Epitaphs are the inscriptions on headstones.

As many epitaphs are not written by the person who is being honoured, the format shall be as follows:

• Honouree (by author) - Year of birth - Year of Death
  • Text of Epitaph
    • More explanation text

Sorted alphabetically by lastname.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Unknowns

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A

• John Quincy Adams (by himself) - 1767 - 1848
  • "This is the last of Earth! I am content!"

• Alexander the Great (unknown) -
  • "A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough"

• Gracie Allen and George Burns (themselves) -
  • "Together again."

• Duane Allman (unknown) -
  • "I love being alive and will be the best man I possibly can. I will take love wherever I find it and offer it to everyone who will take it. I will seek knowledge from those wiser and teach those who wish to learn from me."

• Susan B. Anthony (unknown) -
  • "Liberty, Humanity, Justice, Equality"

B

• Jakob Bernoulli (by himself) - 1654 - 1705
  • "Eadem mutata resurgo"
    • Though changed I shall arise the same

• Billy the Kid (unknown) -
  • "Truth and History.
    21 Men.
    The Boy Bandit King
    He Died As He Lived
    William H. Bonney 'Billy the Kid'"

• Mel Blanc (by himself) -
  • "That's all, folks!"

• William Bligh (unknown) -
  • "Sacred
    To The Memory Of
    William Bligh, Esquire F.R.S.
    Vice Admiral Of The Blue,
    The Celebrated Navigator
    Who First Transplanted The Breadfruit Tree
    From Otahette To The West Indies,
    Bravely fought The Battles Of His Country
    And Died Beloved, Respected, And Lamented
    On The 7th Day Of December, 1817
    Aged 64"

C

• Al Capone (by himself) -
  • "My Jesus, mercy"

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge (by himself) -
  • "Stop, Christian Passer-by! - Stop, child of God,
    And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod
    A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he. -
    O, lift one thought in prayer for S.T.C.;
    That he who many a year with toil of breath
    Found death in life, may here find life in death!
    Mercy for praise - to be forgiven for fame
    He ask'd, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same!"

D

• Bette Davis (unknown) -
  • "She did it the hard way"

• Jefferson Davis (unknown) -
  • "At Rest
    An American Soldier
    And Defender of the Constitution"

• Emily Dickinson (herself) -
  • "Called back"

• Arthur Conan Doyle -
  • "Steel-true and blade-straight
    The great artificer
    Made my mate."

• Diophantus of Alexandria -
  • "This tomb hold Diophantus. Ah, what a marvel! And the tomb tells scientifically the measure of his life. God vouchsafed that he should be a boy for the sixth part of his life; when a twelfth was added, his cheeks acquired a beard; He kindled for him the light of marriage after a seventh, and in the fifth year after his marriage He granted him a son. Alas! late-begotten and miserable child, when he had reached the measure of half his father's life, the chill grave took him. After consoling his grief by this science of numbers for four years, he reached the end of his life."

E

F

• W.C. Fields (unknown) -
  • "W. C. Fields 1880 - 1946"
  • In a 1925 article in Vanity Fair Fields had proposed the epitaph "Here lies W.C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia." because of his long standing jokes about Philadelphia, and the grave being one place he might actually not prefer to be (he was actually born there). This is often repeated as "On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." which he might have stated at other times, and sometimes is distorted into a last dig at Philadelphia: "Better here than in Philadelphia." His actual tomb at Forest Lawn in Glendale, California simply reads "W. C. Fields 1880 - 1946".

• F. Scott Fitzgerald (himself; from The Great Gatsby) -
  • "So we beat on, boats, against
    the current, borne back
    ceaselessly into the past."

• Benjamin Franklin (himself) -
  • "The Body of
    B. Franklin, Printer
    Like the Cover of an old Book
    Its Contents turn out
    And Stript of its Lettering & Guilding
    Lies here. Food for Worms
    For, it will as he believed
    appear once more
    In a new and more elegant Edition
    corrected and improved
    By the Author

• Robert Frost (himself) -
  • "I had a lover's quarrel with the world"

G

• Rene Gagnon (unknown) -
  • "For God And His Country
    He Raised Our Flag In Battle
    And Showed A Measure Of His
    Pride At A Place Called "Iwo Jima"
    Where Courage Never Died"

• Jackie Gleason (himself) -
  • "And away we go!"

H

• Winifred Holtby (by herself) - 1898 -1935
  • "God give me work while I may live, and life till my work is done."

• Henry II (by Ralph of Diceto) -

"I was Henry the King To me Divers realms were subject, I was duke and count of many provinces. Eight feet of ground is now enough for me, whom many kingdoms failed to satisfy. Who reads these lines, let him reflect, upon the narrowness of death. And in my case behold, the image of our mortal lot. This scanty tomb doth now suffice, For whom the Earth was not enough.".

• Werner Karl Heisenberg (unknown)
  • "He lies here, somewhere."

This is a pun on the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which implies that one may not know the position and momentum of a particle simultaneously.

I

J

• George Johnson (unknown) -
  • Here lies George Johnson
    Hanged by mistake, 1882
    He was right
    We was wrong
    But we strung him up
    And now he's gone

• Carl Jung (unknown) -
  • "VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS
    DEUS ADERIT"
    • Invoked or not invoked, God will be present.

• Jeremiah Johnson (unknown) -
  • I told you I was sick.

K

• John Keats (by himself) - 1795 -1821
  • "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."

• Kent (by himself) -
  • "Grim death took me without any warning
    I was well at night and dead at nine in the morning"

L

• Jack Lemmon (30's/40's Hollywood Comedian) (by himself) -
  • "In"

• Charles Lindbergh and Anne Lindbergh (Psalm 139:9) -
  • "If I take the wings of the morning
    and
    dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea"

• Jack London (unknown) -
  • "The Stone the Builders Rejected"

• Howard Phillips Lovecraft (unknown) -
  • "I am Providence"

• Bela Lugosi (his children) -
  • "Beloved father"

M

• Rob Roy MacGregor (unknown) -
  • "Despite them"
    • At the time of Rob Roy's fame, the MacGregor name became banned and was never allowed to be heard or seen by law. The epitaph phrase in full, "Rob Roy MacGregor, despite them" is a last standing testament to defy that law.

• Roger Maris (unknown) -
  • "61/61
    Against all Odds"

• Groucho Marx (by himself)
  • "Excuse me, I can't stand up."

• Karl Marx (unknown) -
  • "Workers of all lands unite. The philosophers have only
    interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."

• George McDonald (Scottish Children's Writer) (by himself) -
  • "Here lie I Martin Elginbrodde.
    Have mercy on my soul Lord God
    As I would do were I Lord God
    And ye were Martin Elginbrodde"

• H. L. Mencken (by himself) - 1880 -1956
  • "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"

• Spike Milligan (by himself) - 1918 -2002
  • "I told you I was ill!"
    (written in Irish, Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite, to avoid offending sensitive readers, at least those who don't read Irish)

• Lester Moore (unknown) -
  • HERE LIES
    Lester Moore
    four slugs
    from a 44
    no Les
    no more

• Matthew Mudd (unknown) - Massachusetts:
  • "Here lies Matthew Mudd,
    Death did him no hurt;
    When alive he was only Mudd,
    But now he's only dirt."

• Audie Murphey (unknown) -
  • "MEDAL OF HONOR
    DSC - SS & OLC
    LM - BSM & OLC
    PH & 2 OLC"

N

O

• Oscar Meyer
  • I wish I was a weiner

P

• Dorothy Parker (by herself) -
  • "Excuse my dust"

• Penn and Teller (by themselves) -
  • "Is this your card?" and a graphic of a card of the 3 of clubs.
    • From the Book "Penn and Teller's How to play in traffic" ISBN 1572972939 - Penn and Teller bought an Epitaph without a grave and placed it in the Hollywood Cemetary. They invite people touring there to use it to surprise their friends as a punchline for a card trick.

• Fernando Pessoa (himself) -
  • "I was that which I am not" (in original Portuguese: "Fui o que não sou")

• Allan Pinkerton (unknown) -
  • "A friend to honesty and a foe to crime"

• Edgar Allan Poe (himself) -
  • "Fly
    Quoth the Raven,
    'Nevermore.'"
    • From his poem "The Raven"

• Fritiof Nilsson Piraten (by himself) - 1895 -1972
  • "Här under är askan av en man som hade vanan att skjuta allt till morgondagen. Dock bättrades han på sitt yttersta och dog verkligen den 31 januari 1972."
    • Text in Swedish, roughly translated "Here lies the dust of a man who had the habit to postpone everything. He bettered at last and died really 31st of January 1972."

Q

R

• Will Rogers (himself) -
  • "If you live life right
    death is a joke
    as far as fear is concerned"

• William P. Rothwell (Unknown author) - Rhode Island:
  • (carved into a boulder) "This is on me."

• Babe Ruth (Cardinal Spellman) -
  • "May
    That Divine Spirit
    That Animated
    BABE RUTH
    to Win the Crucial
    Game of Life
    Inspire the Youth
    of America"

S

• William Shakespeare - baptized April 26, 1564 - April 23, 1616
  • "Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear
    To dig the dust enclosèd here.
    Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
    And cursed be he that moves my bones."
    • It was not unusual, at the time of Shakespeare's death, for corpses to be removed from graves and burnt allowing for the reuse of the grave site. Shakespeare's grave remains undisturbed.

• Harry Edsel Smith (Unknown author) - 1903 -1942
  • "Looked up the elevator shaft
    To see
    If the car was on the way down.
    It was."

• Robert Louis Stevenson (by himself) - 1850 -1894
  • "Here he lies where he longed to be;
    Home is the sailor home from the sea,
    and the hunter home from the hill."

• Jonathan Swift (unknown) -
  • "Here lies the body of Jonathan Swift,
    Professor of Holy Theology, for thirty
    years Dean of this cathedral church,
    where savage indignation can tear his
    heart no more. Go, traveller, and if you
    can imitate one who with his utmost
    strength protected liberty. He died in the year 1745, on the 19th of October,
    aged seventy-eight"

• Lucius Cornelius Sulla (by himself) died 78 BC
  • "No better friend - No worse enemy"

T

• Alfred Lord Tennyson . Tennyson's poem "Crossing the Bar" is included at the end of every collection of his works:
  • Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crossed the bar.

U

• Peter Ustinov (suggested by himself) - 1921 -2004
  • "Do not walk on the grass"
    • According to an obituary in DIE ZEIT, Ustinov's answer to the question what he would like to see written on his headstone.

V

• Senator Vrooman (by Ambrose Bierce) - (n/a)
  • Here lies the bones of Senator Vrooman
    Whose head was as hard as the heart of a woman
    Whose heart was as soft as the head of a hammer
    Dame Fortune inspired him to eminence, damn her!
    • Fictional future senator used as one of five examples under "Epitaph", from The Devil's Dictionary.

W

• H. G. Wells (himself) - 1866 -1946
  • "I told you so, you damned fools."

• Oscar Wilde (himself) -
  • "And alien tears will fill for him
    Pity's long-broken urn,
    For his mourners will be outcast men,
    And outcasts always mourn."
    • From The Ballad of Reading Gaol

• Hank Williams (his wife) -
  • "Thank you for the love you gave me
    There could be nobody stronger
    Thank you for many beautiful songs
    They will live long, and longer

• Christopher Wren (unknown) -
  • LECTOR, SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS CIRCUMSPICE
    (Reader, if you seek his monument look around)
    • Wren is buried in St Paul's Cathedral, London, which he designed.

• Virginia Woolf (herself) -
  • "Against you I will fling myself
    unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!"

X

Y

• W. B. Yeats (by himself) -
  • "Cast a cold eye
    On life, on death.
    Horseman, pass by!"
    • This epitaph is from Under Ben Bulben, one of Yeats' last poems. The last section of Under Ben Bulben describes Yeats' resting-place-to-be. See W.B. Yeats at Wikisource

Z

Epithaphs in fiction

• Scrooge McDuck
  • Fortuna favet fortibus
  • Translation: "Fortune favours the strong"
  • Note: appears on an (unpublished) drawing by author Keno Don Rosa

Unknowns

• [Unknown] - Ireland
  • "Tears cannot
    Restore her:
    Therefore I weep."

• [Unknown] adult's grave in Rome, Italy
  • "Quello che siete fummo, quello che siamo sarete"
    • Translation: "What you are we were and what we are you will become"

• [Unknown] child's grave in Miami, FL (by Edmund Waller)
  • "What small amount of time they share
    Who are so wondrous sweet and fair"
    • From Waller's poem "Go, Lovely Rose"

• Unknown Infant (unknown author) -
  • "Since I am so quickly done for
    I wonder what I was begun for?"

• Unknown Infant (unknown author) - Vermont
  • "Here lies our darling baby boy
    He never cries or hollers
    He lived for one and twenty days
    And cost us forty dollars."

• Unknown soldiers
  • HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD
    • Tomb of the Unknowns, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia; also used in other American War cemetaries, such as the ones in Normandy.)

• [Unknown]
  • OMGWTFHAX?
    • Online gamers' argot expressing astonishment that some mighty avatar was slain, with the suggestion that the slayer used illegitimate means.

(See also Famous last words)