Posterity Quotes

• When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.

  Thomas Paine

  Pain, War, 4th Of July

  Thomas Paine (2015). “Common Sense: and The American Crisis I”, p.38, Penguin

  63 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom - go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!

  Samuel Adams

  Love, Peace, Freedom

  Samuel Adams' Speech delivered at the State House in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, August 1, 1776.

  356 Copy quote

  Show source

• It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn.

  George Washington

  Country, Ambition, Views

  George Washington (1855). “Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious”, p.63

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Believe, Army, Names

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.277

  90 Copy quote

  Show source

• I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if I could only transmit to posterity the reputation of an honest man.

  Sam Houston

  Honesty, Character, Men

  22 Copy quote

• A man does not plant a tree for himself; he plants it for posterity.

  Alexander Smith

  Men, Tree, Doe

  Alexander Smith (1863). “Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.258

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity.

  Robert E. Lee

  Thinking, Suffering, Reproach

  Robert E. Lee (2016). “The Life and Letters of Robert E. Lee (Abridged)”, p.325, BIG BYTE BOOKS

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• Time will unveil all things to posterity.

  Euripides

  All Things

  6 Copy quote

• It is not likely that posterity will fall in love with us, but not impossible that it may respect or sympathize; so a man would rather leave behind him the portrait of his spirit than a portrait of his face.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Love, Respect, Fall

  Robert Louis Stevenson, Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson, Lloyd Osbourne (1910*). “"Virginibus puerisque" and other papers. Memories and portraits. Familiar studies of men and books”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Posterity, thinned by the crime of its ancestors, shall hear of those battles.

  Horace

  Battle, Crime, Ancestor

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 618-19. Odes, Book I. 2. 23, 1922.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Imitation, Garlands, Imitator

  "Wallenstein" by Friedrich Schiller, translated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, (Prologue), 1798.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Giving, Half

  8 Copy quote

• Why should I care about posterity? What's posterity ever done for me?

  Groucho Marx

  Funny, Crazy, Silly

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

  Joseph Addison

  Book, Legacy, Generations

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1826). “The Spectator: With Notes, and a General Index”, p.216

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do not suppose I shall be remembered for anything. But I don't think about my work in those terms. It is just as vulgar to work for the sake of posterity as to work for the sake of money.

  Orson Welles

  Money, Thinking, Sake

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• A blot in thy escutcheon to all futurity.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  History

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1993). “Don Quixote”, p.555, Wordsworth Editions

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• As though there were a tie And obligation to posterity. We get them, bear them, breed, and nurse: What has posterity done for us. That we, lest they their rights should lose, Should trust our necks to gripe of noose?

  John Trumbull

  Trust, Rights, Ties

  John Trumbull, “M'Fingal - Canto II”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Is it no imputation to be arraigned before this House, in which I have sat forty years, and to have my name transmitted to posterity with disgrace and infamy?

  Robert Walpole

  Hypocrite, Years, Names

  6 Copy quote

• Shame on the men who can court exemption from present trouble and expense at the price of their own posterity's liberty!

  Samuel Adams

  Men, Liberty, Trouble

  Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1773-1777: 1773-1777”

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• He thinks posterity is a pack-horse, always ready to be loaded.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Horse, Thinking, Packs

  'Hansard' 3 June 1862

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Posterity allows to every man his true value and proper honours.

  Tacitus

  Men, History, Giving

  "The Works of Cornelius Tacitus: With an Essay on His Life and Genius, Notes, Supplements".

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• An author can have nothing truly his own but his style.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Style

  6 Copy quote

• It is the privilege of posterity to set matters right between those antagonists who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided a whole age.

  Joseph Addison

  Greatness, Age, Matter

  Joseph Addison, Richard Hurd, Henry George Bohn (1873). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison”, p.425

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• As to posterity, I may ask what has it ever done to oblige me?

  Thomas Gray

  Done, May, Asks

  Thomas Gray (1825). “The works of Thomas Gray”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Posterity gives to every man his true honor.
  [Lat., Suum cuique decus posteritas rependet.]

  Tacitus

  Men, Giving, Honor

  8 Copy quote