Quotes About Legacy

History is a people's memory, and without a memory, a man is demoted to the lower animals.

I actually believed that after living as fully as humanly possible, one should then die violently. I expected then as I still expect today

Why, when all of my ancestors are snake-bitten, and I'm snake-bitten, and I warn my children to avoid snakes, what does that snake sound like accusing me of hate-teaching?

Anyway, now, each day I live as if I am already dead, and I tell you what I would like for you to do. When I am dead—I say it that way because from the things I know, I do not expect to live long enough to read this book in its finished form—I want you to just watch and see if I'm not right in what I say: that the white man, in his press, is going to identify me with "hate." He

Look at yourselves. Some of you teenagers, students. How do you think I feel and I belong to a generation ahead of you - how do you think I feel to have to tell you, 'We, my generation, sat around like a knot on a wall while the whole world was fighting for its human rights - and you've got to be born into a society where you still have that same fight.' What did we do, who preceded you? I'll tell you what we did. Nothing. And don't you make the same mistake we made....

Deep down, I actually believed that after living as fully as humanly possible, one should then die violently.

My application had, of course, been made and during this time I received from Chicago my 'X.' The Muslim's 'X' symbolized the true African family name that he could never know. For me, my X replaced the white slavemaster name of 'Little,' which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed upon my paternal fore-bearers. The receipt of my X meant that forever after in the nation of Islam I would be known as Malcolm X.

I dream that one day, history will look upon me as having been one of the voices that helped to save America from a grave, even possibly fatal catastrophe.

And even those Americans who are blinded by childlike patriotism can see that it is only a matter of time before White America too will be utterly destroyed by her own sins, and all traces of her former glory will be removed from this planet forever.

Every morning when I wake up, now, I regard it as having another borrowed day. In any city, wherever I go, making speeches, holding meetings of my organization, or attending to other business, black men are watching every move I make, awaiting their chance to kill me. I have said publicly many times that I know that they have their orders.

we're at a crossroads, and the actions we take from this moment forward will have a defining impact on what kind of world we leave behind for future generations.

Se que las almas de los muertos muchas veces permanecen vagando por tal o cual lugar para cumplir tal o cual objetivo

Auch wenn wir das Meer vor vierhundert Millionen Jahren (nach meinem Kalender) verlassen haben, das Meer hat uns nicht verlassen. Es ist immer noch in uns, in unserem Blut, in unserem Schweiß, in unseren Tränen.

What we do now echoes in eternity.

Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.

Casting aside other things, hold to the precious few; and besides bear in mind that every man lives only the present, which is an indivisible point, and that all the rest of his life is either past or is uncertain. Brief is man's life and small the nook of the earth where he lives; brief, too, is the longest posthumous fame, buoyed only by a succession of poor human beings who will very soon die and who know little of themselves, much less of someone who died long ago.

Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.

The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything; and the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you. Always reflect that soon you will be no one, and nowhere.

All of us are creatures of a day; the rememberer and the remembered alike. All is ephemeral—both memory and the object of memory. The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything; and the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you. Always reflect that soon you will be no one, and nowhere.

Soon, you will have forgotten everything. Soon, everybody will have forgotten you.

How soon will time cover all things.

life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion.

Swiftly the remembrance of all things is buried in the gulf of eternity.