)
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He ne'er is crowned with immortality
Who fears to follow where airy voices lead.
Author: John Keats
Source: Endymion (bk. II)
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I long to believe in immortality. . . . If I am destined to be
happy with you here--how short is the longest life. I wish to
believe in immortality--I wish to live with you forever.
Author: John Keats
Source: Letter to Fanny Brawne (XXXVI)
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If there is a God, man's immortality is certain. If not, Immortality would not be worth having.
Author: Edgar Sheffield Brightman
Source: None
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A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.
Author: Emily Dickinson
Source: None
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All men think all men mortal, but themselves. If there is a God, man's immortality is certain. If not, Immortality would not be worth having.
Author: Edgar Sheffield Brightman
Source: None
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All men think all men mortal, but themselves.
Author: Edward Young
Source: None
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Cheese -- milk's leap forward to immortality.
Author: Clifton Fadiman
Source: None
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For them that think death's honesty won't fall upon them naturally life sometimes must get lonely.
Author: Bob Dylan
Source: None
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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Author: John Kenneth Galbraith
Source: None
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We feel and know that we are eternal.
Author: Benedict de Spinoza
Source: None
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Immortality is the genius to move others long after you yourself have stopped moving.
Author: Frank Rooney
Source: None
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Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Author: Susan Ertz
Source: None
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All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.
Author: Socrates
Source: None
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Immortal mortals, mortal immortals, one living the others death and dying the others life.
Author: Heraclitus
Source: None
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Man is the only animal that contemplates death, and also the only animal that shows any sign of doubt of its finality.
Author: William Ernest Hocking
Source: None
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We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we want another which will be eternal.
Author: Anatole France
Source: None
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The belief in immortality has always seemed cowardly to me. When very young I learned that all things die, and all that we wish of good must be won on this earth or not at all.
Author: Anne Smedley
Source: None
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I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. . . I want to achieve it through not dying.
Author: Woody Allen
Source: None
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A book is the only immortality.
Author: Rufus Choate Edward Young
Source: None
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