The Grim Reaper appeared in Europe during the 14th century, when Europe was experiencing the Black Death, the result of the plague (1347–51). Death was something that surviving Europeans had on their mind. Skeletons are symbolic of death, representing the human body after it has decayed. The robe is reminiscent of the robes that religious figures of the time wore when conducting funerary services. The scythe is representative of agricultural practices of the time: harvesters used scythes to reap or harvest crops that were ready to be plucked from the earth… and that's what happens when humans die: they are plucked from this earth.
QuotaBillsDeath is the price of revolution. - H. Rap Brown
Biography lends to death a new terror. - Oscar Wilde
Love has no age, no limit; and no death. - John Galsworthy
It is not death that alarms me, but dying. - Michel De Montaigne
Death is that after which nothing is of interest. - Rozinov
Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic. - W H Auden
Feed your faith and your fears will starve to death. - Unknown
Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope. - William Hazlitt
Because I could not stop for Death He kindly stopped for me. - Emily Dickinson
His death was the first time that Ed Wynn ever made anyone sad. - Red Skelton
'Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but death and taxes. - Christopher Bullock
Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds. - Buddha
Never chase a lie. Let it alone, and it will run itself to death. - Lyman Beecher
To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. - J K Rowling
Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate. - Ambrose Bierce
Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes. - John Donne
Death is nature's way of saying, "Your table is ready." - Robin Williams
My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's. - Oscar Wilde
In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing. - Vincent van Gogh
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. - Benjamin Franklin
A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past. - Fidel Castro
Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn. - Fulton J. Sheen
Prison is the worst experience I've ever had in my life - besides death. - Duane Chapman
You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it. - J K Rowling
However much you may try to delay, you are fated to meet the same death as I did. - Tiberius Gracchus
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. - Isaac Asimov
Death had to take him in his sleep, for if he was awake there'd have been a fight. - Theodore Roosevelt
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come. - Rabindranath Tagore
When we have lost everything, including hope, life becomes a disgrace, and death a duty. - WC Fields
In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. - Robert Ingersoll
Easter is a time when God turned the inevitability of death into the invincibility of life. - Craig D Loundsbrough
For death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? - I Corinthians 15:55
If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank. - Woody Allen
At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom. - George Carlin
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not. - Epicurus
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death. - James F. Bymes
Melbourne is the kind of town that really makes you consider the question, "Is there life after death?" - Bette Midler
To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent. - Buddha
Success is like death. The more successful you become, the higher the houses in the hills get and the higher the fences get. - Kevin Spacey
When I came back to Dublin, I was courtmartialled in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence. - Brendan Behan