I can't help but read this in light of the self-exonerating "I did nothing wrong, but it's understandable that unjust lynch mobs come after the leadership in situations like this" resignation letter of the MSU president.
Leading with leaderly leadership.
Danton's last words weren't bad, as last words go. But honestly, "Fuck you, clown" is hard to beat.
"Was the earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others, that these may beg or starve in a fruitful land; or was it made to preserve all her children?"
4: For a second I thought he was announcing his own impending death, until I remembered the topic of the OP.
"A pessimist is right more often, an optimist has more fun. I hope someone is having fun now, because I'm not."
God forgive the bloody minded jury and all those that procured them
So, he's calling them whores, right?
Right near the gravestone for my Dad (and surrounded by stones in Armenian, Korean, Chinese -- I love LA) there's a gravestone where the epitaph is "He Loved To Party" with a drawing of a martini glass and a girl in a bikini etched onto the actual tombstone. That's not a great epitaph, but it is a pretty damn hardcore commitment to hedonism.
"You may kill my body, but my name will endure. For where ever lovers of freedom gather, the name of Princess Fluffykins Hussein Obama shall resound forever."
9: You'd either have your kids/surviving spouse really committed to following your last wishes or have arranged everything very securely before you died.
As far as your headstone goes, you may as well put "Inventor of the internet" or something on it. The people who actually did invent it won't want to invite the bad press that such a disputed claim would bring (plus, they may have some class), but it's entirely possible nobody will notice your claim until after everybody who knows it is bullshit has died.
"Thank God, I have never written a run-on sentence."
That would have worked so much better if I'd thought of it 13 comments ago.
12: It might ruin your posthumous run for President.
"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. The people are assholes, as are those who represent them."
when the law breaks in I plan to come with my hands on the trigger of my gun, rather than on my head. shot down on the pavement, if you will.
17: Like Ned Kelly, if you can find a pile of extra iron sheeting.
17: obligatory weird French lounge music version -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qBWvA6H7Zg
I want to live forever in a land where summer lasts a thousand years. I want a castle in the clouds where I can look down over the world. I want to be six-and-twenty again. When I was six-and-twenty I could fight all day and fuck all night. What men want does not matter. Winter is almost upon us, boy. And winter is death. I would sooner my men die fighting for the Ned's little girl than alone and hungry in the snow, weeping tears that freeze upon their cheeks. No one sings songs of men who die like that. As for me, I am old. This will be my last winter. Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die. I want to feel it spatter across my face when my axe bites deep into a Bolton skull. I want to lick it off my lips and die with the taste of it on my tongue.
I didn't know we could just copy Jane Austen quotes.
I can't think of "Here lies" without thinking of Ben Jonson's poem.
"I am currently out of the office. I will respond to your message when I return."
23 Jesus, I did not want to be reminded of that. So heartbreaking.
Relatedly, vindictive obituaries.
"Leslie's passing proves that evil does in fact die," the obituary said, "and hopefully marks a time of healing and safety for all."
"Drugs were a major love in her life as June had no hobbies, made no contribution to society, and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life," the obituary says. "We speak for the majority of her family when we say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed, and there will be no lamenting over her passing."
The class clown in my high school said he wanted "Buried next to stupid -->" on his tombstone.
I'm pretty sure that's not allowed at the better cemeteries. You can write "I'm with stupids (n = 6)" on the coffin.
26. Wills might be another source of fun. My dad's will details a bunch of appalling stuff his second wife did that left legal records. Details included on his lawyer's advice, since an unqualified wish that she get nothing and be excluded from the funeral would leave whoever had to deal with her inevitable legal challenge a difficult job, so references helpfully included.
26: H. L. Mencken on William Jennings Bryan, Joan Didion on James Pike, and Hunter S. Thompson on Richard Nixon are all masterpieces of that genre.
How many hospitals does H. L. Mencken have named after him?
31: He was born with a roaring voice, and it had the trick of inflaming half-wits. His whole career was devoted to raising those half-wits against their betters, that he himself might shine.
Huh, there is a book, link is to an anti-Irish will.
If we're into epitaphs, my two favourites are
"Huddled in dirt the reasoning engine lies, who was so proud, so witty, and so wise."
and
"Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage" -- which would be a lot cheaper to carve.
I have nothing, owe a great deal, and the rest I leave to the poor.
"Vindictive wills" turns up a decent NYT piece from 2000 with many historical examples.
I give nothing to my Lord Saye, and I do make him this legacy willingly, because I know that he will faithfully distribute it unto the poor.
Ah, but so is 35.2 -- I went to see St Praxed's church last time I was in Rome, just for that.
And I suppose the best Rochester quote is one I often think of in my current employment:
"Thus, statesmanlike, I'll saucily impose
And, safe from action, valiantly advise
Sheltered in impotence, urge you to blows,
And being good for nothing else, be wise."
But on a tomsbstone it would be nostalgic as well as extravagant.
If South Park is right about dying, "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" is a good last line.
I'm pretty sure that's not allowed at the better cemeteries.
I wouldn't want to be buried in a cemetery that would accept me as a member.
My grandfather's says, "He loved his wife, his children, and tennis." Grandma said he requested it. It's possible, but most of the family suspect she reversed the order.
43 seems pretty minor. I don't think the order of preference is obvious. I might start a list with either the most important thing or the least depending on details. "He loved his wife, tennis, and his children" would clearly be insulting to someone, but not the version in 43 so much.
20: Possibly due to an errant spotify playlist, I was once at a relatively formal dinner with senior members of a country's armed forces and other dignitaries, and there was a lot of nouvelle vague and similar. The track I remember most distinctly was "the KKK took my baby away"
At the funeral service of a woman I knew, they played a video that the woman had prepared in anticipation of her death. In her video, she shared all the things she loved, but include a brief statement about how she still hated her sister. (They had been feuding for years.)
I have a volume of gallows speeches from 18th-century Ireland. I think my favourite line is: "I die a Catholic, though not a very good one."
a brief statement about how she still hated her sister
It probably works much better with that kind of specific detail instead of "fuck the lot of you."
"Alas, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits. I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
48 reminds me of the gallows scene in True Grit:
FIRST CONDEMNED MAN: (tearfully) Ladies and gentlemen beware and train up your children in the way that they should go! You see what has become of me because of drink. I killed a man in a trifling quarrel over a pocketknife. If I had received good instruction as a child I would be with my wife and children today. I do not know what is to become of them, but I hope and pray that you will not slight them and compel them to go into low company...
SECOND CONDEMNED MAN: (unrepentant) Well, I killed the wrong man is the which-of-why I'm here. Had I killed the man I meant to, I don't believe I would have been convicted. I see men out there in that crowd is worse than me. Okay.
THIRD CONDEMNED MAN: (an Indian) Before I am hanged, I would like to say...
(all three are hanged)
39: Oh, hey, turns out that's the same Lord Saye the grounds of whose predecessor in title's stately home I live next door to.
The structure of that sentence is causing me actual pain. I can't imagine what it's doing to poor neb.
Not my fault. Blame the aristocracy. I thought it might be the actual same Lord Saye, but the family that built the house and the one that got snubbed are unrelated except through peerage.
Of course if they created that peerage today he'd take the title of Lord Islike
24. I read this for a moment as "I am currently out of office." and I thought, well, if they're executing you I expect you are.