Tomb Quotes

“A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough.

[Alexander's tombstone epitaph]”
― Alexander the Great

“And so sepúlchred in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.”
― John Milton, The Complete Poetry

“A secret too long kept can kill a soul by inches. I watched a secret almost destroy a man once, the finest man ever made. Such a secret is like keeping treasure in a tomb. Little by little, poison eats away at the gold. By the time the door is opened, there may be nothing left but dust.”
― Cassandra Clare, Ghosts of the Shadow Market

“The sorrow that lay cold in her mother's heart... converted it into a tomb.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“Never did tombs look so ghastly white. Never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funeral gloom. Never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously. Never did bough creak so mysteriously, and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“I was alone in that cemetery overlooking the village when a pregnant woman came in. I left at once, in order not to look at this corpse-bearer at close range, nor to ruminate upon the contrast between an aggressive womb and the time-worn tombs -- between a false promise and the end of promises.”
― Emil M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born

“It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed time sounding among the tombs, and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward towards the grave.”
― Washington Irving, The Sketch Book

“Why don’t they use this place anymore?” Matthias had asked when they’d taken over a vast tomb at the island’s center as their hideout.

“Plague,” Kaz replied. “The first bad outbreak was more than a hundred years ago, and the Merchant Council prohibited burial within city limits. Now bodies have to be cremated.”

“Not if you’re rich,” Jesper added. “Then they take you to a cemetery in the country, where your corpse can enjoy the fresh air.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“What if the empty tomb was simply God saying that the miracle that happened there is just a foretaste of the miracles that can happen within us? And if that’s the case, nothing within us is really dead. Rather, it’s just a bunch of stuff waiting its turn to stand up and breathe again.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“She herself asked for nothing, but her sex made its demands like a sunflower germinating in a tomb.”
― Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star

“The dusty tombs of long-dead exorcist priests lay in the alcoves below, surmounted by stone effigies, the features eroded by the passing of time and the reverent caresses of their grateful parishioners, a reminder, she knew all too well, of the brevity of life.”
― Sarah Ash

“What virtue yet sleeps in this terra damnata and aged cinders, were petty magic to experiment. These crumbling relicks and long fired particles superannuate such expectations; bones, hairs, nails, and teeth of the dead, were the treasures of old sorcerers.”
― Thomas Browne, Urne Burial

“Jesus was buried in a borrowed tomb because He was planning on returning it to its rightful owner after a short weekend.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“See, the Serpent is taken from its hole,
The secrets of Egypt's kings are bared.
See, the residence is fearful from want.
Men stir up strife unopposed.
See, the land is tied up in gangs,
The coward is emboldened to seize his goods.
See, the Serpent the dead.
He who could not make a coffin owns a tomb.
See, those who owned tombs are cast on high ground,
He who could not make a grave owns a treasury.
See now, the transformations of people,
He who did not build a hut is an owner of coffers.”
― Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms

“LEGACIES BECOME STAIRS OR
TOMBSTONES DEPENDING ON
WHICH WAY THE STONE LIES.”
― Vineet Raj Kapoor

“I have come here from my city,
I have descended from my nome;
I have built a house, set up (its) doors,
I have dug a pool, planted sycamores.
The king praised me,
My father made a will for me.
I was one worthy ---
One beloved of his father,
Praised by his mother,
Whom all his brothers loved.
I gave bread to the hungry,
Clothing to the naked,
I brought the boatless to land.
O you who live upon earth,
Who shall pass by this tomb
Going north or going south,
Who shall say: "a thousand loaves and beer jugs
For the owner of this tomb,"
I shall watch over them in the necropolis.
I am an excellent equipped spirit (akh),
A lector-priest who knows his speech.
As for any man who enters this tomb unclean,
I shall seize him by the neck like a bird,
He will be judged for it by the great god!
I was one who spoke fairly, who repeated what was liked,
I never spoke evilly against any man to his superior,
Never did I judge between two [contenders]
In a manner which deprived a son of his father's legacy.
Harkhuf”
― Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms

“To see the sun shining on its bright grass, fresh, when we first visited it, with the autumnal dews, and hear the whispering of the wind among the leaves of the trees which have overgrown the tomb of Cestius, and the soil which is stirring in the sun-warm earth, and to mark the tombs, mostly of women and young people who were buried there, one might, if one were to die, desire the sleep they seem to sleep.”
― John Addington Symonds, Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Some, finding many fragments of skulls in these urns, suspected a mixture of bones; in none we searched was there cause of such conjecture, though sometimes they declined not that practice.--The ashes of Domitian were mingled with those of Julia; of Achilles with those of Patroclus. All urns contained not single ashes; without confused burnings they affectionately compounded their bones; passionately endeavouring to continue their living unions. And when distance of death denied such conjunctions, unsatisfied affections conceived some satisfaction to be neighbours in the grave, to lie urn by urn, and touch but in their manes. And many were so curious to continue their living relations, that they contrived large and family urns, wherein the ashes of their nearest friends and kindred might successively be received, at least some parcels thereof, while their collateral memorials lay in minor vessels about them.”
― Thomas Browne, Urne Burial

“In the Jewish hypogæum and subterranean cell at Rome, was little observable beside the variety of lamps and frequent draughts of Anthony and Jerome we meet with thigh-bones and death's-heads; but the cemeterial cells of ancient Christians and martyrs were filled with draughts of Scripture stories; not declining the flourishes of cypress, palms, and olive, and the mystical figures of peacocks, doves, and cocks; but iterately affecting the portraits of Enoch, Lazarus, Jonas, and the vision of Ezekiel, as hopeful draughts, and hinting imagery of the resurrection, which is the life of the grave, and sweetens our habitations in the land of moles and pismires.”
― Thomas Browne, Urne Burial

“Gold once out of the earth is no more due unto it; what was unreasonably committed to the ground, is reasonably resumed from it; let monuments and rich fabricks, not riches, adorn men's ashes. The commerce of the living is not to be transferred unto the dead; it is not injustice to take that which none complains to lose, and no man is wronged where no man is possessor.”
― Thomas Browne, Urne Burial

“He that looks for urns and old sepulchral relicks, must not seek them in the ruins of temples, where no religion anciently placed them. These were found in a field, according to ancient custom, in noble or private burial; the old practice of the Canaanites, the family of Abraham, and the burying-place of Joshua, in the borders of his possessions; and also agreeable unto Roman practice to bury by highways, whereby their monuments were under eye:--memorials of themselves, and mementoes of mortality unto living passengers; whom the epitaphs of great ones were fain to beg to stay and look upon them,--a language though sometimes used, not so proper in church inscriptions.”
― Thomas Browne, Urne Burial

“Do not build your tomb out of ruins,
(Using) what had been made for what is to be made.
Behold, the king is lord of joy,
You may rest, sleep in your strength,
Follow your heart, through what I have done, There is no foe within your borders.”
― Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms

“A dead man walking out of a tomb utterly obliterates all of our tediously constructed paradigms about life. And in pondering what God did that morning, maybe we need to ask if our paradigms are, in fact, the very tombs that you and I need to walk out of.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Alex was enlivened by his father's love and felt energized. He knew he would return home; he had felt his strength return a soon as he put on his ring. It was this strength, he thought, that coursed throughout his body that travelled down his spine and then caused his leg muscles to spasm and convulse. The ring imparted more than love, either his father’s, mother's or unknown to him Kera's love.

The ring with all its radioactivity could have powered a small city for almost 28 years and now that energy coursed through Alex and his alien physiology. The energy for a city had outlets, junctures and relays along with other electronic devices to distribute that energy and regulate it. Alex's body was new to the experience of this type of phenomenon and it distributed poorly.

When his legs convulsed and shook and his spine became alight as fire running down an oil spill, Alex screamed in a ghastly howl that could be heard outside the tomb, as if some rambling soul or spirit had just arisen for vengeance upon those that placed him in the grave.”
― L.B. Ó Ceallaigh, Souls' Inverse

“A civilization is a tomb of the old Culture, and womb of the new.”
― Joe Dixon, The Prophet of War: The Downfall of the West

“In the centre of the room was what appeared to be a solid stone table with something on top. Looking closer, he saw it was an altar of sorts with a sword on top of it. No dust or dirt covered it, though it had swamped the rest of the room. The air was oddly stale, as if nothing had ever lived there and nothing ever would. The roots of a tree had broken through one of the walls, but they had withered away and twisted into strange shapes.

“At last,” a voice in his mind said.”
― Steven Raaymakers, A Canticle of Two Souls

“So, what are your thoughts about this symbol, Kate?" he asked mildly.
"Well, you see, the picture jarred my memory. Actually, I can't believe that I forgot---but, then again, I was just a wee thing at the time."
"Forgot about what?" he asked impatiently.
"My mother's book!"
He eyed her warily, recalling at once the book he had seen the Count DuMarin's veiled daughter, Lady Gabrielle, holding tightly to her chest on the night she had been handed over into the watchful care of Captain Fox.
Rohan had assumed it was a Bible.
"My mother brought a book with her from France containing this same symbol!" Kate explained. "It was a big thick tome, with all kinds of strange symbols and diagrams and writings. It had little maps and puzzles of different sorts figure out. Back when I was a little girl on my father's ship, my parents were constantly poring over it."
He frowned.
"Rohan, it was all about Valerian the Alchemist!" she exclaimed. "I don't know if the book was by him or simply written about him, but it contained clues to the secret location of his tomb. They were on a treasure hunt!"
He narrowed his eyes. The Alchemist's Tomb? But it had passed into legend long ago.
"Alchemy---you know!" Kate was saying excitedly. "Changing base metals into gold? There was supposed to be a horde of hidden treasure buried with him.”
― Gaelen Foley, My Dangerous Duke

“Shattered furniture; shredded bedding; clothes strewn about as if he'd gone looking for me inside the armoire. No one, it seemed, had been allowed in to clean.

But it was the vines- the thorns- that had made it unliveable. My old bedroom had been overrun with them. They'd curved and slithered over the walls, entwined themselves amongst the debris. As if they'd crawled off the trellises beneath my windows, as if a hundred years had passed and not months.

The bedroom was now a tomb.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Wings and Ruin

“Jesus died the most brutal kind of death ever devised by man, He was buried in a tomb that He didn’t even own because He didn’t plan on living there anyway, and He did what no one in the entire span of human history has ever done…He reversed His own murder.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Atossa, Jasmine read. Daughter of Cyrus the First. In a land where royal daughters normally faded into obscurity, Atossa was one of the few names Jasmine recognized from her tutor's teachings: a daughter and later wife of influence in the old Achaemenid days.”
― Alexandra Monir, Realm of Wonders