Let the dead have the immortality of fame, but the living the immortality of love.
aphorism by Rabindranath Tagore from Stray Birds (1916), translated by Rabindranath Tagore
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Poems On Life
Life is given to us,
we earn it by giving it.
Let the dead have the immortality of fame,
but the living the immortality of love.
Life's errors cry for the merciful beauty
that can modulate their isolation into a
harmony with the whole.
Life, like a child, laughs,
shaking its rattle of death as it runs.
poem by Rabindranath Tagore
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I don't want to achieve immortality by being inducted into the Hall of Fame. I want to achieve immortality by not dying.
quote by William De Morgan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Some—Work for Immortality
406
Some—Work for Immortality—
The Chiefer part, for Time—
He—Compensates—immediately—
The former—Checks—on Fame—
Slow Gold—but Everlasting—
The Bullion of Today—
Contrasted with the Currency
Of Immortality—
A Beggar—Here and There—
Is gifted to discern
Beyond the Broker's insight—
One's—Money—One's—the Mine—
poem by Emily Dickinson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Birth of death
Birth of death
(Stream of consciousness poetry)
This is a well thinking thought
How to control
A robot
Before inventing,
How do you cherish
The success of poetry
Before composing,
This is a well thinking thought
Of the immortality
To give the meaning
The state of being
As the creator
Can not create
The enemy of
Immortality,
Which He Himself is,
Death
Is the success
Of the game plan
Before the game
Was invented
But loophole lies
The immortality
Does not have life.
What's the pleasure
Of being an entity
Of immortality
Without taste
Of life and death!
(He Himself knows)
poem by Abdul Wahab
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Immortality is not a gift, Immortality is an achievement; And only those who strive mightily Shall possess it.
quote by Edgar Lee Masters
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Some—Work for Immortality
406
Some—Work for Immortality—
The Chiefer part, for Time—
He—Compensates—immedia tely—
The former—Checks—on Fame—
Slow Gold—but Everlasting—
The Bullion of Today—
Contrasted with the Currency
Of Immortality—
A Beggar—Here and There—
Is gifted to discern
Beyond the Broker's insight—
One's—Money—One's&m dash;the Mine—
poem by Emily Dickinson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Village Atheist
Ye young debaters over the doctrine
Of the soul's immortality
I who lie here was the village atheist,
Talkative, contentious, versed in the arguments
Of the infidels.
But through a long sickness
Coughing myself to death
I read the Upanishads and the poetry of Jesus.
And they lighted a torch of hope and intuition
And desire which the Shadow,
Leading me swiftly through the caverns of darkness,
Could not extinguish.
Listen to me, ye who live in the senses
And think through the senses only:
Immortality is not a gift,
Immortality is an achievement;
And only those who strive mightily
Shall possess it.
poem by Edgar Lee Masters
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Giant’s Ring
BALLYLESSON, NEAR BELFAST
Whoever is able will pursue the plainly
False immortality of not having lived in vain but leaving some
mark in the world.
Secretly mocking at his own insanity
He labors the same, he knows that no dead man's lip was ever
curled in self-scorn,
And immortality is for the dead.
Jesus and Caesar out of the bricks of man's weakness, Washington
out of the brittle
Bones of man's strength built their memorials,
This nameless chief of a knot of forgotten tribes in the Irish darkness
used faithfuller
Simpler materials: to diadem a hilltop
That sees the long loughs and the Mourne Mountains, with a ring
of enormous embankment, and to build
In the center that great toad of a dolmen
Piled up of ponderous basalt that sheds the centuries like raindrops.
He drove the labor,
And has earmarked already some four millenniums.
His very presence is here, thick-bodied and brutish, a brutal and
senseless will-power.
Immortality? While Homer and Shakespeare are names,
Not of men but verses, and the elder has not lived nor the
younger will not, such treadings of time.
Conclude that secular like Christian immortality's
Too cheap a bargain: the name, the work or the soul: glass beads
are the trade for savages.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
You Have The Soul Into Your Words
you may have the soul
into your words
you may have the oil
and the canvass and the
shapes and forms
to immortalize
what have you
something
for posterity for your immortality
but what use
is posterity
what use is this immortality?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Poets have said that the reason to have children is to give yourself immortality. Immortality? Now that I have five children, my only hope is that they are all out of the house before I die.
quote by Bill Cosby
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once.
quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
In My Dream, light plays!
Night is the time,
Sleeping in infinite nothing,
becoming nothing in beloved
embrace,
forgetting everything! In the lap of beloved enjoy
dreams,
may some come true,
Some may not,
Observing dreams one sees the
light within,
Randomly light plays in my dream
At the dawn, with gentle breeze,
Dreams melt, innerlight into light
of world,
Never go back to sleep,
If you sleep at dawn,
What will be there at dusk? If dustfree dawn make you sleep,
Failing to Smile and work,
If can't feel lighter in the light of
dawn,
Sure the darkness covering light,
Will make you faint at dusk!
Seeds says seed of immortality
is packed in mortal seed coat!
DNA sings, its immortality
covered in mortality of seed,
Finally Life sings,
Immortality of life is packed in mortal DNA,
and Self whispers, my
immortality is sung by mortal
life!
poem by Ramdas Bhandarkar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Something at the back of your mind.
If I had done something wonderful in my life
Or left a book with my name in print
Would that be my immortality?
Or is immortality a done deal
If you believe in Christ
Then where are the rules?
Kindness, love and an attitude
That would please Christ
Surely that is the answer?
Man interferes and proposes
A complete turn
Even if there has been murder
Theft or a lapse in the ten
Commandments
Be born again
What is that?
In my life I have learnt
And seen people savaged
By corruption and fear
In the next life will
All of us be there?
Good or bad?
The holocaust survivor
And the men that sent
Thousands to their death?
It is the eternal question.
poem by Willow Moon Pearce
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.
quote by Brandon Lee
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
A Mawkish Poem
1
When we laugh, we laugh
For the benefit of the dead
When we cry, we cry
For the benefit of the living
When we cough, we cough
To purge our souls, to get rid
Of waste and decay
We desire to make a living.
2
When we travel, we travel
On the road of the dead
When we live, we live
Because we know we will die
None to save us from the devil
Or launch us into another world
Or take away our believe
In life and death, or break the tie.
3
Like the season that comes and goes
Like the day and night
When we live, we live
Ignorant of where we are headed
There is no one that knows
The guessers have not guessed right
Those that believe only believe
Not because of love, for they are afraid
4
There is in every man something
That longs for immortality
And light that yearns for darkness
While his music is still on
His is a language that means nothing
His humanity is his sole patrimony
That derides him of anything bliss
That soon and wretched he is gone.
poem by Chime Justice Ndubuisi
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
World Falls
Im coming home with a stone
Strapped onto my back
Im coming home with a burning hope
Turning all my blues to black
Im looking for a sacred hand
To carve into my stone
A ghost of comfort
Angels breath
To keep this life inside my chest
This world falls on me
Hopes of immortality
Everywhere I turn
All the beauty just keeps shaking me
Now I woke up in the middle of a dream
Scared the world was too much for me
Sejarez said, dont let go
Just plant the seeds and watch them grow
Ive slept in rainy canyon lands
Cold drenched to my skin
I always wake to find a face
To calm these troubled lands
Ah this world falls on me
With dreams of immortality
Everywhere I turn
All the beauty just keeps shaking me
Now Im running
To the end of the earth
And Im swimming
To the edge of the sea
And Im laughing
Im under a starry sky
This world was meant for me
Dont bury me
Carry me
I wish I was a nomad
An indian or a saint
The edge of death would disappear
Leave me nothing left to taint
I wish I was a nomad
An indian or a saint
Give me walking shoes
Feathered arms
And a key to heavens gate
Ah this world falls on me
Dreams of immortality
Everywhere I turn
All the beauty just keeps shaking me
Im running
(this world falls on me)
To the end of the earth
(with hopes of immortality)
Im swimming
(everywhere I turn)
To the edge of the sea
(the beauty keeps on shaking me)
And Im laughing
(this world falls on me)
Cause Im under a starry sky
(hopes of immortality)
This world was meant for me
(everywhere I turn)
Ive got hopes of immortality
song performed by by Indigo Girls
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Mother of Beauty and Love
Through thine heart, and times portal,
Thine give me truth and love immortal
No love, if there is love, is like thee
Sometimes I ponder if love is what thou be?
Or if love we did know before was just a charade
A propriety, a clandestine façade
To satiate sinister lust
That infects us…
For when thy walk, thou dance to me
And when thou talk, thou words paint
In my sweet soul of loves immortality
The contours of thy body which hide in my souls eye
thine beauty, mine sadness… should thy beauty die
And thy beauteous soul leave like an autumn tree
All its beauty for my heart to see…
I write this poem to immortality
the mother of love of beauty!
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The insatiable thirst for everything which lies beyond, and which life reveals, is the most living proof of our immortality.
quote by Charles Baudelaire
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Innocence Matter: Restoration Perfection
Innocence is the question?
Innocence is the X factor?
Innocence is life mortality?
Innocence is sinless state immortality?
Innocence is physical perfection?
Innocence is purity soul divinity?
Innocence is state of grace harmony?
Innocence is Trinity creation link eternity?
Innocence is life breath immortality?
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Lily
I found a lily in the middle of the night
the flowers are vibrant soul of silence
wrote of love, love, love
the night is a blend of sky and stars
the orchestration of silence
through the wall of the sky
back pains to heal
fly with the wings
dancing and spinning
floating among the clouds
absurdly drunk
dancing honey bees love
immortality is familiar in the holy month
no more sin and merit
al-wustho love dance
bow down and the tears
happiness and immortality
the soul and the beetles disappeared the night
dancing at the keyhole
find freedom
love is abundant in honey
o sweet, sweet, sweet
(2011)
poem by Imam Setiaji Ronoatmojo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!