Death and sleep are twins (quotes)

Death and sleep are often talked about in the same breath

Time and death sleep side by side. Garth Nix
Writing is a deeper sleep than death. Franz Kafka
A death-like sleep, A gentle wafting to immortal life. John Milton
Sweet sleep fell upon his eyelids, unwakeful, most pleasant, the nearest like death. Homer
Sleep is pain’s easiest salve, and doth fulfil all offices of death, except to kill. John Donne
Death is the veil which those who live call life; They sleep, and it is lifted. Percy Bysshe Shelley
The brave die never, though they sleep in dust: Their courage nerves a thousand living men. Minot Judson Savage
Our life is two fold Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality. Lord Byron
We breathe, sleep, drink, eat, work and then die! The end of life is death. What do you long for? Love? A few kisses and you will be powerless. Money? What for? To gratify your desires. Glory? What coems after it all? Death! Death alone is certain. Guy de Maupassant

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Death and sleep are closely related

Sleep and Death, who are twin brothers. Homer
Sleep: the stepchild of Death. Nancy A. Collins
Night, having Sleep, the brother of Death. Hesiod
I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death. Nas
Death was a friend, and sleep was Death’s brother. John Steinbeck
How wonderful is death! Death and his brother sleep. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Sleep is the sister of death and the dwellers of heaven will not sleep. Nazr Mohammed
Someone told me sleep was the cousin of death and followin’ the dollar finds nothin’ but stress. Mac Miller
Sleep is cousin-german unto death: Sleep and death differ, no more, than a carcass And a skeleton. Thomas Traherne
And I’m not sure why I’m infatuated with death, My imagination is surely an aggravation of threats… Maybe cause I’m a dreamer, and sleep is the cousin of death, Really stuck in the scheme of wondering when I’mma rest. Kendrick Lamar
Sleep does make us all equal, it seems to me, like his big brother-Death. Arthur Schnitzler
Sleep and death, two twins of winged race, Of matchless swiftness, but of silent pace. Alexander Pope
Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose. John Fletcher
Sleep is death’s younger brother, and so like him, that I never dare trust him without my prayers. Thomas Browne
Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born; Relive my languish, and restore the light. Samuel Daniel
Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born, Relieve my languish and restore the light; With dark forgetting of my care return. And let the day be time enough to mourn The shipwreck of my ill adventured youth: Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn Without the torment of the night’s untruth. Samuel Daniel

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Sleep resembles death

fool, what else is sleep but chill death’s likeness? Ovid
Sleep is a mirror of life in which can be seen the reflection of death. Wasif Ali Wasif
sleepers! what a thing is slumber! Sleep resembles death. Ah, why then dost thou not work in such wise as that after death thou mayst retain a resemblance to perfect life, when, during life, thou art in sleep so like to the hapless dead? Leonardo da Vinci
Sleeping as quiet as death, side by wrinkled side, toothless, salt and brown, like two old kippers in a box. Dylan Thomas
The first moments of sleep are an image of death; a hazy torpor grips our thoughts and it becomes impossible for us to determine the exact instant when the I, under another form, continues the task of existence. Gerard De Nerval

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Sleep is death’s counterfeit

Downy sleep, death’s counterfeit. William Shakespeare
Sleep, delicious and profound, the very counterfeit of death. Homer
Death is not as terrible as you think. It comes to you as a healer. Sleep is nothing but a counterfeit death. What happens in death we can picture in sleep. All our sufferings vanish in sleep. When death comes, all our mortal tortures cease; they cannot go beyond the portals of death. Paramahansa Yogananda

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Sleep is death without dying…

Sleep – death without dying – living, but not life. Edwin Arnold
I don’t sleep. I hate those little slices of death. Walter Reisch

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… a little death from which we wake

Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn. Mahatma Gandhi
Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them. Edgar Allan Poe
We term sleep a death by which we may be literally said to die daily; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers. Thomas Browne
Tonight go to sleep as though your whole past has been dropped. Die to the past. And in the morning wake up as a new man in a new morning. Don’t let the same one who went to bed get up. Let him go to sleep for good. Let the one who is ever-new and ever-fresh awake instead. Rajneesh

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Death is a sleep…

Death is the sleeping partner of life. Eliza Cook
Some say that gleams of a remoter world Visit the soul in sleep – that death is slumber, And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber Of those who wake and live. Percy Bysshe Shelley
I die in sleep, and sleep is death and death is unknown, and unknown is God. Michael Bassey
There is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep. Algernon Charles Swinburne
There is a kitsch of death. For example, death transformed into sweet sleep: The ‘good night, sweet prince’ of the last scene of Hamlet. Saul Friedlander
Sleep, the type of death, is also, like that which it typifies, restricted to the earth. It flies from hell and is excluded from heaven. Charles Caleb Colton
When you die you forget. Death is a sleep, a forgetting. You forget about your previous lifetime. The essence of your being is the same. But at death, the personality dissolves Frederick Lenz
I realized that I had died and been reborn numberless times but just didn’t remember because the transitions from life to death and back are so ghostly easy, a magical action for naught, like falling asleep and waking up again a million times, the utter casualness and deep ignorance of it. Jack Kerouac
What is our death but a night’s sleep? For as through sleep all weariness and faintness pass away and cease, and the powers of the spirit come back again, so that in the morning we arise fresh and strong and joyous; so at the Last Day we shall rise again as if we had only slept a night, and shall be fresh and strong. Martin Luther
Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live. Epicurus
Sleep is a death, O make me try
By sleeping, what it is to die,
And as gently lay my head
On my grave, as now my bed.
Thomas Browne

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…a long sleep…

He doesn’t mind if he dies… indeed, he would like to die; but yet he fears to fall. He would welcome a long sleep; but not at the price of falling to it. William Golding
Life is a kind of sleep: old men sleep longest, nor begin to wake but when they are to die. Jean de la Bruyere

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…and as lovely

Sleep is lovely, death is better still, not to have been born is of course the miracle. Heinrich Heine
Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all. Heinrich Heine

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Death is to go to sleep and not wake up

Don’t go to sleep, so many people die there. Mark Twain
I do not sleep; I wish to meet my death awake. Maria Theresa
I want to go to sleep and not wake up, but I don’t want to die. Laurie Halse Anderson
It’s all God’s will: you can die in your sleep, and God can spare you in battle. Leo Tolstoy
If I should fall asleep and death takes me away, Don’t be surprised son, I wasn’t put here to stay. Lauryn Hill
Better to die, and sleep the never-waking sleep, than linger on and dare to live when the soul’s life is gone. Sophocles
Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. Anthony de Mello
Death can come at any moment. You could die this afternoon; you could die tomorrow morning; you could die on your way to work; you could die in your sleep. Most of us try to avoid the sense that death can come at any time, but its timing is unknown to us. Can we live each day as if it were our last? Can we relate to one another as if there were no tomorrow? Joan Halifax

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Death is eternal sleep

Death is an eternal sleep. Joseph Fouche
I don’t fear death, it must be like a long sleep. Katharine Hepburn
Would that death were like this. Would that one would sleep and sleep and sleep forever. Anne Rice
Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night. George R. R. Martin
Death, what are thou? nurse of dreamless slumbers freshening the fevered flesh to a wakefulness eternal. Martin Farquhar Tupper

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Death is a long night

In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. Robert Green Ingersoll
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again and ever again, this soiled world. Walt Whitman
Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps afield. Robert Louis Stevenson
Do not go gentle into that good night. Dylan Thomas
The world is a playground, and death is the night. Rumi
There’s something about night and day, and life and death… Michal Rovner
One night is awaiting us all, and the way of death must be trodden once. Horace
For the wretched one night is like a thousand; for someone faring well death is just one more night. Sophocles
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night. William Shakespeare
The night kissed the fading day With a whisper: “I am death, your mother, From me you will get new birth.” Rabindranath Tagore

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Death ends a life like sleep ends a day

Life death all does end and each day dies with sleep. Gerard Manley Hopkins
As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death. Leonardo da Vinci

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If we don’t fear to sleep, why should we fear to die?

Let no man fear to die, we love to sleep all, and death is but the sounder sleep. Francis Beaumont
Lo, sleep is good, better is death–in sooth The best of all were never to be born. Heinrich Heine
There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven. Isaac Asimov
Does it hurt?” The childish question had escaped Harry’s lips before he could stop it. “Dying? Not at all,” said Sirius. “Quicker and easier than falling asleep.” Rowling
But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep. James Thurber
Never fear Death for you will feel aroused by his sleep. Never cheat death or he will slap you with a sentence of misery for the defeat. Suzy Kassem
Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is passed in sleep. Lord Byron
I’ve heard people talk about the sleep of the dead. Is that what death would feel like? The nicest, warmest, heaviest never-ending nap? If that’s what it’s like, I wouldn’t mind. If that’s what dying is like, I wouldn’t mind that at all. Gayle Forman
Death is nothing, nor life either, for that matter. To die, to sleep, to pass into nothingness, what does it matter? Everything is an illusion. Mata Hari
Sleep would be so welcome. A warm blanket of black to erase everything else. Sleep without dreams. I’ve heard people talk about the sleep of the dead. Is that what death would feel like? The nicest, warmest, heaviest never-ending nap? If that’s what it’s like, I wouldn’t mind. If that’s what dying is like, I wouldn’t mind that at all. Gayle Forman
There is great reason to hope that death is good; for one of two things — either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man … even the great king will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? Plato

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Death is as natural as sleep

For a man who has done his natural duty, death is as natural as sleep. George Santayana
The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death. E. M. Forster
My business in life is to eat, drink, sleep, and die. Everything else is superfluity and I will have none of it. Wilkie Collins
Search for meaning, eat, sleep. Search for meaning, eat, sleep. Die, search for meaning, search for meaning, search for meaning. Douglas Horton

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Death, like sleep, is a form of sublime rest

Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men. Herodotus
We fear death, yet we long for slumber and beautiful dreams. Khalil Gibran
I just need to rest, that’s all, to rest and sleep some, and maybe die a little. George R. R. Martin
I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning. Benjamin Franklin
Thou fool, what is sleep but the image of death? Fate will give an eternal rest. Ovid
If the matter of death is reduced to sleep and rest, what can there be so bitter in it, that any one should pine in eternal grief for the decease of a friend? Lucretius
That’s the happiest moment. When it’s all done. When we stop. When we can stop. Edward Albee
Death envies those asleep in her … Extinguished softly in her womb. Evelyn Scott
Why shed tears that you must die? For if your past life has been one of enjoyment, and if all your pleasures have not passed through your mind, as through a sieve, and vanished, leaving not a rack behind, why then do you not, like a thankful guest, rise cheerfully from life’s feast, and with a quiet mind go take your rest. Lucretius
A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist. Stewart Alsop
Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door; Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shore Where neither piping bird nor peeping dawn Disturbs the eternal sleep, But in the stillness far withdrawn Our dreamless rest for evermore we keep. Robert Louis Stevenson
When the time comes, I will know that death is a homecoming, not a wrench that leaves a bruise on my spirit. Death is not the shadow but the light beyond the shadow. My spirit will return to its resting place in a long, slow glide toward peace. Scottish meditation
The moment comes when the great nurse, death, takes a human, the child, by the hand and quietly says, “It is time to go home. Night is coming. It is your bedtime, child of earth. Come; you’re tired. Lie down at last in the quiet nursery of nature and sleep. Sleep well. The day is gone. Stars shine in the canopy of eternity. Joshua L. Liebman

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Death is a sleep that ends life’s dreaming…

Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by? John Keats
Death is a sleep that ends our dreaming. Oh, that we may be allowed to wake before death wakes us. Petrarch

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…or perhaps death is to continue to dream

Birth and death are illusions, they are part of the dream. Frederick Lenz
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. William Shakespeare
Look to your experience in dreams to know how you will fare in death. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
At birth, we emerge from dream soup. At death, we sink back into dream soup. In between soups, there is a crossing of dry land. Life is a portage. Tom Robbins
Breathing, sleeping, drinking, eating, working, dreaming, everything we do is dying. To live, in fact, is to die. Guy de Maupassant
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. William Shakespeare
It was like a dream you might have after death in which lost people came back to life, your friends loved you again no matter what you had done, and your failures were unaccountably forgiven. Ann Brashares
To die, to sleep – To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, For in this sleep of death what dreams may come. William Shakespeare
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream—For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause, there’s the respect, That makes calamity of so long life William Shakespeare

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We can use falling asleep as practice for death

If we cannot remain present during sleep, if we lose ourselves every night, what chance do we have to be aware when death comes? If we enter our dreams and interact with the mind’s images as if they are real, we should not expect to be free in the state after death. Look to your experience in dreams to know how you will fare in death. Look to your experience of sleep to discover whether or not you are truly awake. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
All the things you need in the death transition, you need now in the life transition, because life is a transition, it is a between state. Therefore, every night when you fall asleep, it’s like you die. And every time you do, you should be using the process of falling asleep as giving up your attention to sense objects, your discursive ruminating thoughts and so on. You should use that as a process of giving up and giving yourself completely to the universe and becoming completely obliterated. Robert Thurman

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Some argue death is not sleep

Why do people want to pretend that death is sleep? It isn’t. It isn’t. Veronica Roth
Death is not an eternal sleep! Death is the commencement of immortality! Maximilien Robespierre

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Perhaps death is awakening from the sleep of life

We are born from a quiet sleep, and we die to a calm awakening. Zhuangzi
Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening. Walter Scott
I think of death as a glad awakening from this troubled sleep which we call life; as an emancipation from a world, which, beautiful though it may be, is still a land of captivity. Lyman Abbott
One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. John Donne
When you die, you don’t go to sleep. You go home to nonphysical reality, and you are very much awake. Gary Zukav
From birth to death man is a long sleep, sometimes dreaming with eyes closed, sometimes dreaming with eyes open, but dreaming all the same, all the time. Rajneesh
When death approaches, we may look back on our life and wonder if it was just another dream. Even now you may look back on last year’s vacation or yesterday’s drama and see that it is very similar to last night’s dream. Eckhart Tolle
I wondered what it would be like to die. Was it like going to sleep or like waking up? Was there no more time? Or did time go on forever? Grace McCleen
In death – no! even in the grave all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Arousing from the most profound slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream. Yet in a second afterward, (so frail may that web have been) we remember not that we have dreamed. Edgar Allan Poe
Death in my mind isn’t a finality. There’s a continuum: It’s like at night, you go to sleep and in the daytime you wake up, or whenever you wake up, and it’s a new day. David Lynch
Twilight is like death; the dark portal of night comes upon us, to open again in the glorious morning of immortality. James Ellis

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More thoughts on sleep and death

Better to die than live in sleep. I. Gurdjieff
Hunger, revenge, to sleep are petty foes, but only death the jealous eyes can close. William Wycherley
Our life is a loan received from death with sleep as the daily interest on this loan. Arthur Schopenhauer
To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege; to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack. Samuel Johnson
Sleep is not, death is not; Who seem to die Live. House you were born in, Friends of your spring-time, old man and young maid, Day’s toil and it’s guerdon, They are all vanishing, Fleeing to fables, Cannot be moored, Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though Duty’s face is stern, her path is best: They sweetly sleep who die upon her breast. Henry Abbey
Don’t wanna sleep, don’t wanna die, just wanna go a-travellin’ through the pastures of the sky. Truman Capote
Love is the scent of a sleeping back, death a slight draft of bad breath. Richard Flanagan
In the deepest slumber-no! In delirium-no! In a swoon-no! In death-no! Even in the grave all is not lost. Edgar Allan Poe

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On a lighter note

When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car. Will Rogers
To die. To expire. To pass on. To perish. To peg out. To push up daisies. To push up posies. To become extinct. Curtains, deceased, Demised, departed And defunct. Dead as a doornail. Dead as a herring. Dead as a mutton. Dead as nits. The last breath. Paying a debt to nature. The big sleep. God’s way of saying, “Slow down.” Patch Adams

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