Quotes & Sayings About Epitaphs

When I look at these stiffs by the fire, I am looking at a graveyard. There is hardly room to move between the tombstones. . . . The epitaphs are chiseled in sunken shadows on their cheeks — Tom Kromer

Visit the graveyards sometimes and read the headstone epitaphs! There is much to learn from the dark face of the life! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

My life will never be extravagant; it will be simple, but I promise it will be filled with love, laughter, and stars released from jars, when I catch enough fireflies. ~Elijah Dirk "Epitaphs from the Afterlife — Autumn Rosen

You must not go into the burial places, and look about only for the tall monuments and the titled names. It is not the starred epitaphs of the Doctors of Divinity, the Generals, the Judges, the Honourables, the Governors, or even of the village nobles called Esquires, that mark the springs of our successes and the sources of our distinctions. These are rather effects than causes; the spinning-wheels have done a great deal more than these. — Horace Bushnell

When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; 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 tombs 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 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. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great Day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together — Joseph Addison

Reading the epitaphs, our only salvation lies in resurrecting the dead and burying the living. — Paul Eldridge

The story detailed all of his works, and then concluded in these words - 'And so he died, at the conclusion of an eminently useful life, and thus obtained his crown in Paradise.' " She paused, flexing her hands lightly on her knees. "There was something about that that appealed most strongly to me. 'An eminently useful life.' " She smiled at me. "I could think of many worse epitaphs than that, milady. — Diana Gabaldon

Poet: gardener of epitaphs. — Octavio Paz

Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. — Herman Melville

I want no epitaphs of profound history and all that type of thing. I contributed. I would hope they would say that, and I would hope somebody liked me. — Brian Clough

A mortgaged home, an empty stomach and a ragged back know no party. We will live to write the epitaphs of the old parties: "Died of general debility, old age, and chronic falsehoods." — Mary Elizabeth Lease

Maybe she'd remember him as a pain in the ass. Or maybe, he hoped most of all, that she'd remember what she told him: "You can be a real jerk sometimes, but you're decent."
As epitaphs went, it wasn't bad. — Dani Harper

-you know no one wanted to see the old boy go. I bet where ever he is, the fishing's good"
"Given his surely behavior, the fish might be fried where he is, — Robyn Carr

No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth — William Shakespeare

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let's choose executors and talk of wills — William Shakespeare

The bottom line is we choose our epitaphs. — Karen Marie Moning

Stop being the shy boy that wants to do everything right and responsibly. I'm sick of your honorable intentions Eli. In fifty years, when I'm old in my bed I want to wake up when the sun shines in my window and know that the person lying beside me was the right choice. I don't want to look at someone else and always wish it was you." ~ Maggie Parsons from Epitaphs from the Afterlife — Autumn Rosen

If I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs! — Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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

Of comfort no man speak: Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. Let's choose executors and talk of wills; And yet not so - for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground? — William Shakespeare

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

I don't know whether it is that I am built wrong, but I never did seem to hanker after tombstones myself. I know that the proper thing to do, when you get to a village or town, is to rush off to the churchyard, and enjoy the graves; but it is a recreation that I always deny myself. I take no interest in creeping round dim and chilly churches behind wheezy old men, and reading epitaphs. Not even the sight of a bit of cracked brass let into a stone affords me what I call real happiness. — Jerome K. Jerome

As Master Nathaniel jogged leisurely along his thoughts turned to the Farmer Gibberty, who many a time must have jogged along this path, in just such a way, and seen and heard the very same things that he was seeing and hearing now.
Yes, the Farmer Gibberty had once been a real living man, like himself. And so had millions of others, whose names he had never heard. And one day he himself would be a prisoner, confined between the walls of other people's memory. And then he would cease even to be that, and become nothing but a few words cut in stone. What would these words be, he wondered. — Hope Mirrlees

History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription molders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand - and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? — Washington Irving

Epitaphs are cheap, and they do a poor chap a world of good after he is dead, especially if he had hard luck while he was alive. I wish they were used more. — Mark Twain

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

Methinks some creeds in vestries and churches do forget the hunter wrapped in furs by the Great Slave Lake, and that the Esquimauxsledges are drawn by dogs, and in the twilight of the northern night the hunter does not give over to follow the seal and walrus on the ice. They are of sick and diseased imaginations who would toll the world's knell so soon. Cannot these sedentary sects do better than prepare the shrouds and write the epitaphs of those other busy living men? The practical faith of all men belies the preacher's consolation. — Henry David Thoreau

Moonlight drifts from over
A hundred thousand miles
To fall upon a cemetery
It reads a hundred epitaphs
And then smiles at a nest of
Baby owls — Richard Brautigan

If you take epitaphs seriously, we ought to bury the living and resurrect the dead. — Mark Twain

History: a collection of epitaphs. — Elbert Hubbard

We love the old saints, missionaries, martyrs, and reformers. Our Luthers, Bunyans, Wesleys and Asburys, etc ... We will write their biographies, reverence their memories, frame their epitaphs, and build their monuments. We will do anything except imitate them. We cherish the last drop of their blood, but watch carefully over the first drop of our own. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

A DEAD STATESMAN
I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
from EPITAPHS OF THE WAR 1914-18 — Rudyard Kipling

We are all debts owed to death. — Simonides

Here lies W.C.Fields. I'd rather be living in Philadelphia. — W.C. Fields

The epitaphs on tombstones of a great many people should read: Died at thirty, and buried at sixty. — Nicholas Murray Butler

Have you ever had a difference with a dear friend? How his letters, written in the period of love and confidence, sicken and rebuke you! What a dreary mourning it is to dwell upon those vehement protests of dead affection! What lying epitaphs they make over the corpse of love! What dark, cruel comments upon Life and Vanities! Most of us have got or written drawers full of them. They are closet-skeletons which we keep and shun — William Makepeace Thackeray