poems for funerals

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. ~Rita Dove



Resolve to be thyself; and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery. ~Matthew Arnold, "Self-Dependence," Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems, 1852



Oh, Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we not only carry a future Ghost within us; but are, in very deed, Ghosts! ~Thomas Carlyle



Sometimes a man imagines that he will lose himself if he gives himself, and keep himself if he hides himself. But the contrary takes place with terrible exactitude. ~Ernest Hello



A mind is accustomed to mathematical deduction, when confronted with the faulty foundations of astrology, resists a long, long time, like an obstinate mule, until compelled by beating and curses to put its foot into that dirty puddle. ~Johannes Kepler



Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop. ~Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland



In the old days a man who saved money was a miser; nowadays he's a wonder. ~Author Unknown



A cloudless plain blue sky is like a flowerless garden. ~Terri Guillemets



It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas when its mighty Founder was a child Himself. ~Charles Dickens



You can keep a dog; but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals. ~George Mikes



After a night in fight club, everything in the real world gets the volume turned down. Nothing can piss you off. Your word is law, and if other people break that law or question you, even that doesn't piss you off. ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 6



I am an invisible man.... I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. ~Ralph Ellison



The overweight neurotic turned thin has mental weight she'll never lose. ~Terri Guillemets



The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. ~Thomas Jefferson



A picture is worth a thousand words; a slide show is both. ~Author Unknown



A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself. ~Arthur Miller



All the romance of trout fishing exists in the mind of the angler and is in no way shared by the fish. ~Harold F. Blaisdell, The Philosophical Fisherman, 1969



Some people dream of success... while others wake up and work hard at it. ~Author Unknown



If a horse can't eat it, I don't want to play on it. ~Dick Allen, on artificial turf, 1970



No man does right by a woman at a party. ~Harry Golden