Posterity Quotes - Page 15

• Faith in humanity, in posterity, in the destiny of one's religion, nation, race, party or family-what is it but the visualization of that eternal something to which we attach the self that is about to be annihilated?

  Eric Hoffer

  Party, Acceptance, Destiny

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery.-Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Justice, Humanity, Honor

  Bernard Mayo, Thomas Jefferson (1988). “Jefferson Himself: The Personal Narrative of a Many-Sided American”, p.55, University of Virginia Press

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• 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

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• 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.

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• Why do we not exhaust the heritage of the ages, spiritual and material for our immediate pleasure, and let posterity go hang? So far as simple rationality is concerned, self-interest can advance no argument against the appetite of present possessors. Yet within some of us, a voice that is not the demand of self-interest or pure rationality says that we have no right to give ourselves enjoyment at the expense of our ancestors' memory and our descendants' prospects. We hold our present advantages only in trust.

  Russell Kirk

  Spiritual, Memories, Simple

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• 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

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• Posterity makes the judgments. There are going to be a lot of surprises in store for everybody.

  Irwin Shaw

  Literature, Surprise, Judgment

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• 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

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• 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

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• Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Garden, Tree, Serving Others

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.238, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Herodotus is not more indisputably the father of history than is Sir Boyle Roche the father of Bulls. No doubt there were makers of bulls before his day, even as brave men lived before Agamemnon; but they are not remembered, and if their bulls have survived them they are credited to Sir Boyle by a posterity generously forgiving and forgetful of his famous indictment.

  Boyle Roche

  Father, Men, Brave

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• 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.

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• 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

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• The god which the vast majority of professing Christians love is looked upon very much like an indulgent old man, who himself has no relish for folly, but leniently winks at the indiscretions of youth...For one sin God banished our first parents from Eden; for one sin all the posterity of Canaan fell under a curse which remains over them to this day; for one sin Moses was excluded form the promised land; Elisha’s servant smitten with leprosy; Ananias and Sapphira were cut off from the land of the living.

  Arthur W. Pink

  Christian, Cutting, Love Is

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• 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

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• Comrades ! You have voluntarily accepted a mission that is the noblest that the human mind can conceive of. For the fulfillment of such a mission no sacrifice is too great, not even the sacrifice of one's life. You are today the custodians of India's national honour and the embodiment of India's hopes and aspirations. So conduct yourself that your countrymen may bless you and posterity may be proud of you.

  Subhas Chandra Bose

  Army, Sacrifice, Mind

  Subhas Chandra Bose, Netaji Subhas Ashram (Suisa, India), Indian National Army (2004*). “Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and 21st century India: a special number on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose”

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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,

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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