Epitaph Quotes

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

~ Shannon L. Alder

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

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

Here the whole world (stars, water, air,And field, and forest, as they wereReflected in a single mind)Like cast off clothes was left behindIn ashes, yet with hopes that she,Re-born from holy poverty,In lenten lands, hereafter mayResume them on her Easter Day.(Epitaph for Joy Davidman)

~ C.s. Lewis

Here lies Dobby, a free elf.

~ J.k. Rowling

To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.

~ Thomas Campbell

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

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

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

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

I'm a survivor, I said. But I didn't think that claim would carry much weight in an obituary.

~ Tobias Wolff

Her close friends have gathered.Lord, ain't it a shameGrieving togetherSharing the blame.But when she was dyingLord, we let her down.There's no use cryin'It can't help her now.The party's all overDrink up and go home.It's too late to love herAnd leave her alone.Just say she was someoneLord, so far from homeWhose life was so lonesomeShe died all aloneWho dreamed pretty dreamsThat never came trueLord, why was she bornSo black and blue?Oh, why was she bornSo black and blue?Epitaph (Black And Blue) Written by: Kris KristoffersonNote: Epitaph is about Janis Joplin.

~ Kris Kristofferson

What's fame, after all? It can be what someone writes on your tombstone.

~ Peter Duncan

I used to measure the skies, now I measure the shadows of Earth.Although my mind was sky-bound, the shadow of my body lies

~ Johannes Kepler

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 Sandburg

Here all may see my body lie/ But not my soul, for that can fly!

~ Helme Heine

Everything I have become,everything I will ever accomplishcannot compare to my mostimpressive feat:I have loved youfiercelyand assiduouslywith the very marrowinside my bones. So that when I die, they can crack them to findyou there. So that when I die, they can open me upand see your name tattooed on the wall of my heart.So that when I die, my epitaph will neither commemoratewho I wasnor what I did, but will read:“She loved.And loved. And loved.”And so, I smile now,because that is no small thing.

~ Kamand Kojouri

How many infinite lives have been lived since man first had consciousness or awareness of his soul?And how many of those souls have stared up at the stars in wonder; pondered the meaning of their existence, the meaning of life, the thoughts of their ancestors, dreamed of the futures of his offspring and the purpose of all that is man?How long will we wander before the truth is found?

~ Morris R. Gates

Growing older is a blurred birth certificate that only can take us to this world’s perplexed journey, but it cannot smear the letters of the epitaph

~ Munia Khan

My life will end someday, but it will end at my convenience.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

The graveyard is not the final resting place of our dear departed but an ephemeral repository of their remains. The real graveyard, however, is somewhere deep in our heart, where we can always visit them at any time of the day, talk about some unforgettable summers, or cry in solitude as if they were always there for us to stay. And should our twilight come, when we can no longer see the light of the day, some people dear to us will build a graveyard in their hearts. They will let us stay for a while or perhaps longer, as long as they continue to remember, but it does not matter anymore. What is comforting to know, no matter how tragic or tranquil our death may be, somewhere somehow someone will always build a sublime place for us to stay. (Danny Castillones Sillada, The Graveyard In Our Heart)

~ Danny Castillones Sillada

If there's no sea-gull there's no meeting, Wicklow had said. No sea-gull means abort. That's my epitaph, thought Barley. 'There was no sea-gull, so he aborted.

~ John Le Carré

It had been a bad trip ... fast and wild in some moments, slow and dirty in others, but on balance it looked like a bummer. On my way back to San Francisco, I tried to compose a fitting epitaph. I wanted something original, but there was no escaping the echo of Mistah Kurtz' final words from the heart of darkness: The horror! The horror! ... Exterminate all the brutes!

~ Hunter S. Thompson

Whatsume'er the failings on his part, Remember reader he were that good in his hart.

~ Charles Dickens

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 Vir

~ Thomas Jefferson

All things considered, the happiest epitaph to have etched on one's headstone is this: 'He never knew what hit him'.

~ Thomas Ligotti

Science has never killed or persecuted a single person for doubting or denying its teaching, and most of these teaching have been true; but religion has murdered millions for doubting or denying her dogmas and most of these dogmas have been false.All stories about gods and devils, of heavens and hells, as they do not conform to nature, and are not apparent to sense, should be rejected without consideration. Beyond the universe there is nothing and within the universe the supernatural does not and cannot exist.Of all deceivers who have plagued mankind, none are so deeply ruinous to human happiness as those imposters who pretend to lead by a light above nature.The lips of the dead are closed forever. There comes no voice from the tomb. Christianity is responsible for having cast the fable of eternal fire over almost every grave.

~ Gratis P. Spencer

The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.

~ Thornton Wilder

O Stranger, send the news home to the people of Sparta that here weAre laid to rest: the commands they gave us have been obeyed.Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδεκείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.[Epitaph of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae]

~ Simonides

Which epitaph would you choose for your grave-stone: He made lots of money. or He saved the Earth? And don't think I'm being sarcastic, because for once, I'm not. We're all going to die. What will be your legacy? Smaug-loads of money? or Saving the Earth? It's your choice.

~ Steve Bivans

I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing.

~ Guy De Maupassant

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.

~ Rafael Sabatini

She is brave and strong and broken all at once. As she speaks it is as if her existence is no longer real to her in itself, more like a living epitaph to a life that was.

~ Anna Funder