The following is a list of last words uttered by notable individuals during the 18th century (1701–1800). 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.
1701–1709 "I wish I could enjoy / the rest of Spring / as the cherry blossoms are yet in bloom / in spite of the spring breeze / which is attempting to blow off all their petals." () —Asano Naganori, daimyō of the Akō Domain in Japan (21 April 1701); death poem for his seppuku
"Grateful — in peace!" —James II of England (16 September 1701), in reply to Louis XIV telling him that he would acknowledge James' son, James Francis Edward Stuart, as King of England, Scotland and Ireland
"Can this last long?", cited in —William III of England (8 March 1702), dying of pneumonia after breaking his collarbone, to his physician
"I am about to—or I am going to—die; either expression is correct." () —Dominique Bouhours, French priest and grammarian (27 May 1702)
"With all my heart: I would fain be reconciled to my stomach, which no longer performs its usual functions." —Charles de Saint-Évremond, French soldier, author and hedonist (29 September 1703), when a clergyman asked if he would be reconciled
"Thy will be done." () —Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, French bishop and theologian (12 April 1704)
"...in perfect charity with all men and in sincere communion with the whole church of Christ, by whatever name Christ's followers call themselves." —John Locke, English philosopher and physician (28 October 1704)
"Let me die to the sound of sweet music." —Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (5 May 1705)
"It is all the same in the end." —Titus Oates, English priest and perjurer, fabricator of the "Popish Plot" (12/13 July 1705)
"Wherever I look I see nothing but the Divinity.—I have committed numerous crimes and I know not with what punishments I may be seized.—The agonies of death come upon me fast.—I am going. Whatever good or evil I have done, it was for you. No one has seen the departure of his own soul; but I know that mine is departing." —Aurangzeb, seventh Mughal emperor (3 March 1707), in a letter to his youngest son, Muhammad Kam Bakhsh
"Dear Bob, I have nothing to leave thee to perpetuate my memory but two helpless girls. Look upon them sometimes, and think of him who was to the last moment of his life thine, George Farquhar." —George Farquhar, Irish dramatist (29 April 1707), to his friend Robert Wilks
"I wish to die sitting, in tribute to the most worshipful will of my good and precious Jesus." —Marcello d'Aste, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal (11 June 1709)
1710–1719 "Do you wish to hasten my last hour?" —Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, French poet and critic (13 March 1711), to a playwright who asked him to read his new play
"God's will be done." —Thomas Ken, English bishop (19 March 1711)
"Pray, pray!" —Thomas Halyburton, Scottish divine (23 September 1712)
"If you have baked me so you also should eat me!" —Juraj Jánošík, Slovak highwayman known as "the Slovak Robin Hood" (17 March 1713), refusing to name fellow robbers prior to jumping onto the hook on which he was to be hung
"A life spent in the service of God, and communion with Him, is the most comfortable and pleasant life that any one can live in this present world." —Matthew Henry, British Nonconformist minister and author (22 June 1714)
"Use it for the good of my people." —Anne, Queen of Great Britain (1 August 1714), handing the Lord High Treasurer's staff of office to Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury
"Not my will, but thine be done." —François Fénelon, French Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian and writer (7 January 1715), quoting Jesus
"I'm going, but the State will always remain." () —Louis XIV, king of France (1 September 1715)
"Promise me you will never again marry an old man." —William Wycherley, English dramatist (1 January 1716), to his wife. He had married a much younger woman less than twelve days before his death.
"Had I known—" () —Osei Kofi Tutu I, one of the founders of the Ashanti Empire (), shot to death during war against the Akyem
"To be like Christ is to be a Christian." —William Penn, English writer and religious thinker, founder of the Province of Pennsylvania (30 July 1718)
"I am coming down now." ()Article by Åke Persson, Forskning & Framsteg 2013-10-18 —Charles XII, King of Sweden (30 November 1718) when stepping down from his perch into an entrenchment just as he was shot in the head
"See in what peace a Christian can die." —Joseph Addison, English writer and politician (17 June 1719), to his stepson, Edward Rich, 7th Earl of Warwick
"God be thanked, I have had a very good night." —George Smalridge, Bishop of Bristol (27 September 1719)
1720–1729 "Be fruitful." —Increase Mather, New England Puritan clergyman, president of Harvard College (23 August 1723)
"I have ever cherished an honest pride; never have I stooped to friendship with Jonathan Wild, or with any of his detestable thief-takers; and though an undutiful son, I never damned my mother's eyes." —Jack Sheppard, English thief and prison escapee (16 November 1724), prior to execution by hanging
"Lord Jesus, receive my soul!" —Jonathan Wild, London organized crime figure (24 May 1725), prior to execution by hanging
"I don't know what I may seem to the world. But as to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." —Isaac Newton, English physicist ()
"Yes." —August Hermann Francke, German Lutheran clergyman and theologian (8 June 1727), when his wife asked if his Savior was still with him
"Is this dying? Is this all? Is this all that I feared when I prayed against a hard death? Oh! I can bear this! I can bear it! I can bear it! I am going where all tears will be wiped from my eyes." —Cotton Mather, New England Puritan minister and author (13 February 1728). His wife wiped his eyes with her handkerchief as he said the last words, alluding to Revelation 21:4.
"I have always endeavored, to the best of my ability, to serve God, my king and my country. I go to the place God has designed for those who love him." —Anthony Collins, English philosopher and deist (13 December 1729)
1730–1739 "Ain't they darlin'?" —Sally Basset, enslaved woman from Bermuda (6 or 21 June 1730), looking at the logs prepared to fuel her burning at the stake for poisoning
"This is a struggle which all men must go through, and which I bear not only with patience, but with willingness." —Thomas Woolston, English theologian (27 January 1733), dying while imprisoned for blasphemy
"O God—if there be a God—I desire Thee to have mercy on me." —Matthew Tindal, English deist author (16 August 1733)
"One hundred and forty-four." —Thomas Fantet de Lagny, French mathematician (11 April 1734), responding to the question "What is the square of 12?" on his deathbed
"Now all is over—let the piper play 'Ha til mi tulidh' [we return no more]." —Rob Roy MacGregor, Scottish outlaw and folk hero (28 December 1734)
"What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." —Eustace Budgell, English writer and politician (4 May 1737); his suicide note, written before drowning himself in the Thames. Joseph Addison was Budgell's cousin.
"It would be hard indeed if we two dear friends should part after so many years, without one sweet kiss." —Turlough O'Carolan, Irish Celtic harper, composer and singer (25 March 1738), to a bowl of wine he was no longer able to drink
1740–1749 "No, not quite naked. I shall have my uniform on." —Frederick William I of Prussia, King in Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg (31 May 1740), in response to priest or family members quoting Job 1:21
"Oh Lord! Forgive the errata!" —Andrew Bradford, American newspaper printer and publisher (24 November 1742)
"I have something to say to you, sir... 'Tis gone." —Richard Savage, English poet (1 August 1743), unable to remember what he wanted to say to his keeper at Bristol Newgate Prison. The keeper found Savage dead the next morning.
"I am dying, sir, of a hundred good symptoms." —Alexander Pope, English poet (30 May 1744)
"You are fighting for an earthly crown; I am going to receive a heavenly one." —James Gardiner, British Army officer (21 September 1745), to a Jacobite officer after being mortally wounded at the Battle of Prestonpans
"Ah! A German and a genius! A prodigy—admit him!" —Jonathan Swift, Anglo-Irish author and cleric (19 October 1745), referring to George Frideric Handel, who had come to visit him
"" —Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat (9 April 1747), quoting a line of Horace when executed by beheading as a Jacobite rebel
"Thou dog!" —Nader Shah, Shah of Iran (Persia) (19 June 1747), to one of his assassins
"Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace." —David Brainerd, American missionary to the Native Americans (9 October 1747), quoting Luke 2:29
"Waiting God's leave to die." —Isaac Watts, English Christian minister, hymn writer and theologian (25 November 1748)
1750–1759 "Don't cry for me, for I go where music is born." —Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer (28 July 1750)
"God, who pleased me here, will do what he pleases with me hereafter, and he knows best what to do. May he bless you." —Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, English politician (12 December 1751), to Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield. Bolingbroke also reaffirmed his Deist convictions.
"For the sake of decency, gentlemen, don't hang me high." —Mary Blandy, English convicted murderer (6 April 1752), prior to execution by hanging
"I have often read and thought of that scripture, but never till this moment did I feel its full power, and now I die happy." —Joseph Butler, English Anglican bishop and theologian (16 June 1752), referring to John 6:37
"Christ Jesus the Saviour of sinners and life of the dead. I am going, going to Glory! Farewell sin! Farewell death! Praise the Lord!" —Richard Newton, English educator and clergyman (21 April 1753)
"I do not suffer, my friends; I only feel a certain difficulty of living." —Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, French author (9 January 1757), dying at the age of 99
"O death, why art thou so long in coming?" —Robert-François Damiens, French domestic servant, attempted assassin of Louis XV (28 March 1757), during execution by dismemberment
"Let all brave Prussians follow me!" —Kurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin, Prussian Generalfeldmarschall (6 May 1757), just before being fatally struck by enemy fire at the Battle of Prague (1757)
"Trust in God and you need not fear." —Jonathan Edwards, American revivalist preacher and theologian (22 March 1758), when someone lamented what his loss would mean to the church and to the College of New Jersey
"" —Pope Benedict XIV (3 May 1758)
"Peace." —William Webster, British priest in the Church of England and theological writer (4 December 1758)
"Precious salvation!" —James Hervey, English clergyman and writer (25 December 1758)
"No." —Eugene Aram, English philologist and murderer (16 August 1759), when asked if he had anything to say before hanging
"Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton; tell him to march Webb's regiment down to Charles River, to cut off their retreat from the bridge. Now, God be praised, I will die in peace!" —James Wolfe, British Army general (13 September 1759), mortally wounded at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, on learning that the French forces were fleeing
"So much the better. I am happy that I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec. I have much business that must be attended to of greater moment than your ruined garrison and this wretched country." —Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, French general (14 September 1759), on being told the wound he had received at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham was mortal
1760–1769