Tombstone quotes
174 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside tombstone — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Publicity in women is detestable. Anonymity runs in their blood. The desire to be veiled still possesses them. They are not even now as concerned about the health of their fame as men are, and, speaking generally, will pass a tombstone or a signpost without feeling an irresistible desire to cut their names on it."
"He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigraph on his tombstone."
"Many peoples tombstones should read, 'Died at 30. Buried at 60.'"
"The old dead trees are the most fascinating - the countless trees lying in the gullies and up the hills that fell perhaps a century ago, pulling up their roots from the earth as they toppled. The great upheavals left rocks in their huge tentacles and, as they slowly rot, the trunks are home to populations of creatures, from goannas to wild pigs. As grey as tombstones in a cemetery they lie there, having outlasted generations of farmers, as they'll outlast me. In their own way they are as beautiful, more beautiful, than living trees."
"Written on her tombstone: "I told you I was sick."
"As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above", I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly."
"On my tombstone, I want written: 'He never did 'Love Boat!''"
"Hatred is a heavy burden. It sinks the heart deep in the breast, and lies like a tombstone on all joys."
"On my tombstone they will carve, "IT NEVER GOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME."
"I never understood why when you died, you didn't just vanish, everything could 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.'"
"I must say, some are not very beautifully made. They’re coffee-table books for people who drink alcohol. I have nothing against coffee-table books as long as they are well done. They must not look like gravestones on a table. Sometimes they are too big, they come in boxes and things like this. No, a book has to be easy to open and you don’t have to be a bodybuilder to lift it. I like books I can read in bed. Those big tombstones would kill me."
"The burden of suffering seems a tombstone hung about our necks, while in reality it is only the weight which is necessary to keep down the diver while he is hunting for pearls."
"Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"I like to think of my shining tombstone. It gives me, as you might say, something to live for."
"All's well that ends well; which is the epitaph I should put on my tombstone if I were the last man left alive."
"Stop all this weeping, swallow your pride/ You will not die, its not poison -Tombstone Blues"
"My closest friend, who died not long ago, is buried near Marx's grave in Highgate cemetery, so I see the gaggle of admirers laying roses at the foot of his tombstone regularly. I have never been tempted to leave flowers there myself. Great theories, shame about the practice. Marx did many things. But inventing class was not one of them."
"I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the date on a tombstone."
"A book has to be easy to open and you don't have to be a bodybuilder to lift it. I like books I can read in bed. Those big tombstones would kill me."
"Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please."
