I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world; it is-THE CHARITY OF ITS SILENCE. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace, and my name remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.
Charles Phillips, John Philpot Curran, Henry Grattan, Robert Emmet (1840). “Irish eloquence: The speeches of the celebrated Irish orators, Philips, Curran and Grattan”, p.370