Editing Epitaph (section)

== Notable examples ==
{{More citations needed section|date=June 2015}}
{{wikiquote|Epitaphs}}

=== Poets, playwrights and other writers ===

{{poemquote|text=While you live, shine
have no grief at all
life exists only for a short while
and Time demands his due.|multiline=yes
|title=[[Seikilos epitaph]] (oldest surviving complete musical composition)<ref>Landels, John G. 1999. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=PDBMPo1VkhYC&pg=PA252 Music in Ancient Greece and Rome]''. London and New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|9780415167765}} (cloth); {{ISBN|9780415248433}} (pbk); {{ISBN|9780203042847}} (ebook)</ref>}}

{{Blockquote|text=This is my father's crime against me, which I myself committed against none.
|author=[[Al-Ma'arri]]<ref>{{Cite web|title=An Elegy by al-Ma'arri|url=https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/32488|last=Blankinship|first=Kevin|date=2015-09-20|website=Jadaliyya|language=en|access-date=2020-05-04}}</ref>}}

{{poemquote|text=Good frend for İesvs sake forebeare,
To digg the dvst encloased heare.
Bleste be yͤ man yͭ spares thes stones,
And cvrst be he yͭ moves my bones.

(In modern spelling):
Good friend, for Jesus's sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones.
|author=[[William Shakespeare]]<ref name="ReferenceA">[[commons:File:Shakespeare grave -Stratford-upon-Avon -3June2007.jpg|Photograph of William Shakespeare's grave, 3 June 2007]]</ref>}}

{{blockquote|text=Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water
|author=[[John Keats]]}}

{{poemquote|text=Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!
|author=[[W. B. Yeats]]|title=[[Under Ben Bulben]]}}

{{poemquote|text=Heroes and Kings your distance keep;
In peace let one poor poet sleep,
Who never flattered folks like you;
Let [[Horace]] blush and [[Virgil]] too.
|author=[[Alexander Pope]]<ref>{{cite book|author=Charles Dickens|title=Dickens' Dictionary Of The Thames|year=1893|page=269}}</ref>}}

{{poemquote|text=Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please.
|character=[[Joseph Conrad]]|author=[[Edmund Spenser]]|title=''[[The Faerie Queene]]''}}

{{blockquote|text=Homo sum! the adventurer
|author=[[D. H. Lawrence]]}}

{{blockquote|text=Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!
|author=[[Virginia Woolf]]<ref>{{Citation
  | first = Virginia | last = Woolf
  | author-link = Virginia Woolf
  | title = The Waves
  | place = Berlin
  | publisher = Harcourt
  | year = 1931
}}</ref>}}

=== Statesmen ===
{{blockquote|text=Oh God ([[Devanagari]]: ''हे राम'')
|author=[[Mahatma Gandhi]]}}

=== Mathematicians ===
{{poemquote|text=I've finally stopped getting dumber.
({{langx|hu|Végre nem butulok tovább.}})
|author=[[Paul Erdős]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Man Who Loved Only Numbers |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-man.html |access-date=2022-07-28 |website=archive.nytimes.com}}</ref> }}

{{poemquote|text=We must know. We will know.
({{langx|de|Wir müssen wissen. Wir werden wissen.}})
|author=[[David Hilbert]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:G%C3%B6ttingen_Stadtfriedhof_Grab_David_Hilbert.jpg|title=Göttingen Stadtfriedhof Grab David Hilbert|website=Wikimedia}}</ref>}}

=== Soldiers ===
{{poemquote|text=Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
that here, obedient to their law, we lie.
|source=[[Simonides of Ceos|Simonides]]'s [[epigram]] honoring the 300 at [[Battle of Thermopylae|Thermopylae]]}}

{{poemquote|text=Here sleeps at peace a Hampshire Grenadier
Who caught his early death by drinking cold small beer.
Soldiers, be wise at his untimely fall,
And when you're hot, drink strong or none at all.
|source=[[Thomas Thetcher]] tombstone epitaph in [[Winchester Cathedral]]}}

{{poemquote|text=To save your world you asked this man to die:
Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
|source=Epitaph for the [[Tomb of the Unknown Soldier|Unknown Soldier]], written by [[W. H. Auden]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/epitaphs/34.htm |title=Famous Epitaph on Unknown Soldier tomb stone |publisher=Famousquotes.me.uk |access-date=2012-03-18}}</ref>}}

{{poemquote|text=When you go home, tell them of us and say,
For your tomorrow, we gave our today
|source=[[Battle of Kohima#Memorial|The Kohima Epitaph]] by [[John Maxwell Edmonds]]}}

{{poemquote|text=There is borne an empty hearse
covered over for such as appear not.
Heroes have the whole earth for their tomb.
|source=[[Tomb of the Unknown Soldier|Unknown Soldier]]'s epitaph, [[Athens]]; passages taken from [[Pericles' Funeral Oration]]<ref>{{cite book|title=The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury|volume=VIII|author-last=Thucydides|author-link=Thucydides|others=[[Thomas Hobbes]] (translator)|editor-first=William|editor-last=Molesworth|publisher=John Bohn|place=London|date=1843|page=188|chapter=History of the Peloponnesian War 2.34.3| 
chapter-url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0247%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D34}} Available online at the [[Perseus Project]].</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Peloponnesian War|author-last=Thucydides|author-link=Thucydides|translator=Richard Crawley|translator-link=Richard Crawley|publisher=J. M. Dent; E. P. Dutton|place=London, New York|date=1910|chapter=2.43.3| 
chapter-url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D43}} Available online at the [[Perseus Project]].</ref>}}

=== Entertainers ===
{{blockquote|text=And the beat goes on.
|source=[[Sonny Bono]]}}

{{blockquote|text=That's all folks!
|source=[[Mel Blanc]]}}

{{poemquote|text=I told you I was ill.
({{langx|ga|Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite.}})
|source=[[Spike Milligan]]<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/3742443.stm|title=Milligan gets last laugh on grave|date=2004-05-24|access-date=2015-06-08|newspaper=BBC News Online}}</ref>}}

=== Activists ===
{{blockquote|text=Free at last, Free at last,<br>Thank God Almighty<br>I'm Free at last.
|source=[[Martin Luther King, Jr.]]}}

=== Other ===
{{poemquote|text=He never killed a man that did not need killing.
|source=[[Gunfighter]] [[Clay Allison]]}}