The following is a list of last words uttered by notable individuals during the 20th century (1901–2000). A typical entry will report information in the following order:
Last word(s), name and short description, date of death, circumstances around their death (if applicable), and a reference.
1901–1909 "I am not afraid to die." —Philip Danforth Armour, American industrialist, founder of Armour and Company (6 January 1901)
"Bertie." —Victoria, queen regnant of the United Kingdom (22 January 1901), calling to her eldest son and heir, Albert, Prince of Wales
"Are the doctors here? Doctor, my lungs..." —Benjamin Harrison, president of the United States (13 March 1901), dying of pneumonia
"Goodbye. Please dig my grave very deep. All right; hurry up." —Tom Ketchum, American outlaw and cowboy (26 April 1901), executed by hanging for attempted train robbery
"I have swallowed corrosive sublimate." —Maltbie Davenport Babcock, American clergyman and writer (18 May 1901), to hospital superintendent and nurse, explaining his method of suicide while suffering from brucellosis
"Goodbye, all, goodbye. It is God's way. His will be done." —William McKinley, president of the United States (14 September 1901), dying after being shot on 6 September
"My last words to you, my son and successor, are: Never trust the Russians." —Abdur Rahman Khan, Emir of Afghanistan (1 October 1901), to Habibullah Khan
"Come right out this way." Tafolla's surname is spelled "Tafoya" in this article. —William Thomas Maxwell, American tracker and deputized sheriff (8 October 1901), telling the Smith Gang to surrender prior to the Battleground Gunfight
"Give this to my wife. It, and the month's wages coming to me, will be all she will ever have." —Carlos Tafolla, Arizona Ranger (8 October 1901), handing a silver dollar to posse member Henry Barrett after being mortally wounded in Battleground Gunfight
"I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people—the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime. I am sorry I could not see my father." —Leon Czolgosz, assassin of U.S. President William McKinley (29 October 1901), prior to execution by electrocution
"I've been looking forward to this." —Edgar Edwards, convicted murderer (1902), on the way to the scaffold
"Shoot straight, you bastards. Don't make a mess of it!" —Breaker Morant, Anglo-Australian military officer and war criminal (27 February 1902), to his firing squad
"The position has become impossible. Anxious important work to do and three commissions of enquiry to attend to. We may not have done as well as possible in the past but we will necessarily be hampered to do well in the imminent future. I feel that my brain is suffering and I am in great fear of what effect all this worry will have upon me. I have lost control of my thoughts. The Coolgardie scheme is all right and I could finish it if I got a chance and protection from misrepresentation but there's no hope for that now and its better that it should be given to some entirely new man to do who will be untrammelled by prior responsibility. 10/3/02 Put the wing walls to Helena Weir at once" —C. Y. O'Connor, engineer-in-chief of Western Australia (10 March 1902), purported suicide note
"How do you do, Cushing? I am glad to see you." —John Peter Altgeld, 20th Governor of Illinois (12 March 1902), greeting a visitor
"So little done, so much to do." —Cecil Rhodes, British businessman and politician (26 March 1902)
"Have you brought the chequebook, Alfred?" —Samuel Butler, English novelist (18 June 1902)
"I feel sick. The dog is sick, too. We are both ill. It must be something we have eaten." —Émile Zola, French novelist, playwright and journalist (29 September 1902), dying of carbon monoxide poisoning from an improperly ventilated chimney
"And now I am officially dead." —Abram Hewitt, United States Congressman and Mayor of New York City (18 January 1903), removing his oxygen mask
"I don't know you, I tell you, and you must go away from here." —Andrew Haswell Green, American lawyer, city planner and civic leader (13 November 1903), to his murderer, Cornelius Williams
"I feel a bit dizzy, I think I'll go and lie down." () —Antonín Dvořák, Czech composer (1 May 1904)
"It's a long time since I drank champagne." () —Anton Chekhov, Russian author and playwright (), to his wife, Olga
"Thy will be done." —Lew Wallace, American lawyer, politician, Union general and author (15 February 1905)
"That was the right prayer." —Jay Cooke, American financier (16 February 1905), having overheard a prayer for the dead
"Our trade falls heavily upon these feeble folk." —Maurice Barrymore, British stage actor (25 March 1905), quoting his play Nadjezda
"Syrie, my head is so heavy. Let me rest it on your face." —Thomas John Barnardo, Irish-born British philanthropist, founder of the Barnardo's charity (19 September 1905), to his wife
"Make them." —Susan B. Anthony, American social reformer and women's rights activist (13 March 1906), to her chosen successor, who was worried that she would not be allowed to succeed Anthony
"On the contrary!" () —Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian playwright (23 May 1906), to his maid, who had said his health was improving
"Doctor, you have science, I have faith." —Dmitri Mendeleev, Russian chemist ()
"In spite of it all, I am going to sleep; put out the lights." —Thomas Bailey Aldrich, American author and editor (19 March 1907)
"I'm not guilty of the charge." —Alferd Packer, American prospector and wilderness guide (23 April 1907), who had served 18 years in prison for killing and eating five of his traveling companions in 1874
"Long live the Korean Empire!" () —Park Seung-hwan, Imperial Korean officer (1 August 1907), before committing suicide with his pistol
"Well, if it must be so." —Edvard Grieg, Norwegian composer and pianist (4 September 1907)
"I perished in latitude 79° north under the hardships of the return journey over the inland ice in November. I reached this place under a waning moon, and cannot go on, because of my frozen feet and the darkness. The bodies of the others are in the middle of the fjord. Hagen died on November 15, Mylius Erichsen some ten days later.–Jørgen Brønlund." () —Jørgen Brønlund, Greenlandic polar explorer (November 1907), final diary entry
"I am dying. Please... bring me a toothpick." —Alfred Jarry, French symbolist writer (1 November 1907)
"What Papa couldn't do, Wanda will have to finish." —Anton Gag, Sudeten-American painter and studio photographer (22 May 1908), to his daughter Wanda
"I have tried so hard to do right." —Grover Cleveland, president of the United States (24 June 1908), to his wife Frances
"I am about the extent of a tenth of a gnat's eyebrow better." —Joel Chandler Harris, American author and folklorist (3 July 1908), on being asked how he felt
"Never again allow a woman to hold the supreme power in the State... [and] be careful not to allow eunuchs to meddle in government affairs." —Empress Dowager Cixi, de facto ruler of China (15 November 1908)
"Watch me do a trick." —Reddy Foster, American baseball player (19 December 1908), said to his friend before committing suicide with a shotgun
"By gad, I'm not licked yet." —Lucky Baldwin, California businessman (1 March 1909), repeating his lifelong catchphrase
"It is no use fighting death any more." —John Millington Synge, Irish author (24 March 1909)
"Dreadful! Dreadful!" —Frederick Holder, Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives (23 July 1909), prior to collapsing in the House after a tumultuous all-night session
"I'm guilty. I murdered that man." – Poral Stefoff, Macedonian murderer (23 December 1909), moments prior to his execution for the robbery-murder of his second cousin in Toronto
"Cut 'er loose, Doc!" —Frederic Remington, American artist (26 December 1909), prior to emergency appendectomy; he subsequently died of peritonitis.
1910–1919 "When the day comes that I hear of Korea's independence in heaven, I will dance and shout 'Hurrah!'" —An Jung-geun, Korean independence fighter and assassin of Ito Hirobumi (26 March 1910), before being executed
"Give me my glasses." —Mark Twain, American novelist (21 April 1910), to his daughter Clara
"Yes, I have heard of it. I am very glad." —Edward VII, king of the United Kingdom (6 May 1910), on being told by his son that one of his horses had won a race
"Pull up the shades; I don't want to go home in the dark." —O. Henry, American writer (5 June 1910), to a hospital nurse
"These then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact." —William James, American philosopher and psychologist (26 August 1910)
"Higher. Always higher." () —Jorge Chávez, Peruvian aviator (27 September 1910), after being fatally injured in airplane crash
"To die this way is stupid... And it would please so many scoundrels!... This very night, Magalhães, I could have died for the Republic!" () —Miguel Bombarda, Portuguese psychiatrist (3 October 1910), after being shot by a mental patient
"I'm so tired. Take me home to mother." —Stanley Ketchel, American professional boxer nicknamed "The Michigan Assassin" (15 October 1910), before succumbing to wounds sustained during an armed robbery turned shooting.
"God will help me. I am so tired." —Julia Ward Howe, American poet and author (17 October 1910)
"But the peasants...how do the peasants die?" —Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist (), to a station master in whose home he died
"God is my life." —Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science (3 December 1910)
"Mozart! Mozart!" —Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer and conductor (18 May 1911)
"Put your hands on my shoulders and don't struggle." —W. S. Gilbert, English dramatist and librettist (29 May 1911), while saving 17-year-old Ruby Preece from drowning, which caused his fatal heart attack
"Long live Shah Muhammad Ali!" () —Arshadu'd-Dawla (6 September 1911), while being executed by firing squad for involvement in a plot to restore Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar to the Persian throne
"Here I go. Here I go. Here I go." —Cromwell Dixon, American aviator (2 October 1911), as his biplane crashed sideways
"One last drink, please." —Jack Daniel, American alcohol businessman (10 October 1911)
"Should I lift my head a bit?" —Dmitry Bogrov, assassin of Russian Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin (24 September 1911), to his executioner prior to hanging
"See you soon." () —Franz Reichelt, Austro-Hungarian born French tailor and inventor (4 February 1912), prior to leaping from Eiffel Tower in fatal test of "parachute suit"
"I am just going outside and may be some time." —Lawrence Oates, British army officer and Antarctic explorer (17 March 1912), prior to walking out of tent and into blizzard on Terra Nova Expedition
"Last Entry — For God's sake look after our people"Scott, pp. 412–413. —Robert Falcon Scott, Royal Navy officer and Antarctic explorer (); final diary entry on doomed Terra Nova Expedition
"Let me go! Let me go!" —Clara Barton, American nurse and founder of the American Red Cross (12 April 1912)
Sinking of the Titanic
"Go ahead, we will get into one of the other boats." —Carl Oscar Vilhelm Gustafsson Asplund, Swedish-American farmer (15 April 1912), to his wife, Selma Johansson Asplund, asking her to board a lifeboat with two of their children during the sinking of the Titanic. Carl Asplund and three of his sons perished. His daughter Lillian Asplund was the last living American survivor of the disaster, dying in 2006.
"The ladies have to go first.... Get into the lifeboat, to please me.... Goodbye, dearie. I'll see you later." —John Jacob Astor IV, American businessman (15 April 1912), remaining aboard the Titanic while his pregnant wife boarded a lifeboat
"Well boys, do your best for the women and children, and look out for yourselves."