Once to die is better than length of days in sorrow without end.

-Aeschylus
Prometheus Vinctus, l.750^1.

The end and object of conquest is to avoid doing the same thing as the conquered.

-Alexander the Great
Quoted in Plutarch  Alexander, 40.2.

Enjoyanother glass, for you see what the end is.

-Anonymous
c.2c  AD  Epitaph from Cos for a certain Chrysogonos. Quoted in W Peek Griechische Versinschriften, vol.1, no.378.

The dullard's envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end.

-Beerbohm, Sir (Henry) Max(imilian)
Zuleika Dobson, ch.4.

So the L blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.

-Bible (Old Testament)
ORDJob 42:12.

When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; Until Iwent intothesanctuaryof God; thenunderstood I their end.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Psalms 73:16^17.

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Proverbs 5:3^5.

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Proverbs14:12.

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Ecclesiastes 7:8.

And ye shall hear of wars and rumours or wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdomagainst kingdom: and thereshall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

-Bible (NewTestament)
St Matthew 24:6^7.

Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Philippians 3:19.

When you come to the end of a perfect day, And you sit alone with your thought, While the chimes ring out with a carol gay For the joy that the day has brought, Do you think what the end of a perfect day Can mean to a tired heart, When the sun goes down with a flaming ray, And the dear friends have to part?

-Bond, CarrieJacobs
  'A Perfect Day'.

Lord, let me know mine end, and thenumberof mydays: that I may be certified how long I have to live.

-Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 39:5.

Some books are lies frae end to end, And some great lies were never penn'd.

-Burns, Robert
  'Death and Doctor Hornbook.  A  True Story', stanza1.

The end of man is an action and not a thought, though it were the noblest.

-Carlyle,Thomas
^4  Sartor Resartus, bk.2, ch.6.

'Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' he asked. 'Begin at the beginning,'the King said, gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end; then stop.'

-Dodgson
  Alice's  Adventures in Wonderland, ch.12, 'Alice's Evidence'.

Now thisisnotthe end.It isnot eventhebeginningofthe end.But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

-Churchill, Lord Randolph Henry Spencer
  Speech at the Mansion House, London,10 Nov, referring to the Battle of Egypt.

And sad,Oh sad, that glen with one thin stream He met his death in; and a farmer told me There was but one small bird to shoot: it sang 'Better Beast and know your end, and die Than Man with murderous angels in his head.'

-Devlin, Denis
c.1956  'The Tomb of Michael Collins'.

Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end, where I begun.

-Donne,John
c.1595^1605  'A  Valediction: Forbidding Mourning', collected in Songs and Sonnets (1633).

One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to a greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long.

-Du Bois,W(illiam) E(dward) B(urghardt)
  Written 26  Jun, and read as an oration at his funeral.