Quotes About Legacy

Though forgiveness is never easy, and may take generations, what else can break the chains that enslave people to their historical past?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? —Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day

C. S. Lewis said, "If you read history you will find out that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next… Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

the descendants of today's raped and mutilated victims will arise to seek vengeance on the avengers.

Lewis was studying literary history with the present and future in mind.

The sons of York will destroy each other, one brother destroying another, uncles devouring nephews, fathers beheading sons. They are a house which has to have blood, and they will shed their own if they have no other enemy.

We might, either of us, be Queen of England and yet we'll always be nothing to our family.

When they launch snakes you'll have your namesake.

They say that at the mountain pass he looked back at his kingdom, his beautiful kingdom, and wept, and his mother told him to weep like a woman for what he could not hold as a man.

Yes, Your Grace, I correct her. I am My Lady, the King's Mother, now, and you shall curtsey to me, as low as to a queen of royal blood. This was my destiny: to put my son on the throne of England, and those who laughed at my visions and doubted my vocation will call me My Lady, the King's Mother, and I shall sign myself Margaret Regina: Margaret R.

And I am much attached to my cock, brother. Make sure your sister can put another prince in the cradle, he says baldly. Save my balls for her, Anthony!

We the daughters of Melusina,' she corrects me. 'Your grandmother was a daughter of the water goddess of the royal house of Burgundy and she never forgot that she was both royal and magical. When I was your age I didn't know whether she could summon up a storm or whatever it was all just luck and pretence to get her own way. But she taught me that there is nothing in the world more powerful than a woman who knows what she wants and walks a straight road towards it.

People always make up stories about princesses. It comes to us with the crown. We have to carry it as lightly as we can.

A parcel--taken from one place to another, handed from one owner to another, unwrapped and bundled up at will--is all that I am. A vessel, for the bearing of sons, for one nobleman or another: it hardly matters who.

Learn you to die!" means consider how your death is meaningful, as your life is meaningful.

When they launch snakes, you will have your namesake.

I was born to be Queen of England and mother of the next King of England. I have to fulfill my destiny, it is my God-given destiny.

Your son is heir to an enormous fortune and name. Someone would be bound to bid for you him and take him as his ward.

You are not Melusina, rising from a fountain to easy happiness. You will not be a beautiful woman at court with nothing to do but make magic. The road you have chosen will mean that you have to spend your life scheming and fighting. Our task, as your family, is to make sure you win.

We, the daughters of Melusina," she corrects me. "Your grandmother was a daughter of the water goddess of the royal house of Burgundy and she never forgot that she was both royal and magical. When I was your age, I didn't know whether she could summon up a storm or whether it was all just luck and pretence to get her own way. But she taught me that there is nothing in the world more powerful than a woman who knows what she wants and walks a straight road towards it.

It's as if our name is both our greatest pride and our curse," I say.

She would not let it go. "I had thought to be Queen of England and see my son on the throne," she repeated.

Harry could come and go as he pleased; he was always a visitor in his own home. He never belonged to Wideacre as I belonged. Only Papa, the land and I were the constant elements in my life. Papa, the land and I had been inseparable since the first time I had seen Wideacre in its wonderful wholeness from between the hunter's ears. Papa, the land and I would be here forever.

And he'll be remembered as a wife killer, Will predicted. And everything else about him that was so brave and loyal and true will be forgot. They will forget that he brought peace and prosperity to the country, that he made an England that we all could love. All they will remember of him will be that he had six wives and beheaded two of them.