QUOTES AND APHORISMS ON SUICIDE

No one is promiscuous in his way of dying. A man who has decided to hang himself will never jump in front of a train.

A. Alvarez (1929-, British critic, poet, novelist)

If you must commit suicide... always contrive to do it as decorously as possible; the decencies, whether of life or of death, should never be lost sight of.

George Borrow (1803-1881, British author)

One said of suicide, "As long as one has brains one should not blow them out." And another answered, "But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot."

Francis H. Bradley (1846-1924, British philosopher)

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest -- whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories -- comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.

Albert Camus (1913-1960, French existential writer)

It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.

E. M. Cioran (1911-1995, Rumanian-born French philosopher)

The obsession with suicide is characteristic of the man who can neither live nor die, and whose attention never swerves from this double impossibility.

E. M. Cioran (1911-1995, Rumanian-born French philosopher)

There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbors will say.

Cyril Connolly (1903-1974, British critic)

Each victim of suicide gives his act a personal stamp which expresses his temperament, the special conditions in which he is involved, and which, consequently, cannot be explained by the social and general causes of the phenomenon.

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917, French sociologist)

The prevalence of suicide, without doubt, is a test of height in civilization; it means that the population is winding up its nervous and intellectual system to the utmost point of tension and that sometimes it snaps.

Havelock Ellis (1859-1939, British psychologist)

Would Hamlet have felt the delicious fascination of suicide if he hadn't had an audience, and lines to speak?

Jean Genet (1910-1986, French playwright, novelist)

Human life consists in mutual service. No grief, pain, misfortune, or "broken heart," is excuse for cutting off one's life while any power of service remains. But when all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.

Charlotte P. Gillman (1860-1935, American feminist and writer)

However great a man's fear of life, suicide remains the courageous act, the clear-headed act of a mathematician. The suicide has judged by the laws of chance -- so many odds against one that to live will be more miserable than to die. His sense of mathematics is greater than his sense of survival. But think how a sense of survival must clamor to be heard at the last moment, what excuses it must present of a totally unscientific nature.

Graham Greene (1904-1991, British novelist)

Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.

Vaclav Havel (1936-, Czech playwright, president)

If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.

Fran Lebowitz (1951-, American journalist)

Here take back the stuff that I am, nature, knead it back into the dough of being, make of me a bush, a cloud, whatever you will, even a man, only no longer make me.

Georg C. Lichtenberg (1742-1799, German physicist, satirist)

And one of his partners asked "Has he vertigo?" and the other glanced out and down and said "Oh no, only about ten feet more."

Ogden Nash (1902-1971, American humorous poet)

It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900, German philosopher)

When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900, German philosopher)

I have always thought the suicide should bump off at least one swine before taking off for parts unknown.

Ezra Pound (1885-1972, American poet, critic)

I am just going outside and may be some time.

Lawrence Oates

Razors pain you; rivers are damp; acids stain you; and drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; nooses give; gas smells awful; you might as well live.

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967, American humorous writer)

At great periods you have always felt, deep within you, the temptation to commit suicide. You gave yourself to it, breached your own defenses. You were a child. The idea of suicide was a protest against life; by dying, you would escape this longing for death.

Cesare Pavese (1908-1950, Italian poet, novelist, translator)

No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.

Cesare Pavese (1908-1950, Italian poet, novelist, translator)

Then is it sin to rush into the secret house of death. Ere death dare come to us?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616, British poet, playwright, actor)

He who does not accept and respect those who want to reject life does not truly accept and respect life itself.

Thomas Szasz (1920-, American psychiatrist)

 Back to Daimon Library English Quotes Search Page