Epitaph Quotes

“He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.”
― Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche

“Here lies Dobby, a free elf.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”
― Thomas Campbell

“That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.”
― Dorothy Parker

“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.”
― Shannon Alder

“Would you like me to [kill you] now?" asked Snape, his voice heavy with irony. "Or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?”
― J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.”
― Thornton Wilder

“If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.”
― H. L. Mencken

“O captain! My Captain!
Our fearful trip is done.
The ship has weather'd every wrack
The prize we sought is won
The port is near, the bells I hear
The people all exulting
While follow eyes, the steady keel
The vessel grim and daring
But Heart! Heart! Heart!
O the bleeding drops of red
Where on the deck my captain lies
Fallen cold and dead.”
― Walt Whitman

“When I die of heart failure the next time you frighten me like that, you can put that on my gravestone—‘I didn’t mean to startle her.”
― Patricia Briggs, Masques

“If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good help to you nevertheless
And filter and fiber your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop some where waiting for you”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“Let me tell you how the story ends, where the good guys die and the bad guys win. It doesn't matter how many friend you make, but the graffite they write on your grave.”
― Gerard Way

“You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.”
― Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

“A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough.

[Alexander's tombstone epitaph]”
― Alexander the Great

“Here in Manto's own words that he wanted to mark his grave with:

"In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Here lies Saadat Hasan Manto and with him lie buried all the secrets and mysteries of the art of short-story writing....
Under tons of earth he lies, still wondering who among the two is greater short-story writer: God or He.”
― Saadat Hasan Manto

“Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.

[Epitaph, upon his instructions to erect a 'a plain die or cube ... surmounted by an Obelisk' with 'the following inscription, and not a word more…because by these, as testimonials that I have lived, I wish most to be remembered.' It omits that he had been President of the United States, a position of political power and prestige, and celebrates his involvement in the creation of the means of inspiration and instruction by which many human lives have been liberated from oppression and ignorance]”
― Thomas Jefferson

“I knew if I waited around long enough something like this would happen.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Excuse my dust.”
― Dorothy Parker

“The Voyager

We are all lonely voyagers sailing on life's ebb tide,
To a far off place were all stripling warriors have died,
Sometime at eve when the tide is low,
The voices call us back to the rippling water's flow,
Even though our boat sailed with love in our hearts,
Neither our dreams or plans would keep heaven far apart,
We drift through the hush of God's twilight pale,
With no response to our friendly hail,
We raise our sails and search for majestic light,
While finding company on this journey to the brighten our night,
Then suddenly he pulls us through the reef's cutting sea,
Back to the place that he asked us to be,
Friendly barges that were anchored so sweetly near,
In silent sorrow they drop their salted tears,
Shall our soul be a feast of kelp and brine,
The wasted tales of wishful time,
Are we a fish on a line lured with bait,
Is life the grind, a heartless fate,
Suddenly, "HUSH", said the wind from afar,
Have you not looked to the heavens and seen the new star,
It danced on the abyss of the evening sky,
The sparkle of heaven shining on high,
Its whisper echoed on the ocean's spray,
From the bow to the mast they heard him say,
"Hope is above, not found in the deep,
I am alive in your memories and dreams when you sleep,
I will greet you at sunset and with the moon's evening smile,
I will light your path home.. every last lonely mile,
My friends, have no fear, my work was done well,
In this life I broke the waves and rode the swell,
I found faith in those that I called my crew,
My love will be the compass that will see you through,
So don't look for me on the ocean's floor to find,
I've never left the weathered docks of your loving mind,
For I am in the moon, the wind and the whale's evening song,
I am the sailor of eternity whose voyage is not gone.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster.

This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling; and although there is plenty of space on a gravestone to contain, bound in moss, the abridged version of a man's life, detail is always welcome.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Laughter in the Dark

“Here the whole world (stars, water, air,
And field, and forest, as they were
Reflected in a single mind)
Like cast off clothes was left behind
In ashes, yet with hopes that she,
Re-born from holy poverty,
In lenten lands, hereafter may
Resume them on her Easter Day."

(Epitaph for Joy Davidman)”
― C.S. Lewis

“I never understood why when you died, you didn't just vanish, everything should just keep going on the way it was only you just wouldn't be there. I always thought I'd like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I'd like it to say 'figment'.”
― Andy Warhol

“Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted"

- Sylvia Plath's epitaph (from Wu Cheng'en's novel Journey to the West aka. Monkey, translated by Arthur Waley)”
― Wu Cheng'en

“Her close friends have gathered.
Lord, ain't it a shame
Grieving together
Sharing the blame.
But when she was dying
Lord, we let her down.
There's no use cryin'
It can't help her now.

The party's all over
Drink up and go home.
It's too late to love her
And leave her alone.

Just say she was someone
Lord, so far from home
Whose life was so lonesome
She died all alone
Who dreamed pretty dreams
That never came true
Lord, why was she born
So black and blue?
Oh, why was she born
So black and blue?

Epitaph (Black And Blue)
Written by: Kris Kristofferson
Note: "Epitaph" is about Janis Joplin.”
― Kris Kristofferson

“Then on your tombstone, where you only get a little bit of space to sum up your life, some wax-faced creep chisels a set of meaningless numbers instead of poetry or a secret love or the name of your favorite candy.

In the end, all you get is a few words.”
― Scott Nicholson

“One of the great Confederate combat leaders, General John B. Gordon, had sat at his horse and spoken farewell to his men. Some he had seen weeping as they folded burnt and shot-pierced battle flags and laid them on the stacked arms of surrender. As he told his troops his own grief he tried to give them hope to rebuild out of the poverty and ashes to which many would return. Gordon would never forget a Kentucky father who lost two sons, one dying for the North, the other for the South. Over the two graves of his soldier boys the father set up a joint monument inscribed "God knows which was right.”
― Carl Sandberg, Abraham Lincoln

“I had A Lover’s Quarrel With The World.”
― Robert Frost

“Warm summer sun, shine friendly here
Warm western wind, blow kindly here;
Green sod above, rest light, rest light,
Good-night, Annette!
Sweetheart, good-night!”
― robert richardson

“Live your epitaph”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

“Ubi me prejaka reč.”
― Branko Miljković