Quotes About Legacy

Poland was a reminder to the world that there is more to history and power than brute force; the human spirit can bend the course of history in nobler directions. Culture drives history, over the long haul.

If someday they say of me that in my work I have contributed something to the welfare and happiness of my fellow man, I shall be satisfied.

We are immortal until our work on earth is done.

If you seek Hamilton's monument, look around. You are living in it. We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton's country, a mighty industrial nation with a strong central government.

Institutions are lengthening shadows of strong individuals.

This makes an American 80-year-old's finishing sprint especially fun, because it can be focused on this fact: To live a long life braided with the life of a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to an imperishable proposition is simply delightful.

Philosophy ... finds itself to be no longer anything but the heir to a fabulous mystical theology, but missing a God and wiping the slate clean.

A life is only a link in the chain. I want other people to continue the experience begun by those before me and dedicate themselves like me and the others before me to this--to go to the furthest reaches of the possible.

In what will survive me I am in harmony with my annihilation.

No se puede decir más que con espanto el número de hombres que nacen, viven y mueren sin haber usado ni una sola vez su alma

Notre vie est déjà pleine de morts, et pour chacun le plus mort des morts est le petit garçon qu'il fut. Et pourtant l'heure venue, c'est lui qui reprendra sa place à la tête de ma vie, rassemblera mes pauvres années jusqu'à la dernière, et comme un jeune chef ses vétérans, ralliant la troupe en désordre entrera le premier dans la maison du Père.

L'honneur d'un peuple appartient aux morts et les vivants n'en ont que l'usufruit

When I was your age we had men in the church—don't frown, it makes me want to clout you—men I say—make what you like of the word-heads of a parish, masters, my boy, rulers.  They could hold a whole country together, that sort could—with a mere lift of the chin.  Oh, I know what you're going to say: they fed well, drank good wine and didn't object to a game of cards.  Well, what of it?

To write: to try meticulously to retain something, to cause something to survive; to wrest a few precise scraps from the void as it grows, to leave somewhere a furrow, a trace, a mark or a few signs.

We are constantly producing the past. We are factories for the past. Living past-making machines, what else? We eat time and produce the past. Even death doesn't put a stop to this. A person might be gone, but his past remains.

You can't make a museum to preserve something that has never left.

He has no friends, no living relatives. No one to call. If we are not in someone else's memory, do we even exist at all?

Sometimes we don't stop to think how some historical event only appears to be more distant than it actually is. When I was born, the Second World War was a mere twenty-three years in the past, but it has always seemed like a completely different epoch to me.

Your grandmother had an icon, your mother had a little portrait of Lenin, and you have your TV.

The history of the family can be described through the abandonment of several children. The history of the world, too.

Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.

One of my most sentimental items is my grandmother's engagement ring that my mom gave me a few years ago. It's a Victorian-style setting that's closed in the back, so it doesn't sparkle the way diamonds do now. I wear it as a pendant.

There are certain moments in the history of a nation when the choices made define the decades to come.

Oh, Mother, don't be so old-fashioned,' Margo said impatiently. 'After all, you only die once.' This remark was as baffling as it was true, and successfully silenced Mother.