10 Utterly Badass Famous Last Words

There’s something romantic about a person’s last spoken words. We love to see it in movies, we love to read about it in history, and we all hope that when its our time to go – we’ll have the opportunity to leave the world with one last heroic, romantic, or humorous quote. After all, no one wants to leave the world talking about needing to take a leak, talking about TPS reports, or worst – begging for their life.

Here are 10 people who’s famous last words will be forever remembered in history for their sheer badassery.

1. Che Guevara

I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.

After months of surviving in the jungles of Bolivia, communist revolutionary Che Guevera was finally captured by CIA/Bolivian forces. While he was being kept in a farmhouse, Bolivian and American authorities decided that he was too dangerous to keep alive, and gave the orders to his captors to execute him summarily, without a trial.

When his executor walked in, Che uttered his now famous last words.

2. Chief Sitting Bull

I am not going. Do with me what you like. I am not going. Come on! Come on! Take action! Let’s go!

Chief Sitting Bull is perhaps most famous for devastating General Custer’s army in the Battle of Little Bighorn (a.k.a. Custer’s last stand) in 1876. Years later in 1890, the U.S. Indian Affairs police sent 43 officers to arrest Sitting Bull. However, Sitting Bull refused to be taken, and uttered his famous last words before making his own final stand.

3. James French

Hey, fellas! How about this for a headline for tomorrow’s paper? ‘French Fries’”

James French was a convicted murderer who was already serving out a life sentence in 1966, when he apparently decided that death was preferable to living out his years in prison. So he did the only thing that makes sense in the situation – he murdered his cell mate in order to get the death penalty.

While we’re loath to hold such a jackass (to put it mildly) in high regard, we have to admit that uttering puns as you face the electric chair is pretty bad ass.

4. Voltaire

Now, Now, my good man, this is not time for making enemies.

This quote requires a little context to truly appreciate. As Voltaire, the famous philosopher and essayist was laying on his death bed, the priest at his bedside urged him to use his remaining moments in order to renounce the Devil. The words above were his response.

Clever man, that Voltaire.

5. Carl Panzram

Hurry up, you Hoosier bastard, I could kill ten men while you’re fooling around!

Carl Panzram was a serial killer, rapist of men, thief, and arsonist – not exactly the kind of man you want walking around the rest of us. In fact, in his autobiography he wrote that he was “rage personified”, and talked about how he would rape the men he robbed, not because he was gay, but simply because he enjoyed humiliating his victims.

Now, we’re not endorsing the glorification of a man as despicable and sadistic as Panzram, but we have to pay a certain amount of respect to a man who could insult the hangman and tell him to hurry the hell up.

6. Nostradamus

Tomorrow, I shall no longer be here.

These were the last words uttered by Nostradamus on his deathbed. Noted medieval futurist Nostradamus made many predictions during his life time. Most of them involved fire and brimstone and were written in quatrain form.

While there has been a lot of debate over whether Nostradamus truly had divine insight into the future, or whether people are simply reading too much into his vague, ambiguous imagery, this was one prediction we know he got right.

7. Joan Crawford

Dammit…don’t you dare ask God to help me.

Joan Crawford was one of the great movie stars of her era, and was at one point one of the highest paid women in the United States. She was also known for being unruly, stubborn, and headstrong. It seems fitting then that her last words uttered from her deathbed were used to reprimand her housekeeper, who had begun to pray out loud.

8. Georges Danton

You will show my head to the crowd, it is worth seeing.

Georges Danton was a prominent figure in the French Revolution. Evidently, chopping heads off was in vogue at the time, and the beheading of King Louis XVIS and Marie Antoinette was followed by more beheadings amongst feuding political factions.

Severed heads were to the French Revolution what cats are to the internet, so we’re not sure why Danton thought his head was worth seeing. Still, it takes a certain level of ballsiness to give orders to your executioner – especially when it involves your own severed head.

9. Fabrizzio Quattrocchi

I’ll show you how an Italian dies!

Fabrizzio Quattrocchi was working security guarding oil pipelines in Iraq, when he was kidnapped along with 3 other Italians in 2004 by an insurgency group known as the Green Brigade of the Prophet. The insurgents shot an execution video and sent it to Al-Jazeera, presumably to instill fear and terror into the hearts of infidels around the world.

While Al-Jazeera never released the tape, calling it too gruesome, those who viewed it said that, in his final moments, Fabrizzio Quattrocchi tried to tear off his hood, and shouted his defiant last words at his captors.

10. Joseph Henry Green

It’s stopped.

Joseph Henry Green was a notable English surgeon who also became the literary executor for Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

After experiencing a seizure, its said that he uttered his famous last words after checking his own pulse.

If you enjoyed these famous last words, check out Opishposh.com’s list of the most famous inspirational speeches in history.