There are many people whose last words have become legend

Colin Randall looks at the long list of famous last words in light of the Germanwings tragedy

The stele in memory of the victims of the Germanwings Airbus A320 crash in the small village of Le Vernet. Lionel Bonaventure / AFP Photo

With the benefit of humanity’s striking technological advances, it is known that the captain of Germanwings Flight 9525, locked out of the cockpit by his co-pilot, shouted seconds before impact: “Open the damn door.”

On the evidence of the first flight recorder to be recovered, they were the last words heard from Captain Patrick Sonderheimer. Shortly afterwards, he died instantly with the apparently suicidal co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, and 148 others on board, when the plane crashed in the French Alps.

It is reasonable to assume those words will be remembered long after the name of the man who spoke them has been forgotten. The unfortunate pilot has joined a long list of people whose final utterances are preserved for posterity.

However macabre an interest it may seem, the last words of men and women who have achieved fame (or notoriety) in their lifetimes hold endless fascination for many. Lists of quotes are easy to locate. Type “last words” into the Google searchbox and you will see what I mean.

Mortal valediction comes in more than one form. There are final declarations we can trust because the source is reliable, those heard publicly before the person dies, statements that sound or are now known to be imaginary and purely fictional examples from films and novels.

Some supposed last words are the subject of dispute or have entered history in two or more versions, even if the meaning remains the same.

Consider the assassination of the United States president Abraham Lincoln. Did he, when rebuked by his wife for holding hands in public before he was shot while attending the theatre, say “she [an acquaintance] won’t think anything about it” or “it doesn’t really matter”? Perhaps it does not matter.

Whether France’s Austrian queen, Marie Antoinette, really said “pardonnez-moi” after standing on her executioner’s foot on her way to the guillotine, or extended the apology to assure him it was not intentional, it was an impressive display of sang-froid.

Dying heads of state or monarchs and their consorts consistently provide memorable quotations.

Another American president, Theodore Roosevelt, reportedly breathed his last after telling a servant: “Please put out that light, James.”

More philosophically, we are told, Woodrow Wilson said: “I am a broken piece of machinery. When the machine is broken ... I am ready.”

George Washington, on ascertaining that his private secretary had understood his wish to be buried “in less than three days”, said: “ ‘Tis well.”

Human spontaneity on the deathbed seems to pass the test of time more admirably than self-serving appraisals of a lifetime of devotion to faith, family or country, however noble or sincere.

A friend who edited the obituaries pages of London’s Daily Telegraph insists that the death from abdominal cancer of Cardinal Basil Hume, leader of the Catholic church in England and Wales, was immediately preceded by a single word: “Ouch.” And I know which I prefer of the last words variously attributed to William Pitt, known as the Pitt the Younger because he followed in his father’s footsteps as prime minister of Britain: “Oh, my country! How I leave my country!” or “I think I could eat one of Bellamy’s veal pies”.

None of this lessens the grief felt when loved ones’ lives are at an end. While mortality is inescapable, some deaths – Captain Patrick Sonderheimer’s among them – cause more pain because of their manner or premature occurrence.

But there are surely worse ways to be remembered than for having said, as did the American civil war general John Sedgwick seconds before he was shot dead in battle: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.”

Colin Randall is a former executive editor of The National