Posterity Quotes - Page 5

• In the last analysis, the artist may shout from all the rooftops that he is a genius; he will have to wait for the verdict of posterity.

  Marcel Duchamp

  Artist, Waiting, Analysis

  Arturo Schwarz, Marcel Duchamp (1997). “The complete works of Marcel Duchamp”, Delano Greenridge Editions

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• Never is a historic deed already completed when it is done but always only when it is handed down to posterity. What we call "history" by no means represents the sum total of all significant deeds.... World historyonly comprises that tiny lighted sector which chanced to be placed in the spotlight by poetic or scholarly depictions.

  Stefan Zweig

  Mean, History, Done

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• Your proposal raises the greatest mischief that can befall my country. You could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. Let me conjure you then, if you have any regard for your country, concern for your self or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, never communicate, as from yourself, or anyone else, a sentiment of the like nature.

  George Washington

  Country, Self, Mind

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• Time will discover everything to posterity; it is a babbler, and speaks even when no question is put.

  Euripides

  Inspirational, Time, Speak

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• We do not marry for ourselves, whatever we say; we marry just as much or more for our posterity, for our family. The practice and benefit of marriage concerns our race very far beyond us.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Marriage, Race, Practice

  Michel de Montaigne (2003). “The Complete Works: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters”, Everyman's Library

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• Slyly, banteringly, but also overbearingly, the critic - the one who does not swallow anything whole, who waits until posterity has consecrated it before... howling - is among those who howl their admiration the way they howl their insults: don't be afraid, don't tremble - the beast doesn't have any nails or teeth, or even brain: it is stuffed.

  Paul Gauguin

  Waiting, Brain, Way

  Paul Gauguin (1978). “The writings of a savage”, Viking Adult

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• The love of fame is too high and delicate a feeling in the mind to be mixed up with realities, it is a solitary abstraction. * * * A name "fast anchored in the deep abyss of time" is like a star twinkling in the firmament, cold, silent, distant, but eternal and sublime; and our transmitting one to posterity is as if we should contemplate our translation to the skies.

  William Hazlitt

  Stars, Reality, Sky

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• A nickname a man may chance to wear out; but a system of calumnity, pursued by a faction, may descend even to posterity. This principal has taken full effect on this state favorite.

  Isaac D'Israeli

  Taken, Men, May

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• This I regard as history's highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds.

  Tacitus

  History, Evil, Deeds

  Tacitus (2007). “The Annals & The Histories”, p.25, Modern Library

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• I just find that there's something about looking back on interviews, whether for purposes of remembering what I said about something or if it's for posterity when I'm 75.

  Zachary Quinto

  Purpose, Interviews, Remember

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• The ultimate treasures on earth and in heaven are our children and our posterity.

  Dallin H. Oaks

  Mother, Children, Heaven

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• Posterity will do justice to that unprincipled maniac Gladstone - extraordinary mixture of envy, vindictiveness, hypocrisy and superstition; and with one commanding characteristic - whether Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition, whether preaching, praying, speechifying or scribbling - never a gentleman.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Justice, Hypocrisy, Envy

  c.1874 Letter.

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• Every generation is a secret society and has incommunicable enthusiasms, tastes, and interests which are a mystery both to its predecessors and to posterity.

  John Jay Chapman

  Secret, Generations, Enthusiasm

  John Jay Chapman (1970). “The Collected Works of John Jay Chapman: Criticism & memoirs”

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• You have power over my body but the Lord Jesus hath power over my body and soul; and assure yourselves thus much, you do as much as in you lies to put the Lord Jesus Christ from you, and if you go on in this course you begin, you will bring a curse upon you and your posterity, and the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

  Anne Hutchinson

  Jesus, Lying, Soul

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• We have not yet received our kingdoms, neither will we, until we have finished our work on earth . . . . Then he that has overcome and is found worthy, will be made a king of kings, a lord of lords over his own posterity, or in other words: A father of fathers.

  Brigham Young

  Kings, Father, Earth

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• Sensible of the importance of Christian piety and virtue to the order and happiness of a state, I cannot but earnestly commend to you every measure for their support and encouragement ... Manners, by which not only the freedom, but the very existence of the republics, are greatly affected, depend much upon the public institutions of religion and the good education of youth; in both these instances our fathers laid wise foundations, for which their posterity have had reason to bless their memory.

  John Hancock

  Christian, Wise, Encouragement

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• To know John Kennedy, as I did, was to understand the true meaning of the word. He understood that courage is not something to be gauged in a poll or located in a focus group. No adviser can spin it. No historian can backdate it. For, in the age old contest between popularity and principle, only those willing to lose for their convictions are deserving of posterity's approval.

  Gerald R. Ford

  Focus, Age, Approval

  Remarks by President Gerald R. Ford on Receiving the 2001 Profile in Courage Award, www.jfklibrary.org. May 21, 2001.

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• In fact, Darwin's own grandfather anticipated the central tenet of Lamarckism by some seven years: "All animals undergo perpetual transformations; which are in part produced by their own exertions... and many of these acquired forms or propensities are transmitted to their posterity."

  Erasmus Darwin

  Animal, Years, Grandfather

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• Thy return Posterity shall witness. Years must roll away, but then at length the splendid sight again shall greet our distant children's eyes.

  Jeremiah

  Children, Eye, Sight

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• When all the other children of Adam have had the privilege of receiving the Priesthood, and of coming into the kingdom of God, and of being redeemed from the four quarters of the earth, and HAVE RECEIVED THEIR RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD, then it will be time enough to remove the curse from Cain and his posterity.

  Brigham Young

  Children, Earth, Four

  Brigham Young (1854). “Journal of Discourses”

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• In the age-old contest between popularity and principle, only those willing to lose for their convictions are deserving of posterity's approval.

  Gerald R. Ford

  Courage, Principles, Approval

  Remarks by President Gerald R. Ford on Receiving the 2001 Profile in Courage Award, www.jfklibrary.org. May 21, 2001.

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• The glorious memory of brave men is continually renewed; the fame of those who have performed any noble deed is never allowed to die; and the renown of those who have done good service to their country becomes a matter of common knowledge to the multitude, and part of the heritage of posterity.

  Polybius

  Country, Memories, Men

  Polybius, Friedrich Hultsch (1889). “The Histories”

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• If one looks at all closely at the middle of our own century, the events that occupy us, our customs, our achievements and even our topics of conversation, it is difficult not to see that a very remarkable change in several respects has come into our ideas; a change which, by its rapidity, seems to us to foreshadow another still greater. Time alone will tell the aim, the nature and limits of this revolution, whose inconveniences and advantages our posterity will recognize better than we can.

  Jean le Rond d'Alembert

  Ideas, Achievement, Events

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• A pleasant comedy, which paints the manners of the age, and exposes a faithful picture of nature, is a durable work, and is transmitted to the latest posterity. But a system, whether physical or metaphysical, commonly owes its success to its novelty; and is no sooner canvassed with impartiality than its weakness is discovered.

  David Hume

  Faithful, Age, Weakness

  David Hume (2016). “The History of England, vol. 1~6, Completed: Revision of Great Book”, p.2565, VM eBooks

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• Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse between the author and his fellow-men is ever new,
  active, and immediate.

  Washington Irving

  Men, Growing, Fellow Man

  Washington Irving (1999). “Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories”, p.146, Penguin

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