Quotes About Legacy

Then said the brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate, "To every man upon this earth, Death cometh soon or late. And how can a man die better Than facing fearful odds. For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods.

How can a man die better, he recited to himself, than facing fearful odds. For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his gods.

Our greatest emperor, Caesar, is only linked to a salad. And he didn't even invent it.

Spilling blood to protect the homeland was one thing. But spilling blood, only to then vacate hard-won gains on a whim and leave a vacuum that ended up making the problem far worse, was another.

A famous poem I had quoted in a novel came to mind: "And how can a man die better, Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods?" How, indeed?

Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson

Einstein: His Life and Universe,

It's been said that history is told by the victors.

We had to sacrifice for our children

Death is the final wake-up call.

Death is feared as birth is forgotten.

We try so hard to put our mark on things, we like to tell ourselves that what we do has import or will last. But the truth is, we're all just passing through. So little survives us. And when we're gone, it's simply the memory of others that keeps our time here alive. And when they're gone... That's why - when I go - I'm asking that my dust gets tossed on the water. Because ends up floating away.

Once you've crossed over into that realm of nothingness, your story only really stays in the minds of those closest to you. And when they too vanish...

But can you ever excise a bad parent? Though you might come to terms with all that they have psychologically bequeathed you, they can never really be expunged. They're the stubborn, permanent stain that will never entirely vanish in the wash.

By profession I am a Soldier and take pride in that fact, but I am prouder to be a father

Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.

You are remembered for the rules you break.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

Douglas MacArthur

And like the old soldier in that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the sight to see that duty.

They] may have for instance taken the view of Edmund Burke, who in the 18th century made the central conservative insight; that a culture and a society are not things run for the convenience of the people who happen to be here right now, but is a deep pact between the dead, the living, and those yet to be born.

Only Europeans and their descendants remember guilt. So only Europeans and their descendants have continuously to atone for it.

If it is assumed that the primary purpose in life is to make as much money as possible, then it is indeed possible that having a child will constitute a 'penalty' for a woman and thereby prevent her from having a larger sum of money in her bank account when she dies. On the other hand, if she chooses to pay that 'penalty' she might be fortunate enough to engage in the most important and fulfilling role that a human being can have.

This is the process by which everything from the past can be picked over, picked apart, and eventually destroyed. It can find no way of building. It can only find a way of endlessly pulling apart. So a novel by Jane Austen is taken apart until a delicate work of fiction is turned instead into nothing more than another piece of guilty residue from a discredited civilization. What has been achieved in this? Nothing but a process of destruction.