Last Words: A Dictionary of Deathbed Quotations

Last Words: A Dictionary of Deathbed Quotations offers the final utterances of more than 2,000 celebrated individuals through history. In the introduction of this reprinted edition, Ruffin expresses the view that deathbed words are often insightful windows into both the human psyche and the adventure of death. Ruffin's perspective is religious in nature, and so are many – though not all – of the quotations included. Inclusion in this dictionary seems to have been decided on sheer availability of quotations of famous individuals. In some traditions – European monarchs and American presidents, for example – it was once customary to...