What People Said Upon Dying

"I have looked for you. Now you have come to me. And I thank you"

-Pope John Paul II

dt>"I don't know."

-Peter Abelard (1079-1142)

"Thomas Jefferson--still surv..."

-John Adams (Jefferson actually died a few hours earlier)

"This is the last of earth! I am content."

-John Quincy Adams

"See in what peace a Christian can die."

-Joseph Addison

"Is it not meningitis?"

-Louisa M. Alcott

"I desire to leave to the men that come after me a remembrance of me in good works."

-King Alfred the Great (849-901)

"Waiting are they? Waiting are they? Well--let 'em wait"

-Ethan Allen (Doctors had said the angels are waiting for him)

"I'm bored. I'm bored."

-Gabriele D'Annunzo (1863-1938)

"Farewell, my children, forever. I go to your Father."

-Marie Antoinette

"Forgive me sir, I did not do it on purpose."

-Marie Antoinette (after stepping on her executioner's foot)

"Wait 'till I have finished my problem!"

-Archimedes of Syracuse (298-212 B.C.)

"Don't disturb my circles!"

-Archimedes of Syracuse (298-212 B.C.)

"Now I'm oiled. Keep me from the rats."

-Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) Italien Satirist

"The ladies have to go first. . . . Get in the lifeboat, to please me. . . . Good-bye, dearie. I'll see you later."

-John Jacob Astor IV (Millionaire died on Titanic)

"Am I dying or is this my birthday?"

-Lady Astor (waking to find all her family at her bedside)

"Ah, Luisa, you always arrive just as I am leaving."

-Massimo Taparelli Azeglio

"Only from the cold, my friend."

-Jean Sylvain Bailly (1736-1793) after being heckled for shivering when approaching the guillotine)

"How were the receipts today in Madison Square Garden ?"

-Phineas Taylor Barnum (PT Barnum)

"I can't sleep."

-James M. Barrie, author (1937)

"Is everybody happy? I want everybody to be happy. I know I'm happy."

-Ethel Barrymore

"You heard me, Mike"

-John Barrymore

"Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him."

-John Barrymore (attributed)

"I am ready to die for my Lord, that in my blood the Church may obtain liberty and peace."

-Thomas Becket

"For the name of Jesus and the protection of the church I am ready to embrace death."

-Thomas Becket

"Now comes the mystery."

-Henry Ward Beecher

"Friends applaud, the Comedy is over."

-Ludwig von Beethoven

"So little done, so much to do."

-Alexander Grahame Bell

"No."

-Alexander Graham Bell (written responce to wife's "Don't leave me.")

"I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis"

-Humphrey Bogart (attributed)

"Oh God, have pity on my soul. Oh God, have pity on my soul."

-Anne Boleyn

"The executioner is, I believe, very expert, and my neck is very slender."

-Anne Boleyn (attributed) spoken the day before her execution

"Who is it?"

-William H. Bonney (Billy the Kid) then shot by Pat Garrett

"Tell mother, tell mother, I died for my country. . . . useless . . . useless . . ."

-John Wilkes Booth

"I am about to--or I am going to--die; either expression is used."

-Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian

"Oh Lord, forgive the misprints! "

-Andrew Bradford, american book-publisher

"Oh, I am not going to die, am I? He will not separate us, we have been so happy."

-Charlotte Bronte (spoken to Husband of 9 months Rev. Arthur Nicholls)

"I lingered around them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

-Emily Bronte

"I am ready at any time. Do not keep me waiting."

-John Brown

"I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood!"

-John Brown

"Now, God be with you, my dear children. I have breakfasted with you and shall sup with my Lord Jesus Christ."

-Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland (1274-1329)

"Whatever the result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that at least I meant well for my country."

-James Buchanan

"I don't feel good."

-Luther Burbank

"Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight."

-Lord Byron

"Et tu, Brute?"

-Gaius Julius Caesar

"The South! The poor South! God knows what will become of her."

-John Calhoun

"One sweetly solemn though comes to me over and over, I am nearer to home today than I have ever been before."

-Phoebe Care (Poetess)

"I have lived as a philosopher and die as a Christian."

-Giacomo Cassanovo

"Mine eyes desire thee only. Farewell."

-Catherine of Aragon

"Why not? After all, it belongs to him."

-Charles (Charlie) Chaplin (responce to "May god have mercy on your soul")

"And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead."

-Nicolas-Sebastien Chamfort, French writer, - suicide note

"Stay for the sign."

-King Charles I (to the executioner)

"I have been a most unconscionable time dying, but I beg you to excuse it."

-King Charles II

"Don't let poor Nelly (his mistress, Nell Gwynne) starve."

-King Charles II

"Ay Jesus."

-King Charles V

"Higher, ever higher"

-Georges Chavez, last words after crashing his Bleriot airplane on his trailblazing flight over the Alps

"It's been a long time since I've had champagne"

-Anton Chekhov

"Take a step forward, lads. It will be easier that way."

-Erskine Childers (shot by firing squad)

"I'm so bored with it all."

-Winston Churchill

"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."

-Winston Churchill

"The earth is suffocating . . . Swear to make them cut me open, so that I won't be buried alive."

-Frederic Chopin

"This time it will be a long one."

-Georges Clemenceau

"I have tried so hard to do the right."

-Grover Cleveland

"What an irreparable loss!"

-Auguste Comte

"That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted."

-Lou Costello

"Goodnight my darlings, I'll see you tomorrow."

-Noel Coward

"Goodbye, Everybody!"

-Hart Crane, poet, who committed suicide by jumping overboard from a steamship.

"I see Heaven open and Jesus on the right hand of God."

-Thomas Cranmer, Archbiship of Canterbury (1489-1556)

"My design is to make what haste I can to be gone."

-Oliver Cromwell

"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."

-Crowfoot, Blackfoot warior and orator

"That was a great game of golf, fellers."

-Bing Crosby

"You sons of bitches. Give my love to Mother."

-Francis "Two Gun" Crowley (execution)

"Nurse, it was I who discovered that leeches have red blood."

-Baron Georges Cuvier (when nurse went to apply leeches)

"I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people, the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime."

-Leon Czolgosz (1873-1902)

"Show my head to the people, it is worth seeing."

-Georges Danton

"I am not the least afraid to die."

-Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

"Be strong and of good courage; fear not or be dismayed; for the Lord, even my God, will be with thee. He will not fail thee, till thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord."

-King David (1015 BC)

"That guy's got to stop. . . . He'll see us."

-James Dean

"I am mortally wounded, I think"

-Stephan Decatur

"Let evil swiftly befall those who have wrongly condemned us - God will avenge us."

-Jacques DeMolay (Leader of the Knights Templar, roasted alive)

"...the fog is rising"

-Emily Dickinson

"Death is a law and not a punishment. Three things ought to console us for giving up life; the friends whom we have lost, the few persons worth of being loved whom we leave behind us, and finally the memory of our stupidities and the assurance that they are now going to stop."

-John Baptiste Dubois (1670-1742)

"Adieu, mes amis. Je vais la gloire. (Farewell, my friends! I go to glory!)"

-Isadora Duncan

"KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be on you, but cannot see you. Gas is running low."

-Amelia Earhart (last recieved radio transmission)

"I have a feeling that there is just about one more good flight left in my system and I hope this trip is it. Anyway when I have finished this job, I mean to give up long-distance "stunt" flying."

-Amelia Earhart (immediately before leaving on last flight)

"I think you're right, Wyatt. I can't see a god damn thing. "

-Morgan Earp (accepting his brother's belief there is no life after Death)

"My work is done. Why wait ?"

-George Eastman (suicide note)

"It is very beautiful over there."

-Thomas Edison

"No, I shall go on; I shall work to the end."

-King Edward VII

"There is only one important question: Is the universe friendly?"

-Albert Einstein

"I've always loved my wife, my children, and my grandchildren, and I've always loved my country. I want to go. God, take me"

-Dwight D. Eisenhower

"All of my possesions for a moment of time."

-Queen Elizabeth I

"Hurrah for anarchy! This is the happiest moment of my life."

-George Engel (hung for 1886 bombing in Chicago)

"Wonderful, wonderful this death."

-William Etty

"I die."

-Leonhard Euler (1707-1783)

"I've never felt better."

-Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.

"It is nothing. It is nothing."

-Archduke Franz Ferdinand

"I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring."

-Richard P. Feynman

"The nourishment is palatable."

-Millard Fillmore

"I've had a hell of a lot of fun and I've enjoyed every minute of it."

-Errol Flynn

"I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist."

-Bernard de Fontenelle (French Philosopher)

"Farewell, my children; remain always in the fear of the Lord. That temptation and tribulation which is to come is now at hand and happy shall they who persevere in the good they have begun. I hasten to go to our Lord, to whose grace I recommend you."

-Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)

"A dying man can do nothing easy."

-Benjamin Franklin (his daughter asked him to change position in his bed)

"No, not quite naked. I shall have my uniform on."

-Frederick William I (King of Prussia)

"Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life."

-Charles Frohman

"Swain, can't you stop this (pain)? Swain!"

-James A. Garfield (1831-1881)

"Win one for the Gipper!"

-George Gipp

"Open the second shutter so that more light may come in."

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"More Light!"

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Water"

-Ulysses S. Grant

"Glory hallelujah! I am with the Lord, Glory, ready, go!"

-Charles Guiteau (1841-1882) Garfield's assassin

"Yes, it's tough, but not as tough as doing comedy."

-Edmund Gwenn

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

-Nathan Hale (Attributed)

"It is the duty of every good officer to obey any orders given him by his commander-in-chief."

-Nathan Hale (Actual)

"I shall look forward to a pleasant time."

-John Hancock

"That's good.... read some more."

-Warren Harding

"I wish you to understand the true principles of government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more."

-William H. Harrison

"Cheer up, children, I am all right."

-Franz Joseph Haydn

"I know that I am going where Lucy is."

-Rutherford B. Hayes

"Well, I've had a happy life."

-William Hazlitt

"Write . . . write . . . pencil . . . paper."

-Heinrich Heine

"Dieu me pardonnera. C'est son m tier." (God will forgive me. It's his job.)

-Heinrich Heine

"I will ask Him why there is turbulence."

-Werner Heisenburg

"All is lost. Monks, monks, monks!"

-King Henry VIII

"Turn up the lights, I don't want to go home in the dark."

-O. Henry (William Sidney Porter)

"I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark."

-Thomas Hobbes

"If Mr Selwyn [a political rival] calls again, show him up. If I am alive I shall be delighted to see him, and if I am dead he would like to see me"

-Lord Holland 1774

"This is funny."

-John Henry "Doc" Holliday (1851-1887)

"Oh holy simplicity."

-John Huss, at the stake

"On the contrary."

-Henrik Ibsen (after nurse told visitor he was feeling better)

"Oh, do not cry - be good children and we will all meet in heaven."

-Andrew Jackson

"Let us go over, and sit in the shade of the trees."

-"Stonewall" Jackson

"This is the 4th?"

-Thomas Jefferson

"Into your hands I commend my spirit."

-Jesus

"Hold the cross high so I may see it through the flames!"

-Joan of Arc (1412-1431)

"This is it! I'm going. I'm going."

-Al Jolson

"Does nobody understand?"

-James Joyce

"Let's have a really good red wine tonight."

-Carl Jung

"Kill me, or else you are a murderer!"

-Franz Kafka

"Such is life"

-Ned Kelly

"That's obvious."

-John F. Kennedy

"What we know is not much; what we do not know is immense."

-Pierre Simon Marquis de Laplace

"We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out"

-Hugh Latimer, Bishop being burnt at the stake.

"Tell the men to fire faster and not to give up the ship; fight her till she sinks."

-James Lawrence (Captain of the Cheasapeake)

"Strike the tent."

-Robert E. Lee

"Now I have finished with all earthly business, and high time too. Yes, yes, my dear child, now comes death."

-Franz Lehar, composer

(Laughter)

-Abraham Lincoln (laughing at the play he was watching)

"I wonder why he shot me? "

-Huey P. Long (Govenor of Louisiana)

"Has God forgotten everything I've done for him ?"

-King Louis XIV (attributed)

"Why do you weep. Did you think I was immortal?"

-King Louis XIV (actual)

"A king should die standing."

-King Louis XVIII

"I am a Queen, but I have not the power to move my arms."

-Louise of Russia

"I desire to go to hell and not to heaven. In the former I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings and princes, while in the latter are only beggars, monks and apostles"

-Niccolo Machiavelli

"Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear."

-James Madison

"Let's cool it brothers . . ."

-Malcolm X.

"Is this dying? Is this all? Is this what I feared when I prayed against a hard death? Oh, I can bear this! I can bear this!"

-Cotton Mather

"No, but comfortable enough to die."

-Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria (1717-1780)

"Too late for fruit, too soon for flowers."

-Walter De La Mare

"Either I'm dead or my watch has stopped."

-Groucho Marx

"Go on, get out. Last words are for fools who haven't said enough."

-Karl Marx to his Housekeeper

"May my blood flow for the good of this land. Viva Mexico!"

-Maximillian (French Emperor of Mexico 1867) executed

"Nothing matters. Nothing matters."

-Louis B. Mayer, film executive

"We are all going."

-William B. McKinley

"It's God's way. His will, not ours, be done."

-William McKinley

"The heart beats . . . . Nothing ever dies."

-John Cary Merrick (the Elephant Man)

"Why should I talk to you? I've just been talking to your boss."

-Wilson Mizner (to a priest at bedside)

"It's all been very interesting."

-Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

"This hath not offended the king."

-Sir Thomas More (at his execution)

"Oh Allah, be it so."

-Mohammed

"Josephine."

-Napolean

"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot."

-Ramon Maria Narvaez (Spainish General when asked by a priest if he forgave his enemies)

"God bless you, Hardy."

-Admiral Horatio Nelson

"Sergeant, the Spanish bullet isn't made that will kill me."

-William "Buckey" O'Neill

"Let me think... I wonder if an anvil will drop like an apple? "

-Sir Isaac Newton (attributed)

"I do not know what I seem to the world, but to myself I appear to have been like a boy playing upon the seashore and diverting myself and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay before me all undiscovered."

-Sir Issac Newton

"I am just going outside and may be some time."

-Captain Lawrence Oates (was lost in a blizzard)

"Good-bye .... why am I hemorrhaging?"

-Boris Pasternak

"Get my swan costume ready."

-Anna Pavlova

"I am curious to see what happens in the next world to one who dies unshriven."

-Pietro Perugino (Italien Painter)

"Give back everything to.... "

-Peter the Great

"Drink to me."

-Pablo Picasso

"Oh, my country! how I leave my country!"

-William Pitt

"Lord help my poor soul."

-Edgar Allan Poe

"I love you Sarah. For all eternity, I love you."

-James Polk (to his wife)

"Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms."

-Alexander Pope

"I never realized that dying was such a social occasion."

-Mario Puzo

"Don't disarrange my circles!"

-Pythagoras

"I owe much; I have nothing; the rest I leave to the poor."

-Francois Rabelais (French satirist) (attributed)

"I am going to seek a great perhaps."

-Francois Rabelais

"Bring down the curtain, the farce is played out."

-Francois Rabelais

"'Tis a sharp remedy, but a sure one for all ills."

-Sir Walter Raleigh (at his execution)

"I have a long journey to take, and must bid the company farewell."

-Sir Walter Raleigh (attributed)

"So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lieth."

-Sir Walter Raleigh (at his execution)

"I am still progressing."

-Pierre Auguste Renoir (French Painter)

"So little done, so much to do"

-Cecil Rhodes

"What's the hurry? Are you afraid I won't come back?"

-Manfred von Richthofen (Red Baron)

"I have a terrific headache."

-Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"Put out the light."

-Theodore Roosevelt

"If it had not been for these things I might live out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died unmarked, a failure, unknown. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice and for man's understanding of man."

-Nicola Sacco (anarchist)

"Better is the sinner who hath thoughts about God, than the saint who hath only the show of sanctity."

-Sadi (Persian Poet)

"Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?"

-William Saroyan

"Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. I am leaving you with your worries. Good luck."

-George Saunders

"Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for. R. Scott"

-Captain Robert Falcon Scott (Leader of ill-fated South Pole Expedition)

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist"

-General John B Sedgwick

"Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?"

-Socrates

"What is the answer?...[Silence]...In that case, what is the question?"

-Gertrude Stein

"If this is death, I don't think much of it."

-Lytton Strachey

"Please don't let me fall."

-Mary Surratt (Hanged for Lincoln's assassination)

"Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !"

-Jonathan Swift (Upon learning of the arrival of Handel)

"I am about to die. iexpect the summons very soon. I have tried to discharge my duties faithfully.I regret nothing, but I am sorry to leave my friends."

-Zachary Taylor

"Seventeen whiskeys. A record, I think."

-Dylan Thomas

"Moose . . . Indian . . . "

-Henry David Thoreau

"God bless... God damn."

-James Thurber

"Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six."

-Leo Tolstoy

"I feel here that this time they have succeeded."

-Leon Trotsky

"Doctor, I am going. . . . Perhaps it is best."

-John Tyler

"Don't worry chief, it will be alright."

-Rudolph Valentino

"I have had no real gratification or enjoyment of any sort more than my neighbor on the next block who is worth only half a million."

-William H. Vanderbilt

"All right, then, I'll say it, Dante makes me sick."

-Lope Felix de Vega Carpio

"Woe is me. Me thinks I'm turning into a god."

-Vespasian, Roman Emperor

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."

-Pancho Villa

"I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have."

-Leonardo da Vinci

"The doctor says I won't make it home for the celebration." (refering to his grandparent's golden anniversary)

-Robert Wadlow (World's tallest Human)

"I am fond of them, of the inferior beings of the abyss, of those who are full of longing."

-Richard Wagner

"I die hard but am not afraid to go."

-George Washington

"Tis well"

-George Washington

"I still live."

-Daniel Webster

"I have struggled with many difficulties. Some I have been able to overcome and by some I have been overcome. I have made many mistakes but I love my country and have labored for the youth of my country, and I trust no precept of mine has taught any dear youth to sin."

-Noah Webster

"Go away...I'm alright."

-H. G. Wells

"Oh dear, he's a good fellow."

-Walt Whitman

"Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means."

-Oscar Wilde (attributed?)

"Either that wallpaper goes or I do."

-Oscar Wilde (attributed)

"I haven't got time to be tired."

-Wilhelm I King of Prussia

"Wally, what is this? It is death, my boy: they have deceived me"

-King William IV

"I am ready."

-Woodrow Wilson

"Amen"

-Brigham Young

""

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