Quotes About Legacy

Democracy is our commitment. It is our great legacy, a legacy we simply cannot compromise. Democracy is in our DNA.

Never forget, Alexandros, that this flesh, this body, does not belong to us. Thank God it doesn't. If I thought this stuff was mine, I could not advance a pace into the face of the enemy. But it is not ours, my friend. It belongs to the gods and to our children, our fathers and mothers and those of Lakedaemon a hundred, a thousand years yet unborn. It belongs to the city which gives us all we have and demands no less in requital.

Fame Imperishable and glory that will never die -- that is what we march for!

Cousin, the days of gods and heroes are over. Not to me. Not to them.

Men feared even the shade of Alexander, lest they encounter him again beneath the earth, for surely in that world, too, none would surpass him.

Who profits from a king's fidelity save generations a thousand years unborn, and which of his works will they recall at that remove, or care?

What fascinates me about the character of Alexander the Great is that he seemed to see the future with such clarity and such intensity as to make it virtually impossible that it would not come true—and that he would be the one to make it so.

Never forget, Alexandros, that this flesh, this body, does not belong to us. Thank God it doesn't. If I thought this stuff was mine, I could not advance a pace into the face of the enemy. But it is not ours, my friend. It belongs to the gods and to our children, our fathers and mothers and those of Lakedaemon a hundred, a thousand years yet unborn. It belongs to the city which gives us all we have and demands no less in requital.

The good alone die young.

Only two things will remain with us across the river: our inhering genius and the hearts we love.

Tolstoy had thirteen kids and wrote War and Peace.

Gobartes the son of Artabazos

The professional respects his craft. He does not consider himself superior to it. He recognizes the contributions of those who have gone before him. He apprentices himself to them. The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come.

From the epiphanal moment at the end of her hero's journey, the artist's life is about the works she will produce. These taken in sum will comprise her body of work. They're her oeuvre. They're also her destiny. If she does it right, they will constitute upon completion a pretty fair expression of why she was put on Earth. They'll define who she is. They will be her gift for the people.

It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet. You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.

I read R.D. Laing, I read Victor Frankl. Anything by Ken Kesey or Peter Matthiessen, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg, R. Crumb, Bob Dylan. These sacred texts are passed from one hand to another like relics of a religious past or harbingers of a new faith.

The operative principle for all is what Danny Hillis calls the Golden Rule of Time: Do for the future what you're grateful the past did for you. (Or what you wish the past had done for you.) That tells you the right thing to do.

When Brian Eno approached the father of Anthea Norman-Taylor for permission to marry her, he was told, "What you have to ask yourself is, 'Would I wish this woman to be the grandmother of my grandchildren?

How do we make long-term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare? How do we make the taking of long-term responsibility inevitable?

We seem trapped in the Short Now. The present generation enjoys the greatest power in history, but it appears to have the shortest vision in history. That combination is lethal.

The single dinner plate, the silent house, the tumbler in the sink--this was how it would be if he lost her. His mother had gone quickly, from liver cancer, the mass discovered too late. He thought of his father alone in his condo, crossing off days on the calendar like a prisoner. He'd survived her by thirteen years, yet every time Henry saw him, he quoted her as if they'd just spoken. Henry could picture himself doing the same to the children. He already lived too much in his memory.

Our grandfathers had to run, run, run. My generation's out of breath. We ain't running no more.

The way a man relates to his dad will often affect how he relates to his Father God.

Instruye al niño en su camino, y aun cuando fuere viejo no se apartará de él. Proverbios 22:6