Epitaph Quotes - Page 5

• We write dust epitaphs for our vanquished enemies and watch them blow away in the desert wind.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Writing, Blow, Dust

  Paolo Bacigalupi (2008). “Pump Six and Other Stories”, p.97, Simon and Schuster

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• To waste! You are unknown and unwanted, save by me. This, because you are fairly adept at the various embalming arts and you occasionally compose a clever epitaph.

  Roger Zelazny

  Art, Clever, Waste

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• On the stone that remains carved next to his name, his epitaph plain, only a pawn in their game.

  Bob Dylan

  Games, Names, Politics

  Song: Only A Pawn In Their Game, Album: The Times They Are A-Changin', 1964

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• I have only one ambition left: I should like to have a good epitaph.

  Otto von Bismarck

  Funny, Sarcastic, Ambition

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• Fatal accidents never happen because of just one mistake. It takes a whole chain of stupids lining up just so to put a full stop at the end of an epitaph.

  Charles Stross

  Mistake, Ends, Chains

  Charles Stross (2010). “The Fuller Memorandum”, p.25, Penguin

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• "Gun-wielding recluse gunned down by local police" isn't the epitaph I want. I am hoping for "Witnesses reported the sound up to two hundred kilometers away" or "Last body part finally located".

  James Nicoll

  Gun, Two, Police

  Usenet article, 2005.

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• When I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow: when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind.

  Joseph Addison

  Beautiful, Kings, Tombstone

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ...”, p.83

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• All's well that ends well; which is the epitaph I should put on my tombstone if I were the last man left alive.

  Bertrand Russell

  Tombstone, Men, Alive

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.190, Routledge

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• If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Life, Music, God

  FaceBook post by Kurt Vonnegut from May 11, 2015

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• bergeron's epitaph for the planet, i remember, which he said should be carved in big letters in a wall of the grand canyon for the flying-saucer people to find was this: WE COULD HAVE SAVED IT, BUT WE WERE TOO DOGGONE CHEAP. only he didn't say "doggone.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Wall, People, Flying

  Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.102, Penguin

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• It's been such a deep and amazing journey for me, getting close to John Keats, and also I love Shelley and Byron. I mean, the thing about the Romantic poets is that they've got the epitaph of romantic posthumously. They all died really young, and Keats, the youngest of them all.

  Jane Campion

  Mean, Journey, Poet

  "Jane Campion's Ode To Keats' Romantic Love". "All Things Considered" with Melissa Block, www.npr.org. September 18, 2009.

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• I wish to have as my epitaph: 'Here lies a man who was wise enough to bring into his service men who knew more than he.'

  Andrew Carnegie

  Wise, Lying, Men

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• 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

  Writing, Winning, Guy

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• His epitaph: Who, by vigor of mind almost divine, the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, and the tides of the seas first demonstrated.

  Isaac Newton

  Sea, Mind, Vigor

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• As soon seek roses in December, ice in June, Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff Believe a woman or an epitaph Or any other thing that’s false Before you trust in critics.

  Lord Byron

  Confidence, Believe, June

  Lord Byron (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Lord Byron (Illustrated)”, p.589, Delphi Classics

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• I will be satisfied if my epitaph shall be written thus: 'Here lies one who never rose to any eminence, who only courted the low ambition to have it said that he striven to ameliorate the condition of the poor, the lowly, the
  downtrodden of every race and language and color.'

  Thaddeus Stevens

  Lying, Ambition, Race

  Thaddeus Stevens (1997). “The Selected Papers of Thaddeus Stevens, Volume 1: April 1865-August 1868”, p.524, University of Pittsburgh Pre

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• ...there occurred to me the simple epitaph which, when I am no more, I intend to have inscribed on my tombstone. It was this: "He was a man who acted from the best motives. There is one born every minute.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Tombstone, Simple, Men

  P. G. Wodehouse (2015). “My Man Jeeves”, p.75, Booklassic

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• Poet: gardener of epitaphs.

  Octavio Paz

  Art, Design, Poet

  Octavio Paz, Eliot Weinberger (1991). “The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957-1987”, p.379, New Directions Publishing

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• It was the saying of a great man, that if we could trace our descents, we should find all slaves to come from princes, and all princes from slaves; and fortune has turned all things topsy-turvy in a long series of revolutions; beside, for a man to spend his life in pursuit of a title, that serves only when he dies to furnish out an epitaph, is below a wise man's business.

  Seneca the Younger

  Wise, Men, Long

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• They say love dies between two people. That’s wrong. It doesn’t die. It just leaves you, goes away, if you aren’t good enough, worthy enough. It doesn’t die; you’re the the one that dies. It’s like the ocean: if you’re no good, if you begin to make a bad smell in it, it just spews you up somewhere to die. You die anyway, but I had rather drown in the ocean than be urped up onto a strip of dead beach and be dried away by the sun into a little foul smear with no name to it, just this was for an epitaph

  William Faulkner

  Beach, Ocean, Names

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• 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 Gresham)

  C. S. Lewis

  Easter, Stars, Clothes

  Clive Staples Lewis, “Here The Whole World”

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• My epitaph? My epitaph will be, 'Curiosity did not kill this cat'.

  Studs Terkel

  Cat, Curiosity

  "Studs Terkel, voice of America's uncelebrated, dies aged 96" by Ben Quinn, www.theguardian.com. October 31, 2008.

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• For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart.

  Pericles

  Hero, Heart, Land

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• Epitaphs for a gravestone: 'Please: no hooliganism'; or 'Es prohibe se hace agua aqui'; or 'No comment'.

  Edward Abbey

  Gravestone, Please, Comment

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.25, RosettaBooks

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• I beseech those whose piety will permit them reverently to petition, that they will pray for this union, and ask that He who buildeth up and pulleth down nations will, the mercy preserve and unite us. For a Nation divided against itself cannot stand. I wish, if this Union must be dissolved, that its ruins may be the monument of my grave, and the graves of my family. I wish no epitaph to be written to tell that I survive the ruin of this glorious Union.

  Sam Houston

  Wish, Ruins, Unions

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