Eulogies Quotes

I am not concerned about my posthumous fame. Monuments are no good to the dead.

The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was an immortal leader of humanity and a peerless servant of God.

In today’s Washington, with its emphasis on orthodox thinking, such a person could never rise inside the government … This is a great loss, because, as the life of George F. Kennan shows, individual, original thinking by one lonely person can sometimes illuminate and guide us better than all the high-level panels, commissions and interagency meetings.

The very best have had their calumniators; the very worst their panegyrists.

In order to know a community, one must observe the styles of its funerals and know what manner of men they bury with most ceremony.

Perhaps it's only when people are dead that we can safely show how much we cared about them. We know that it's too late then for them to do anything about it.

Harvard has enough panegyrists without me.

I visit English country churchyards where historical figures are buried.

I don't want the sort of funeral that everybody else has, but there is one hymn, a good Protestant hymn, and it is sung at all Protestant funerals, and I think I should have it sung at mine. It is called 'The Day Thou Gave Us Lord is Ended'.

She will never be forgotten because she was truly our first lady for half a century.

Before I write, I like to read obits in 'The Times' because they're well written, and I like the little details. It gets the energy going in the morning. I really like the obits of old Hollywood actors and actresses.

My father always read obituaries to me out loud, not because he was maudlin or morbid, but because they were mini biographies.

A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.

As traditions of mourning wane, women's role as designated mourners has also vanished. In consequence, the woman elegist must summon her own resources as an artist.

All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.

A tell-all book by David Axelrod, one of President Obama's former strategists, reveals that Obama chose Joe Biden as his VP because of his energy and enthusiasm. You know, the qualities you look for in someone whose main job is traveling to state funerals.