Sermon quotes on funerals
W.H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Edgar Bergen
Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?
Yogi Berra
Always go to other people’s funerals otherwise they won’t come to yours.
Robert Browning
I walked a mile with Pleasure; She chattered all the way. But left me none the wiser For all she had to say. I walked a mile with Sorrow And ne’er a word said she; But oh, the things I learned from her When Sorrow walked with me!
Winston Churchill
I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
George Eliot
O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude…”
Robert Frost
The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.
Garrison Keillor
They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I’m going to miss mine by just a few days.
Katherine Mansfield
If you wish to live, you must first attend your own funeral.
John Piper
At funerals we sometimes lay quite a bit of emphasis on the fact that Christians never say their last good-bye. Death means we will be reunited with loved ones who have died in the Lord before us.
Taken from John Piper in Coming Home edited by D.A. Carson, © 2017, p. 59. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.
Jerry Seinfeld
I saw a study that said speaking in front of a crowd is considered the number one fear of the average person. Number two was death. This means to the average person, if you have to be at a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
Little Foxes: Or, The Insignificant Little Habits which Mar Domestic Happiness, 1866, p.58.
Robert Townsend
If you don’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, look at any office at quitting time.
Mark Twain
I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
Mal McKissock and Dianne McKissock
After the adrenalin rush of the death and funeral, bereaved people often feel deserted and overwhelmed with loneliness.