QUOTATIONS TO BRIGHTEN ANY WEEKEND -10-

Happy Weekend Folks


ABC Wednesday Link - G is for Gravestone Inscriptions

This week I continue with Hilarious Epitaphs:


A famous one:  Shakespeare's tomb at Stratford-on-Avon carries this solemn warning:

(I bet many a person wonders why he wrote this and what secret may lie below)



John Gibson Lockhart, Sir Walter Scott's biographer, for a clumsy would-be poet:

Here lies that peerless peer Lord Peter,
Who broke the laws of God and man and metre.


David Garrick, actor, on Oliver Goldsmith, great writer but inept conversationalist, nicknamed 'Noll' : 

Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel but talked like poor Poll.



Matthew Prior, 18th century poet on himself,

Nobles and heralds by your leave,
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior;
The son of Adam and of Eve -
Can Bourbon or Nassau go higher?



18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume,

Within this circular idea
Called vulgarity a tomb,
The ideas and impressions lie
That constituted Hume.



On Nance Oldfield, a famous 18th century actress:

This we must own in justice to her shade,
'Tis the first bad exit Oldfield ever made.



W. C. Fields, comic, said that his epitaph should be:

On the whole I'd rather live in Philadelphia.



Groucho Marx had very definite ideas:

I want it known here and now that this is what I want on my tombstone. Here lies Groucho Marx, and Lies and Lies and Lies and Lies. P.S. He never kissed an ugly girl.



Lionel Barrymore, Hollywood actor, told a magazine his own epitaph should be:

Well, I've played everything but a harp.



Samuel Foote, 18th century actor and brilliant mimic, had two suggestions:

Foote from his earthly stage, alas! is hurled;
Death took him off, who took off all the world.

and

Here lies on Foote, whose death may thousands serve,
For death has now one foot within the grave.



The poet Keates proposed:

Here lies one whose name was writ in water.


Robert Ross, intimate friend of Oscar Wilde went one better:

Here lies one whose name was writ in hot water.


Anonymous gravestone inscription:

Cheerio, see you soon.


Anonymous graveyard inscription from the USA:

Once I wasn't,
Then I was
Now I ain't again.



A young person's tale:

Came in
Looked about
Didn't like it
Went out.



Silly but brief inscription:

Here lies Ann Mann;
She lived an old maid
And she died an Old Mann. 


And finally for this week


From a gravestone in Aberdeen:

Here lie the bones of Elizabeth Charlotte,
Born a virgin, died a harlot.
She was aye a virgin at seventeen,
A remarkable thing in Aberdeen.

(Amazing that some of these were inscribed)


More next week