An epitaph is a belated advertisement for a line of goods that has been discontinued.
And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.
At last God caught his eye.
Don't pity me now, don't pity me never; I'm going to do nothing for ever and ever.
Green leaves on a dead tree is our epitaph — green leaves, dear reader, on a dead tree.
If men could see the epitaphs their friends write they would believe they had gotten into the wrong grave.
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them rest in obscurity and peace! Let my memory be left in oblivion, my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character.
Nor has his death the world deceiv'd than his wondrous life surprise d; if he like a madman liv'd least he like a wise one dy'd.
Oh, write of me, not ''Died in bitter pains,'' but ''Emigrated to another star!''
Posterity will never survey a nobler grave than this: here lie the bones of Castlereagh: stop, traveler, and piss.
Reading the epitaphs, our only salvation lies in resurrecting the dead and burying the living.
The epitaphs on tombstones of a great many people should read: Died at thirty, and buried at sixty.
The most touching epitaph I ever encountered was on the tombstone of the printer of Edinburgh. It said simply: ''He kept down the cost and set the type right.''
When I die, my epitaph should read: She Paid the Bills. That's the story of my private life.