Posterity Quotes - Page 6

• Be what you wish your children to be. Parents have perpetuated by precept and example their own stamp of character to their posterity.

  Ellen G. White

  Children, Character, Parent

  Ellen G. White (2014). “Signs of the Times Articles - Book III of III”, p.61, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Posterity shall know of me even less than I shall know of posterity.

  W. S. Gilbert

  Knows

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• We need to understand that being an accomplice or accessory to those who seek to enslave our posterity, is no better than being the folks that are locking the chains themselves.

  Matt Shea

  Inspiring, Insightful, Insane

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• Convinced that the republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind, my prayers & efforts shall be cordially distributed to the support of that we have so happily established. It is indeed an animating thought that, while we are securing the rights of ourselves & our posterity, we are pointing out the way to struggling nations who wish, like us, to emerge from their tyrannies also. Heaven help their struggles, and lead them, as it has done us, triumphantly thro' them.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Prayer, War, Struggle

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.116, Rowman & Littlefield

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• There never did, there never will, and there never can exist a parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the 'end of time,' or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it. Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it.

  Thomas Paine

  Country, Men, Age

  "Rights of Man, Part I". Book by Thomas Paine, en.wikisource.org. 1791.

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• What artists call posterity is the posterity of the work of art.

  Marcel Proust

  Art, Work, Artist

  Marcel Proust (2016). “In Search of Lost Time: Or “Á la Recherche du temps perdu””, p.512, Jester House Publishing

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• When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.

  Ben Jonson

  Grief, Men, Enemy

  Ben Jonson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ben Jonson (Illustrated)”, p.3198, Delphi Classics

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• If conquest does not bind posterity, so neither can compact bind it.

  Charlotte Turner Smith

  Doe, Conquest, Compact

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• Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.

  Denis Diderot

  Religious, Philosophy, Men

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• It is in times of difficulty that great nations like great men display the whole energy of their character and become an object of admiration to posterity.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Character, Men, History

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• One of history's secrets is that the revolutionaries appeal in the eyes of posterity owes much to the traits they share with the world they overthrew.

  Christopher Caldwell

  Eye, Secret, World

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• The allegory of Adam and Eve eating of the tree of evil, and entailing upon their posterity the wrath of God and the loss of everlasting life, admits of no other explanation than the disease and crime that have flowed from unnatural diet.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Loss, Wrath, Evil

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1821). “Queen Mab, a philosophical poem, with notes. [reputed to have been given by the author to W. Francis. Wanting the title-leaf, dedication and part of the last leaf].”, p.158

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• When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people ... and ... becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression ... it is a ... sacred obligation to their posterity to abolish such government, and create another in its stead.

  Sam Houston

  Government, Hands, People

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• Ye poor posterity, think not that ye are the first. Other fools before ye have seen the sun rise and set, and the moon change her shape and her hour. As they were so ye are; and yet not so great; for the pyramids my people built stand to this day; whilst the dustheaps on which ye slave, and which ye call empires, scatter in the wind even as ye pile your dead sons' bodies on them to make yet more dust.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Son, Moon, Thinking

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “George Bernard Shaw: The Collected Plays (Illustrated): 60 plays including Caesar and Cleopatra, Pygmalion, Saint Joan, The Apple Cart, Cymbeline, Androcles And The Lion, The Man Of Destiny, The Inca Of Perusalem and Macbeth Skit”, p.819, e-artnow

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• Wise statesmen ... established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity should look up again at the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Wise, Father, Pursuit Of Happiness

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• Photography at first was asked to do nothing but embalm our best smiles for the benefit of our friends and our best clothes for the amusement of posterity. Neither thing lasts, and photography came as a welcome salve to keep those precious, if slightly ridiculous, things a little longer in the world.

  George Santayana

  Photography, Clothes, Benefits

  George Santayana (1967). “Animal Faith and Spiritual Life”, Irvington Pub

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• It is strange how the memory of a man may float to posterity on what he would have himself regarded as the most trifling of his works.

  William Osler

  Memories, Men, May

  Sir William Osler (1959). “Men and books: collected and reprinted from the Canadian Medical Association Journal”

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• Only well-written works will descend to posterity. Fulness of knowledge, interesting facts, even useful inventions, are no pledge of immortality, for they may be employed by more skilful hands; they are outside the man; the style is the man himself.

  Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

  Men, Hands, Interesting

  Discours sur le Style (1753)

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• It is not a great Xerxes army of words, but a compact Greek ten thousand that march safely down to posterity.

  James Russell Lowell

  Army, Greek, March

  James Russell Lowell (1870). “Among My Books: First [-second] series”, p.239

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• An earthly immortality belongs to a great and good character. History embalms it; it lives in its moral influence, in its authority, in its example, in the memory of the words and deeds in which it was manifested; and as every age adds to the illustrations of its efficacy, it may chance to be the best understood by a remote posterity.

  Edward Everett

  Memories, Character, Illustration

  Edward Everett (1850). “Orations and speeches on various occasions”, p.576

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• For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught—nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!

  Herman Melville

  Book, Cash, May

  Herman Melville (2008). “Moby-Dick”, p.159, Velvet Element Books

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• The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

  John Stuart Mill

  Opportunity, Errors, Race

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.163, Hackett Publishing

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• There is a certain virtue in every good man, which night and day stirs up the mind with the stimulus of glory, and reminds it that all mention of our name will not cease at the same time with our lives, but that our fame will endure to all posterity.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Men, Night, Names

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (1856). “Select Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero”, p.146

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• I thought I had to make an impact on history. I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission. Posterity deals with us however it sees fit. But I gave it 20 years of my best shot.

  Twyla Tharp

  Impact, Years, Fit

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• My brave fellows, let no sensation of satisfaction for the triumphs you have gained induce you to insult your fallen enemy. Let no shouting, no clamorous huzzaing increase their mortification. It is sufficient for us that we witness their humiliation. Posterity will huzza for us.

  George Washington

  Brave, Enemy, Satisfaction

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