Quotes About Legacy

It's a good thing Winston Churchill was around before the shallow age of television. He might never have become one of the greatest leaders of all time.

As important as the civil rights movement was, I think what will rise to the top is that we left Earth in that time.

To me [Edgar Allan Poe's] prose is unreadable—like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.

I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I'm not feeling so well myself.

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.

In a museum in Havana, there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus, one when he was a boy and one when he was a man

Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

I deserve it all. Let the cold world do its worst; one thing I know--there's a grave somewhere for me. The world may go on just as its always done, and take everything from me--loved ones, property, everything--but it can't take that. Some day I'll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor broken heart will be at rest.

Most men die at 27, we just bury them at 72

Yes, King Edward VI lived only a few years, poor boy, but he lived them worthily.

There have been daring people in the world who claimed that Fenimore Cooper could write English, but they are all dead now.

It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life together—a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time; and it shall be called by my name.

All great men are dead, and I'm not feeling too well myself

There is not an acre of ground on the globe that is in possession of its rightful owner, or that has not been taken away from owner after owner, cycle afer cycle, by force and bloodshed.

The reign of Edward VI was a singularly merciful one for those harsh times. Now that we are taking leave of him let us try to keep this in our minds, to his credit

Helen Keller was to have been present last night but she is ill in bed, and has been ill in bed during several weeks, through overwork in the interest of the blind, the deaf, and the dumb. I need not go into any particulars about Helen Keller. She is fellow to Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon, Homer, Shakspeare, and the rest of the immortals. She will be as famous a thousand years from now as she is to-day.

I admit that I treed a rheumatic grandfather of mine in the winter of 1850. He was old and inexpert in climbing trees, but with the heartless brutality that is characteristic of me I ran him out of the front door in his night-shirt at the point of a shotgun, and caused him to bowl up a maple tree, where he remained all night, while I emptied shot into his legs. I did this because he snored. I will do it again if I ever have another grandfather.

Yes, I am of old family, and not illiterate. I am a fossil.   A which?   Fossil. The first horses were fossils. They date back two million years.

These are sad days in literature. Homer is dead. Shakespeare is dead. And I myself am not feeling at all well.

Every man is born to one possession which out values all his others - his last breath.

Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.

We have reached a little altitude where we may look down upon the Indian Thugs with a complacent shudder; and we may even hope for a day, many centuries hence, when our posterity will look down upon us in the same way.