Quotes About Legacy

There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say.

Every generation, civilization is invaded by barbarians - we call them 'children'.

Good works, because they must be forgotten instantly, can never become part of the world; they come and go,leaving no trace. They truly are not of this world.

non seulement le passé n'est jamais mort, mais il n'est même pas passé

Fluindo na direcção da morte, a vida do homem arrastaria consigo, inevitavelmente, todas as coisas humanas para a ruína e a destruição, se não fosse a faculdade humana de interrompê-las e iniciar algo novo, faculdade inerente à acção como perene advertência de que os homens, embora devam morrer, não nascem para morrer, mas para começar.

The holes of oblivion do not exist. Nothing human is that perfect, and there are simply too many people in the world to make oblivion possible. One man will always be left alive to tell the story.

pois é óbvio que, por mais que um pensador se preocupe com a eternidade, no instante em que se dispõe a escrever os seus pensamentos deixa de estar fundamentalmente preocupado com a eternidade e volta sua atenção para a tarefa de legar aos pósteros algum vestígio deles. p28

As Tony Judt wrote a few years ago in The New York Review of Books,8 Arendt made many small errors for which her critics will never forgive her. But she got many of the big things right and for this she deserves to be remembered.

the undeniable loss of tradition in the world does not at all entail a loss of the past, for tradition and past are not the same, as the believers in tradition on one side and the believers in progress on the other would have us believe. . . .

Sofern Vergangenheit als Tradition überliefert ist, hat sie Autorität; sofern Autorität sich geschichtlich darstellt, wird sie zur Tradition. Walter Benjamin wusste, dass Traditionsbruch und Autoritätsverlust irreperabel waren, und zog daraus den Schluss, neue Wege für den Umgang mit der Vergangenheit zu suchen.

The task and potential greatness of mortals lie in their ability to produce things works and deeds and words which would deserve to be and, at least to a degree, are at home in everlastingness, so that through them mortals could find their place in a cosmos where everything is immortal except themselves.

And as for the nation, it is obvious that every generation, by virtue of being born into a historical continuum, is burdened by the sins of the fathers as it is blessed with the deeds of the ancestors.

Whoever takes upon himself political responsibility will always come to the point where he says with Hamlet: The time is out of joint: O cursed spite That ever I was born to set it right! To set the time aright means to renew the world, and this we can do because we all arrived at one time or another as newcomers in a world which was there before us and will still be there when we are gone, when we shall have left its burden to our successors.

Nothing is more transient in our world, less stable and solid, than that form of success which brings fame; nothing comes swifter and more readily than oblivion.

Ä°nsan doÄŸas? gereÄŸi, bir kere baÅŸ gösteren ve insanl?k tarihine kaydedilen her fiil, gerçekliÄŸi tarihe gömülüp gittikten uzun zaman sonra bile hep ileride gerçekleÅŸebilecek bir ihtimal olarak kal?r.

There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world even though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind.

To be a mother is the greatest vocation in the world. No being has a position of such great power and influence. She holds in her hands the destiny of nations, for to her is necessarily committed the making of the nation's citizens.

The good and the beautiful is not forgotten; it lives in legend and in song.

Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with short steps.

But if the star should set, even while I am penning these lines, be it so; still I can say it has shone, and I have received a rich portion.

Why go on? I mean, why record all this? Wouldn't it be better to surrender it to oblivion for all time? For those who were there certainly don't have to read it. And the others, and those who will come later? What if they read it only to enjoy something strange and uncanny and to make themselves feel more alive? Does it take an apocalypse to do that? Or a descent into the underworld?

Humility is the key to finishing well and passing the torch on to our successors.

leaders lead as they were led.

I can't think of anyone in biblical history—or the entire history of the human race, for that matter—who had a more difficult leadership challenge than Moses.