Famous last words

We would all like to think that, when we die, our last words on earth should carry some resonance, some meaning. Famous people have a head start in this respect, as their last words tend to be more sought after than others.

So, some of these finals words spoken appear either contrived or misattributed, whilst others seem spontaneous and unrehearsed. See what you think…

Fearful Last Words:

Cardinal Borgia: “I have provided in the course of my life for everything except death, and now, alas, I am to die unprepared.”

Elizabeth the First: “All my possessions for one moment of time.”

Ludwig van Beethoven: “Too bad, too bad! It’s too late!”

Thomas Hobbs: “I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.”

Socrates: “All of the wisdom of this world is but a tiny raft upon which we must set sail when we leave this earth. If only there was a firmer foundation upon which to sail, perhaps some divine word.”

Tony Hancock (British comedian): “Nobody will ever know I existed. Nothing to leave behind me. Nothing to pass on. Nobody to mourn me. That’s the bitterest blow of all.”

Phillip III, King of France: “What an account I shall have to give to God! How I should like to live otherwise than I have lived.”

Philosophical Last Words

Aldus Huxley (humanist): “It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‘Try and be a little kinder.’”

Karl Marx: “Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough!”

Leonardo da Vinci: “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.”

Tolstoy: “Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six.”

Benjamin Franklin: “A dying man can do nothing easy.”

Unexpected Demises

H. G. Wells: “Go away: I’m alright.”

General John Sedgwick (during the heat of battle in 1864): “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist——!”

Bing Crosby: “That was a great game of golf.”

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.: “Never felt better.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt: “I have a terrific headache.”

Jesse James: “It’s awfully hot today.”

Unusual Last Words

Vincent Van Gogh: “I shall never get rid of this depression.”

James Dean: “My fun days are over.”

Oscar Wilde: “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go . . .”

Louis XVII: “I have something to tell you . . .”

Assurance of Salvation

D. L. Moody: “I see earth receding; heaven is opening. God is calling me.”

Lew Wallace (author of Ben Hur): “Thy will be done.”

William Shakespeare: “I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ my Savior, to be made partaker of life everlasting; and my body to the earth, whereof it was made.”

Martin Luther: “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit! Thou hast redeemed me, O God of truth.”

John Milton (British poet): “Death is the great key that opens the palace of Eternity.”

Sir Walter Raleigh (at his execution): “So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lieth.”

David Livingstone: “Build me a hut to die in. I am going home.”