Quotes About Legacy

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.

Sir John A. Macdonald

I want history to jump on Canada's spine with sharp skates.

The twentieth century belongs to Canada.

Give us men to match our mountains, Give us men to match our plains: Men with empires in their purpose And new eras in their brains.

Ottawa is a city where nobody lives, though some of us may die there.

Twenty generations ago - around the year 1390 - you had 1,048,576 ancestors. In the 21st generation of your family that number will double again.

Few have heard of Fra Luca Parioli, the inventor of double-entry bookkeeping, but he has probably had more influence on human life than has Dante or Michelangelo.

And say to all the world, "This was a man!"

The proper time to influence the character of a child is about 100 years before he is born.

Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take away with us.

A wise son maketh a glad father.

Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it.

Your children are not dead. They are just waiting until the world deserves them.

I do not choose to run for President in 1928.

The sages and heroes of history are receding from us, and history contracts the record of their deeds into a narrower and narrower page. But time has no power over the name and deeds and words of Jesus Christ.

Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded empires; but upon what do these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love; and to this very day millions would die for Him.

Nations, like individuals, live and die; but civilization cannot die.

An institution is the lengthening shadow of one man.

Think that day lost whose (low) descending sun Views from thy hand no noble action done.

When Andrew Jackson died someone asked a friend if he thought Old Hickory would go to heaven. 'He will if he wants to,' was the reply. On his death bed Disraeli declined a visit from Queen Victoria. 'No, it is better not', he said, 'she would only ask me to take a message to Albert.' I am a broken machine. I am ready to go.

I hate funerals, and would not attend my Own if it could be avoided, but it is well for every man to stop once in a while to think of what sort of a collection of mourners he is training for his final event.

History is a stern judge.

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.