Classic Tombstone Epitaphs
Favored statements and saying that remind us of the true wisdom of life. If you need help in choosing or creating an epitaph these will serve as a good starting point.
CL- 1
The soul that suffers is stronger than the soul that rejoices.
E. Shepard
CL- 2
Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven.
H.W. Beecher
CL- 3
Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts, not amid joy.
Hemans
CL- 4
What seems to us but dim funeral tapers may be heaven's distant lamps.
Longfellow
CL- 5
Death is the golden key that opens the palace of Eternity.
Milton
CL- 6
There is a sweet job that comes to us through sorrow.
Spurgeon
CL- 7
Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
Moore
CL- 8
Heaven, the treasury of everlasting joy.
Shakespeare
CL- 9
Death is not a foe, but an inevitable adventure.
Sir Oliver Lodge
CL- 10
Every man's life is a plan of God.
Horace Bushnell
CL- 11
The acts of this life are the destiny of the next.
(Eastern proverb)
CL- 12
Sorrows are like tall angels with star-crowns in their hair.
Margery Eldredge Howell
CL- 13
The heart of him who truly loves is a paradise on earth.
Lamennais
CL- 14
Mutual love, the crown of all our bliss.
Milton
CL- 15
To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another.
Leibnitz
CL- 16
Humble love, and not proud science, keeps the door of heaven.
Young
CL- 17
The greatest attribute of Heaven is mercy.
Beaumont and Fletcher
CL- 18
Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule.
Cowper
CL- 19
Nature's loving proxy, the watchful mother.
Bulwer
CL- 20
Dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul.
Longfellow
CL- 21
The kiss of the sun for pardon, the song of the birds for mirth,
One's nearer God's heart in a garden, than anywhere else on earth.
Dorothy Francis
CL- 22
Till the master of all good workmen shall set us to work anew.
Rudyard Kipling
CL- 23
The end and the reward of toil is rest.
James Beattie
CL- 24
In His will is our peace.
Dante
CL- 25
Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past.
Lowell
CL- 26
Music, when soft voices die, vibrates in the memory.
Shelley
CL- 27
Each lonely scene shall thee restore.
William Collins
CL- 28
Things past belong to memory alone, things future are the property of hope.
John Home
CL- 29
Yet in this heart's most sacred place, thou, alone, shall dwell forever.
Moore
CL- 30
...There hath pass'd away a glory from the earth.
Wordsworth
CL- 31
joy, joy forever! - My task is done - the gates are pass'd and heaven is won.
Moore
CL- 32
The cross leads generations on.
Shelley
CL- 33
...The heart of man is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.
St. Augustine
CL- 34
God is and all is well.
Whittier
CL- 35
Death's but a path to be trod if man would ever pass to God.
T. Parnell
CL- 36
Onward to thy glory! 'Tis always morning somewhere in the world.
R.H. Horne
CL- 37
Life's a voyage that's homeward bound.
H. Melville
CL- 38
He hath awakened from the dream of life.
Shelley
CL- 39
Beyond is the infinite morning of a day without tomorrow.
W.S. Abbott
CL- 40
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers
the o'erfraught heart and bids it break...
Shakespeare
CL- 41
Where He leads me I can safely go.
Millay
CL- 42
God gives us love. Something to love He lends us.
Tennyson
CL- 43
Whither thou goest, I will go.
Ruth i:16
CL- 44
But in the night of death hope sees a star,
and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.
Ingeresoll
CL- 45
There never was night that had no morn.
D.M.N. Craik
CL- 46
Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death.
Young
CL- 47
Until the day break, and the shadows flee away.
Cant. ii:17
CL- 48
'Tis not the whole of life to live, nor all of death to die.
J. Montgomery
CL- 49
Where there is sorrow there is holy ground.
Wilde
CL- 50
Now twilight lets her curtain down and pins it with a star.
L.M. Child
CL- 51
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
Moore
CL- 52
Where there is much light, the shadows are deepest.
Goethe
CL- 53
His daily prayer, far better understood in acts than words, was simple doing good.
Whittier