Immortal Last Words

History's most memorable dying remarks, deathbed declarations and final farewells. (Taken from Terry Breverton's "Immortal Last Words")

[inheroes--wetrust]

every single member of the skywalker family:

[keikomivra]

He’s just a loader. They don’t allow them to communicate. But what if he has something to say?

[immortallastwords]

"We must be on you, but cannot see you-  but gas is running low"

- Part of last radio communication

Mary Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart was the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for being the first female aviator to fly the Atlantic solo. She set many flying records, and wrote best-selling books about her experiences.  In 1937, with Fred Noonan as navigator, she attempted to circumnavigate the globe in a Lockheed L-10 Electra. They had completed 22,000 miles, and their final 7,000 miles would be all over the Pacific Ocean.  ...Her plane has never been found. 

-(24 July 1897 - missing 2 July 1937)

[immortallastwords]

"Goodbye, I'll see you all in heaven'

Farewell to Henry Ford shortly before Rockefeller's death

John Davison Rockefeller

Rockefeller was the son of a medicine pedlar and a deeply religious mother, and these contradictory influences became the foundation for his actions. He once said: 'I believe it is a religious duty to get all the money you can, fairly and honestly; to keep all you can and to give away all you can.' He founded Standard Oil (ESSO) in 1870...[and] became the first American billionaire, possibly the richest man in history. 

-(8 July 1839 - 23 May 1937)

[immortallastwords]

"She won't think anything about it'

Last words before his assassination

Abraham Lincoln

On Good Friday evening, 14 April 1856, the Lincolns went to Ford's Theatre to see Our American Cousin. Accompanying them were an engaged couple, Major Henry Reed Rathbone and Clara Harris. During the third act, Mary Lincoln whispered to her husband, who was holding her hand, 'What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you so?' The President replied, 'She won't think anything about it,' and laughed, just before John Wilkes Booth entered a narrow hallway between the President's box and the theatre's balcony. He aimed his derringer and fired a single shot into the back of the President's head. 

The assassination, together with the earlier loss of two of her sons, permanently unhinged Mrs Lincoln, and she wore black for the rest of her life.

-(12 February 1809 - 15 April 1865)

[immortallastwords]

"Death, the only immortal, who treats us alike, whose peace and refuge are for all. The soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved"

Note found by his deathbed

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

In 1909, Twain had said:

'I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. the Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."'

His prediction was accurate, as he died several days after a third heart attack, and one day after the comet's closest approach to Earth.

-(20 November 1835 - 21 April 1910)

[immortallastwords]

"It is very beautiful over there!" Words spoken in the days before his death

Thomas Alva Edison

With only 3 months of a formal education, Edison became one of the greatest industrial leaders in history. He obtained 1,093 US patents, the most issued to any individual. His greatest contribution was the first practical electric light bulb. He invented the phonograph, and made improvements to the telegraph, telephone and motion-picture technology. 

Edison was honest about the advantages of hard work, telling a press conference in 1929: 

"None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."

He also said:

"Restlessness is discontent- and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man- and I will show you a failure."

-(11 February 1847-18 October 1931)

[immortallastwords]

"My last request: Everything I leave behind me...in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters, sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread" Note to his friend Max Brod

Franz Kafka

Fortunately Brod ignored the request of one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century and published the bulk of his work posthumously, much of it incomplete. From 1917 Kafka began suffering from tuberculosis and spent the rest of his life going to various sanatoriums, also suffering from depression.

On Kafka's grave in the Jewish Straschnitz Cemetery is written:

"Writing is a deeper sleep than death. / Just as one wouldn't pull a corpse from its grave, / I can't be dragged from my desk at night."

-(3 July 1883 - 3 June 1924)

[immortallastwords]

"Pardon me, monsieur. It was not on purpose" Said to her executioner after accidentally stepping on his foot

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France

  Maria Antonia was 14 when she married the Dauphin de France, who became King Louis XVI. She was disliked at court because she was Austrian, and the starving populace came to resent her gambling and extravagances. According to historian and journalist Jean Charles Lacretelle, a priest had accompanied the queen to the foot of the guillotine, telling her to 'arm herself with courage'. To which she responded:

"I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my husband; a mother, and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone remains: take it, but do not make me suffer long. Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end?"'

-(2 November 1755-16 October 1793)

[immortallastwords]

"I must go in, the fog is rising"

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

For much of her life she had been a recluse, always dressing in white. Very little of her work was published, until her death, her sister Lavinia found a cache of almost 1,800 poems. They were so different from the poems of her day that they were altered for publication, and it was not until the 1950s that Emily was accepted as a leading American poet. Emily became confined to her bed, and less and less able to write. After several days of worsening symptoms, 'the Belle of Amherst' died. 

-(10 December 1830-15 May 1886)

[immortallastwords]

"No coward soul is mine"

Emily Jane Brontë

The second of the three Brontë sisters, Emily wrote the superb Wuthering Heights under the pseudonym of Ellis Bell. In ill health, she caught a cold during the funeral of her brother Bramwell in September, and developed tuberculosis. 

'No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere: I see Heaven's glories shine, And faith shines equal, arming me from fear. O God within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity! Life- that in me has rest, As I- undying Life- have power in thee!" -Last poem

-(30 July 1818- 19 December 1848)

[immortallastwords]

"Pity, pity - too late!'

Ludwig Van Beethoven

Born in Bonn, Germany, Beethoven moved to Vienna in his early twenties, studying with Haydn and gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. His hearing began to deteriorate badly from 1978, but he continued to compose, conduct and perform, even after becoming completely deaf. To many he remains simply the greatest musician and composer the world has seen. 

'Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.' -Mikhail Bakunin

-(Baptised 17 December 1770- 26 March 1827)

[immortallastwords]

"Is it the Fourth?"

Thomas Jefferson

The Welsh-American Jefferson was quite possibly the most incorrupt and intelligent statesman in history. Despite the fact that he was the second vie-president and third president of the United States, these achievements are not mentioned on his tombstone. He had said he wanted to be remembered for what he gave to America, and not what America had given to him. Thus he chose the following words for his tombstone: 

'HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE OF THE STATUE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.'

Jefferson's last question on his deathbed was addressed to Dr Robley Dunglison, who replied, 'It soon will be.' Jefferson answered, 'I resign my spirit to God, my daughter to my country,' and died on the morning of Independence Day, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

-(13 April 1743- 4 July 1826)

[immortallastwords]

"I love you more" Last words to his film crew, the day before he died

Michael Joseph Jackson

The self-styled 'King of Pop' was one of the most commercially successful entertainers in history. Despite a troubled private life, he had an immense influence on popular music and dance, and his Thriller (1982) is the best-selling album of all time. He collapsed and died of suspected cardiac arrest at his rented mansion in Los Angeles. 

Associate producer and choreographer Travis Payne revealed that as Jackson was leaving for his waiting car after rehearsal, he shouted 'I love you' to him, and Jackson smiled back and said 'I love you more.'

-(29 August 1958- 25 June 2009)

[immortallastwords]

'I can't sleep' Said to Christopher Plummer while shooting his last film

Heath Andrew Ledger

The Australian TV and film actor was halfway through filming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus when he died. He had been nominated for an Academy Award for his role in Brokeback Mountain in 2005, and had recently completed the Batman film The Dark Knight, in which he played the Joker and received a posthumous Oscar. He was found naked on the floor near his bed in a Manhattan apartment, dying from a 'toxic combination of prescription drugs'. Because of the stress of filming, Ledger told Sarah Lyall of the New York Times: 'Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night...I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.' He took sleeping pills but they left him in 'a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing'.

-(4 April 1979- 22 January 2008)

[immortallastwords]

"It's better to burn out than to fade away" Line from Neil Young's song 'Out of the Blue' in Cobain's suicide note

Kurt Donald Cobain

Kurt Cobain was the singer-songwriter lead guitarist leader of grunge rock group Nirvana. He struggled with stomach pains and drug addiction, as well as personal and public pressures, and after a failed suicide attempt, he agreed to undergo a detox program.That night, 30 March, he scaled a six-foot-high fence and flew from Los Angeles to his home town of Seattle. On 3 April his wife contacted a private investigator to find him. On 8 April, Cobain's body was discovered at his home by an electrician who had arrived to install a security system. A high concentration of heroin and traced of Valium were found in his body. The suicide note found by his body seems to be a peculiar letter to someone else, with the last lines being additions in a different handwriting:

"Thank you all from the pit of my burning, nauseous stomach for your letters and concern during the past years. I'm too much of an erratic, moody baby! I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember, it's better to burn out than to fade away. Peace, love, empathy, Kurt Cobain I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!"

-(20 February 1967- 5 April 1994)

[immortallastwords]

"I do not believe in my death" TV interview in 1958 affirming that he believed in the immortality of his art

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali I Domenech, First Marquis of Pubol

The Spanish Catalan, from Figueres, is best remembered for his bizarre surrealist paintings and his striking appearance- he considered himself both a work of art and a genius. In 1980 Dali's health worsened. [His wife] had allegedly been dosing him with a dangerous cocktail of unprescribed medicines that damaged his nervous system, causing his right hand to tremble. After her death, Dali lost much of his will to live. In 1948 a fire broke out in his bedroom that may have been a suicide attempt. His 1964 Diary of a Genius records: 'It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself.'

-(11 May 1904- 23 January 1989)