8 'famous last words' that were probably made up
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- Many pithy, memorable famous last words are posthumous fiction.
- Conflicting historical accounts and sparse witnesses make them hard to verify.
- The reality of famous figures' deaths tends to be more sobering.
Don't trust everything you read on the internet - especially when it comes to historical quotes.
And that goes triple for famous last words.
Final words are often notoriously difficult to verify. There are fabrications that are just completely made up for one reason or another. Then there are exaggerations - sayings twisted into more quotable turns of phrase or modern vernacular or authentic quotes said long before the individual ended up on their deathbed.
Lastly, there are some plausible sayings that are simply impossible to confirm either way, because they happened too long ago or in front of people with an agenda.
With that in mind, here's a roundup of some famous last words floating around there that are almost certainly somewhat inaccurate:
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