This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Idleness is the hot-bed of temptation, the cradle of disease, the waster of time, the canker-worm of felicity. To him that has no employment, life in a little while will have no novelty; and when novelty is laid in the grave, the funeral of comfort will soon follow.
Character | Comfort | Disease | Grave | Idleness | Life | Life | Little | Novelty | Temptation | Time | Will | Novelty |
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
I have said that the soul is not more than the body, and I have said that the body is not more than the soul, and nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is, and whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud, and I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth, and to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times, and there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero, and there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe, and I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes. And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God, for I who am curious about each am not curious about God, (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.) I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself. Why should I wish to see God better than this day? I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, in the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and everyone is sign'd by God's name, and I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go, others will punctually come for ever and ever.
Better | Body | God | Learning | Man | Men | Nothing | Object | Peace | Self | Soul | Sympathy | Will | Wisdom | Following | God | Understand |
We see dimly through the mists and vapors; amid these earthly damps what seem to us but sad, funeral tapers may be heaven’s distant lamps. There is no Death! What seems so is transition; this life of mortal breath is but a suburb of the life Elysian, whose portal we call Death.
When a nation's young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.
Men |
Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by humans, for in ceasing to be numbered with mortals he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life.
Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by humans; for, in ceasing to be numbered with mortals, he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life. Since he is gone where he feels no pain, let us not indulge in too much grief. The soul is incapable of death... And he, like a bird not long enough in his cage to become attached to it, is free to fly away to a purer air... Since we cherish a trust like this, let our outward actions be in accord with it, and let us keep our hearts pure and our minds calm.
Death | Enough | Good | Grief | Life | Life | Man | Pain | Soul | Trust |
D. H. Lawrence, fully David Herbert "D.H." Lawrence
Whoever walks a mile full of false sympathy walks to the funeral of the whole human race.
Human race | Race | Sympathy |
John Steinbeck, fully John Ernst Steinbeck
Death is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy. Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions. Imagine going to a funeral without first polishing the automobile. Imagine standing at a graveside not dressed in your best dark suit and your best black shoes, polished delightfully. Imagine sending flowers to a funeral with no attached card to prove you had done the correct thing. In no social institution is the codified ritual of behavior more rigid than in funerals. Imagine the indignation if the minister altered his sermon or experimented with facial expression. Consider the shock if, at the funeral parlors, any chairs were used but those little folding yellow torture chairs with the hard seats. No, dying, a man may be loved, hated, mourned, missed; but once dead he becomes the chief ornament of a complicated and formal social celebration.
Behavior | Indignation | Little | Man | Torture |
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
The slaying of multitudes should be mourned with sorrow. A victory should be celebrated with the funeral rite.
No name. No memory today of yesterday’s name; of today’s name, tomorrow. If the name is the thing; if a name in us is the concept of every thing placed outside of us; and without a name you don’t have the concept, and the thing remains in us as if blind, indistinct and undefined: well then, let each carve this name that I bore among men, a funeral epigraph, on the brow of that image in which I appeared to him, and then leave it in peace, and let there be no more talk about it. It is fitting for the dead. For those who have concluded. I am alive and I do not conclude. Life does not conclude. And life knows nothing of names. This tree, tremulous pulse of new leaves. I am this tree. Tree, cloud; tomorrow book or wind: the book I read, the wind I drink. All outside, wandering.
No matter how rich you become, how famous or powerful, when you die the size of your funeral will still pretty much depend on the weather.
Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by hymns; for, ion ceasing to be numbered with mortals, he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life. Since he is gone where he feels no pain, let us not indulge in too much grief. The soul is incapable of death. And he, like a bird not long enough in his cage to become attached to it, is free to fly away to a purer air... we cherish a trust like this, let our outward actions be in accord with it, and let us keep our hearts pure and our minds calm.
Ennius, fully Quintus Ennius NULL
Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men
Richard Aldington, born Edward Godfree Aldington
We pass and leave you lying. No need for rhetoric, for funeral music, for melancholy bugle-calls. No need for tears now, no need for regret.
Melancholy | Need | Tears |