Quotes About Legacy

I have my own dying empire to contend with, and I do not wish for any other.

Then I celebrated my Wall of Books. I counted the volumes on my twenty-foot-long modernist bookshelf to make sure none had been misplaced or used as kindling by my subtenant. "You're my sacred ones," I told the books. "No one but me still cares about you. But I'm going to keep you with me forever. And one day I'll make you important again." I thought about that terrible calumny of the new generation: that books smell.

Ronald Reagan once said, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, hand handed on for them to do the same.

In this huge old occidental culture our teaching elders are books. Books are our grandparents!

My dad is like a cactus - introverted and tough. I'm a people person, like my mom, but I got my competitiveness from my dad. He came to this country from Belarus with nothing and built a real business. He's my hero for giving me that need to run a business and for having enormous confidence in me.

People who build family businesses are not classically trained. They have to deal with an enormous amount of politics. You think corporate politics are tough? Go work for your dad or your mom.

Prodigals are not always the runaways but sometimes are those who stay on the family path.

Erik is not truly dead. He lives on within the souls of those who choose to listen to the music of the night.

I'll be dead, I'll not care either way. What matters is how I die.' 'And how will that be?' 'Fighting for freedom and the lives of my companions, bana-madam.

I did something that should not have been done and, by direct consequence of that decision, I sit here now and my world is destroyed, my oaths broken with my legacy one of misery and treachery.

I'm thankful for all the things that this job has given me and my family. But probably the thing that I am most proud of throughout my career is that, not only myself, but my family and the people around me have just been regular people, which we are.

I held her close for only a short time, but after she was gone, I'd see her smile on the face of a perfect stranger and I knew she would be there with me all the rest of my days.

In those days, we finally chose to walk like giants and hold the world in arms grown strong with love And there may be many things we forget in the days to come, But this will not be one of them.

Thousand Moments: I still remember the day the world took you back & there was never time to thank you for the thousand scattered moments you left behind to watch us while we slept.

One of Us: Someday, the light will shine like a sun through my skin & they will say, What have you done with your life? & though there are many moments I think I will remember, in the end, I will be proud to say, I was one of us.

My grandma used to plant tomato seedlings in tin cans from tomato sauce & puree & crushed tomatoes she got from the Italian restaurant by her house, but she always soaked the labels off first. I don't want them to be anxious about the future, she said. It's not healthy.

Permanence: Just because they die, she said, doesn't mean they go away.

Treasures: The most important thing you leave behind is the stuff that turns into treasures when children find it.

Secret Notes: He wrote secret notes to people he hadn't met yet. Some of them aren't even born, he said, but we live in a strange neighborhood & they will need help figuring things out & I won't always be around to explain it to them.

One Child: I hope it will be said we taught them to stand tall & proud, even in the face of history & the future was made new & whole for us all, one child at a time.

When I die, she said, I am coming back as a tree with deep roots and I'll wave my leaves to the children every morning on their way to school & whisper tree songs at night in their dreams. Trees with deep roots know about the things that children need.

I held her close for only a short time, but after she was gone, I'd see her smile on the face of a perfect stranger and I knew she would be there with me all the rest of my days.

The year 1992 should have been remembered as the 700th anniversary of the death of a man who changed the world. Yet the occasion passed without note. Few know of the remarkable achievements of someone who, more than any other, can be said to have invented science.

I want no epitaphs of profound history and all that type of thing. I contributed. I would hope they would say that, and I would hope somebody liked me.