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About this quote

What does it mean?
Do not highlight a person's merits or faults after death; both rest in God.
In plain terms
Don't praise or criticize the dead; they are with God.
What can you take from it?
Deceased people deserve peace from judgment.

Where it applies

  • funerals
  • reading eulogies
  • moral reflection

Putting it to work

  • writing obituaries
  • offering comfort
  • practicing humility

Questions to consider

  • How should we remember the dead?
  • Is judgment necessary after death?

Another view

It may discourage honoring genuine achievements.

More from Thomas Gray

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  3. Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown. Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth. And Melancholy marked him for h…

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