Gravestone Quotes

“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.”
― Shannon Alder

“Here lies one from a distant star, but the soil is not alien to him, for in death he belongs to the universe.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Way Station

“The last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world.”
― Dan Wells, Partials

“These are the words I want on my gravestone: that I was a helper, and that I danced."
”
― Anne Lamott

“I've never written a quote I feel would be suitable for my gravestone. Wouldn't it be ironic if it were this one? Oh, and could you pull a few weeds while you're here?”
― Ryan Lilly, Write like no one is reading

“Handcuffs weigh much more than gravestones.

(from "Gratitude")”
― Visar Zhiti, The Condemned Apple: Selected Poetry

“He spake well who said that graves are the footprints of angels.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“I thought of the new stone, of my new wife, and of the newly buried white bones beneath us, and I felt that fate had made sport of us all.”
― Sōseki Natsume, Kokoro

“The dead only knows their world.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!

“It is upon such stones that men attempt to permanently etch history so they will not exist in a vacuum; it is the final statement after a lifetime of scratching out divisions upon the ground, over ephemeral time itself, merely to give their short journeys meaning, to tell others “I was here – do not forget me, do not let my brief blast dissolve into nothingness.”
― Rob Bignell

“I tried and failed. I tried again and again and succeeded.
[Epitaph from Gail Borden's gravestone.]”
― Gail Borden

“No one ever said you had to pretend everything was ok. Grief means we loved fiercely. And if that is all anyone ever has to say about either one of us in the end, I think we lived our best life." Hermes to Persephone.”
― Scarlett St. Clair

“Your career is not your epitaph.”
― Sean Norris, Heaven and Hurricanes

“The greatest loss is the loss of life.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!

“A fulfilled life doesn’t point to the number of years, awards, wealth and followers someone amassed for himself, but the number of faces that smiled because of him.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, The Book of Maxims, Poems and Anecdotes

“In the grave, there is neither learning nor working. Learn while you can, work while you can.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“He’d seen a lot of bizarre items left at gravesides, like a carton of eggs, a pair of reading glasses, a bag of licorice, smooth stones, a spoon.”
― Sheri Webber, Dawn Rising

“If most of us want good closing images, we have to change society. If we must watch our life over and over again forever on the day we die then we need our own revolution, starting from within. Or we’ll be in hell. Hell is yourself. Or rather hell is watching your shit life being replayed for eternity. Everyone should place the movie of their life on an LCD screen built into the headstone of their grave, and set on an infinite loop. Then anyone who stops by the grave to look at your movie will soon know whether you’ve gone to heaven or hell.”
― Mike Hockney, The Last Bling King

“Poems and epitaphs are but stuff,
Here lies Bob Barras and that's enough.”
― Richard De'Ath, TOMBSTONE Humour, Or, The Coffin That Carried Them Off In]

“Here I lie at the Chapel door,
Here lie I because I'm poor,
The farther in the more you'l pay,
Here lie I as warm as they.”
― Richard De'Ath, TOMBSTONE Humour, Or, The Coffin That Carried Them Off In]

“Now I am dead and laid in my grave
And that my bones are rotten,
By this shall I remembered be,
Or else I am forgotten.”
― Richard De'Ath, TOMBSTONE Humour, Or, The Coffin That Carried Them Off In]

“And afterwards the People did wander over that Country of Silence, and made visit and honour to their Ancestors, if such were deserving.”
― William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land

“Fine. When they shovel our frozen corpses out next spring, they can put 'They thought it would be fun' on our gravestone.”
― Patricia Briggs, Winter Lost

“RIP Our Hero. Died for Change.”
― NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names

“[P]ray thee Pilgrim for the noble souls of Artur and Gwenhwyfawr, united once more here in peace. First King of all Great Britain. First faithful servant of the Vicar of Christ and Universal Church. Let all men who seek rule, be measured according to thy virtue.”
― Thomas Pride, Mercia

“Woman, they'll write 'she shouldn't have' on your goddamn gravestone.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Oh love, the grave makes us far too wise[...]”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Blythes Are Quoted