Posterity Quotes - Page 15

• The barbarian chieftain, who defended his country against the Roman invasion, driven to the remotest extremity of Britain, and stimulating his followers to battle, by all that has power of persuasion upon the human heart, concludes his exhortation by an appeal to these irresistible feelings - "Think of your forefathers and of your posterity."

  John Quincy Adams

  Country, Heart, Thinking

  John Quincy Adams's Oration delivered at Plymouth at The Anniversary Commemoration of The Landing Of The Pilgrims, December 22, 1802.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I've never had any real concern about posterity. I hope some people will be sorry when I'm not here, but I'm not playing for that.

  Elvis Costello

  Sorry, Real, People

  "Elvis Costello: The ESQ&A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. December 17, 2013.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you never look just wrong to your contemporaries you will never look just right to posterity - every writer has to try to be, to some extent, sometimes, a law unto himself.

  Randall Jarrell

  Law, Trying, Looks

  "Poetry and the Age" by Randall Jarrell, Vintage paperback, (p. 230), 1955.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Posterity always degenerates till it becomes our ancestors.

  Horace Walpole

  Degenerates, Ancestor

  Horace Walpole, George Vertue (1798). “The Works of Horatio Walpole, Earl of Orford ...”, p.370

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The perfect critic is one ... that sees with the eyes of posterity.

  Austin O'Malley

  Eye, Perfect, Criticism

  4 Copy quote

• When modernist poetry, or what not so long ago passed for modernist poetry, can reach the stage where the following piece by Mr. Ezra Pound is seriously offered as a poem, there is some justification for the plain reader and orthodox critic who shrinks from anything that may be labelled 'modernist' either in terms of condemnation or approbation. Better he thinks, that ten authentic poets should be left for posterity to discover than one charlatan should be allowed to steal into the Temple of Fame.

  Laura Riding

  Thinking, Long Ago, Pounds

  "A Survey of Modernist Poetry". Book by Laura Riding, 1927.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• All doctrines relating to the creation of the world, the government of man by superior beings, and his destiny after death, are conjectures which have been given out as facts, handed down with many adornments by tradition, and accepted by posterity as "revealed religion". They are theories more or less rational which uncivilised men have devised in order to explain the facts of life, and which civilised men believe that they believe.

  William Winwood Reade

  Believe, Destiny, Men

  William Winwood Reade (1874). “The Martyrdom of Man”, p.179

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• This I hold to be the chief office of history, to rescue virtuous actions from the oblivion to which a want of records would consign them, and that men should feel a dread of being considered infamous in the opinions of posterity, from their depraved expressions and base actions.

  Tacitus

  Men, Expression, History

  4 Copy quote

• We find few historians who have been diligent enough in their search for truth; it is their common method to take on trust what they help distribute to the public; by which means a falsehood once received from a famed writer becomes traditional to posterity.

  John Dryden

  Truth, Mean, Helping

  John Dryden (1808). “The works of John Dryden: now first collected in eighteen volumes. Illustrated with notes, historical, critical, and explanatory, and a life of the author”, p.37

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• But I hope that by the decision and authority of wise princes that sometime devout and learned men from the churches of other nations and of ours may be summoned together to deliberate about all the controversies and that there be handed down to posterity one harmonious, true, and clear form of doctrine, without any ambiguity. Meanwhile, as far as possible, let us encourage the union of our churches with measured advice.

  Philipp Melanchthon

  Wise, Men, Decision

  "The Peter Martyr Library: Dialogue on the Two Natures in Christ" translated and edited by John Patrick Donnelly, Pietro Martire Vermigli, Thomas Jefferson University Press, vol. 2, (p. 167), 1995.

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Filmmakers don't work for posterity. We create with celluloid and chemical pigments that don't last very long. They fade away. In 200 years there will be nothing left of our work but dust.

  Louis Malle

  Dust, Years, Long

  14 Copy quote

• Men of genius are not to be analysed by commonplace rules. The rest of us who have been or are leaders, more commonplace in our quality, will do well to remember two things. One is never to forget posterity when devising a policy. The other is never to think of posterity when making a speech.

  Robert Menzies

  Men, Thinking, Two

  27 Copy quote

• I believe the man who will go down in posterity is the man who paints his own time and the scenes of everyday life around him.

  Childe Hassam

  Believe, Men, Everyday

  Ulrich W. Hiesinger, Childe Hassam, Jordan-Volpe Gallery (1994). “Childe Hassam: American impressionist”, Te Neues Pub Group

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.

  Tacitus

  Evil, Office, Deeds

  "Annales" (AD 117), III. 65,

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Posterity does not pay off anything of the national debt.  Each administration adds to the debt left to it, and the promise of liquidation implied in every bond issue is a false promise.

  Frank Chodorov

  Issues, Promise, Doe

  6 Copy quote

• I do triage on everything that comes through the door, and if it's not something we need (now, for real-not maybe someday) or something that deserves to be saved for posterity, it's discarded. I stop before I let myself drop something into a drawer or set it down on the piano. 'Where does it belong?' I think. If I don't have a place for it, I make a place.

  Michelle Herman

  Real, Thinking, Piano

  45 Copy quote

• Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature best? Is it the tanner who has barked it, or he who has boxed it for turpentine, whom posterity will fable to have been changed into a pine at last? No! no! it is the poet: he it is who makes the truest use of the pine-who does not fondle it with an axe, nor tickle it with a saw, nor stroke it with a plane. . . .

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Friendship, Nature

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “HENRY DAVID THOREAU – The Man, The Philosopher & The Trailblazer (Illustrated): Biographies, Memoirs, Autobiographical Books & Personal Letters (Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada…)”, p.597, e-artnow

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

  Gouverneur Morris

  Blessing, Order, America

  63 Copy quote

• How posterity will laugh at us, one way or other! If half a dozen break their necks, and balloonism is exploded, we shall be called fools for having imagined it could be brought to use: if it should be turned to account, we shall be ridiculed for having doubted.

  Horace Walpole

  Laughing, Way, Fool

  Horace Walpole, Peter Cunningham (1858). “The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford”, p.562

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• All men are created equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing the obtaining of happiness and safety.

  George Mason

  Mean, Independent, Equality

  7 Copy quote

• Let no family go into eternity without having left their memoirs for their children, their grandchildren, and their posterity.

  Spencer W. Kimball

  Children, Eternity, Memoir

  22 Copy quote

• We take the star from Heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing liberty.

  George Washington

  Mother, Country, Stars

  56 Copy quote

• Perhaps a day might come when there would be at last be enough to go round, and when posterity could enter into the enjoyment of our labors.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Would Be, Might, Lasts

  John Maynard Keynes (2016). “The Economic Consequences of the Peace: The Economist”, p.10, 北戴河出版

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• But all this language gotten, and augmented by Adam and his posterity, was again lost at the tower of Babel , when by the hand of God, every man was stricken for his rebellion, with an oblivion of his former language.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Men, Hands, Towers

  Thomas Hobbes (1750). “The Moral and Political Works To which is Prefixed the Autors Life, Extracted from that Said to be Written by Himself ... Illustr. by the Ed. - London 1750”, p.107

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nor, in truth, is it of little importance to prevent the suspicion of any difference having arisen between us from being handed down in any way to our posterity; for it is worse than absurd that parties should be found disagreeing on the very principles, after we have been compelled to make our departure from the world.

  John Calvin

  Party, Differences, Departure

  Letter to Philip Melanchthon, November 28, 1552.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source