“Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights.”
Bob Marley · Get Up, Stand Up, 1973
quolira
quolira.com
I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.
495 / 1172
About this quote
Meaning
The humor here rests on a deliberately morbid logic. The speaker's morning routine is not coffee or exercise but a check of the obituary column to confirm they are still among the living. Only after passing that test do they bother getting out of bed. The joke reframes survival itself as the minimum requirement for engagement with the day. It is a darkly comic way of saying that as long as you are breathing, you have reason enough to get up, and perhaps a gentle reminder not to take that basic fact for granted.
Why it resonates
This line lands because it acknowledges something people rarely say aloud: that simply being alive is the first and most essential victory of any morning. Wrapped in absurdist humor, the sentiment actually carries a quiet gratitude. It also speaks to the universal experience of needing a reason to leave the warmth of bed, and it finds the most extreme possible answer to that need. The deadpan tone makes it feel both funny and strangely wise at the same time.
How to use it
This quote works well as a lighthearted response to anyone complaining about mornings or struggling to find motivation at the start of the day. It can open a speech or piece of writing about resilience, gratitude, or simply getting on with things. It also fits naturally into conversations about aging, perspective, or the habit of counting small blessings. The humor makes it easy to share without sounding preachy, while the underlying point stays with the listener long after the laugh fades.
Up next
“If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.”
Mark Twain · widely attributed to Twain
“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”
Oscar Wilde · The Happy Prince and Other Tales, 1888
“I'm always late on principle, my principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.”
Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890
“The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible.”
Jean Kerr · Please Don't Eat the Daisies, 1957
“Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.”
Robert Benchley · Chips off the Old Benchley, 1949
“I am not a morning person. Then again, I'm not really an afternoon or evening person either.”
Garfield · Jim Davis, Garfield comic strip
“Every morning I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.”
Robert Orben · widely attributed
“I have always been a quarter of an hour before my time, and it has made a man of me.”
Horatio Nelson · attributed
“It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.”
John Steinbeck · On Writing, attributed
“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”
Blaise Pascal · Lettres provinciales, 1657
“The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.”
Charles Caleb Colton · Lacon, 1820
