Quotes About Legacy

Does a man offend your pride? Remember he will be dead soon, as will you.

We live only in the present, in this fleet-footed moment. The rest is lost and behind us, or ahead of us and may never be found. Little of life we know, little the plot of earth on which we dwell, little the memory of even the most famous who have lived, and this memory itself is preserved by generations of little men, who know little about themselves and far less about those who died long ago. (Book 3, Verse 10)

He who is greedy of credit and reputation after his death, doth not consider, that they themselves by whom he is remembered, shall soon after every one of them be dead; and they likewise that succeed those; until at last all memory, which hitherto by the succession of men admiring and soon after dying hath had its course, be quite extinct.

But by all means bear this in mind, that within a very short time both thou and he will be dead; and soon not even your names will be left behind.

For all things fade and turn to fable, and quickly too, utter oblivion covers them like sand.

Don't live as though you were going to live a myriad years. Fate is hanging over your head; while you have life, while you may, become good.

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones

Run down the list of those who felt intense anger at something: the most famous, the most unfortunate, the most hated, the most whatever: Where is all that now? Smoke, dust, legend…or not even a legend. Think of all the examples. And how trivial the things we want so passionately are.

Anticipate your final hours.

Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.

all things soon pass away and become a mere tale, and complete oblivion soon buries them. And I say this of those who have shone in a wondrous way.

There's only one crop to be reaped from your time on earth, and that is a reverential disposition and socially useful actions.

Many lumps of incense on the same altar. One crumbles now, one later, but it makes no difference

How quickly all things disappear, in the universe the bodies themselves, but in time the remembrance of them;

How many of them who came into the world at the same time when I did, are already gone out of it?

FROM MY GRANDFATHER VERUS I LEARNED GOOD MORALS AND THE government of my temper.

as the heaps of sand piled on one another hide the former sands, so in life the events which go before are soon covered by those which come after.

18. The way people behave. They refuse to admire their contemporaries, the people whose lives they share. No, but to be admired by Posterity—people they've never met and never will—that's what they set their hearts on. You might as well be upset at not being a hero to your great-grandfather.

Be not deceived; for thou shalt never live to read thy moral commentaries, nor the acts of the famous Romans and Grecians; nor those excerpta from several books; all which thou hadst provided and laid up for thyself against thine old age. Hasten therefore to an end, and giving over all vain hopes, help thyself in time if thou carest for thyself, as thou oughtest to do.

Short then is the time which every man lives, and small the nook of the earth where he lives; and short too the longest posthumous fame, and even this only continued by a succession of poor human beings, who will very soon die, and who know not even themselves, much less him who died long ago.

September 17, 2019 0 Minutes How many after being celebrated by fame have been given up to oblivion; and how many who have celebrated the fame of others have long been dead.

remember this: in no time at all both you and he will be dead, and shortly after that not even our names will remain.

In sum, remember this, that within a very little while, both thou and he shall both be dead, and after a little while more, not so much as your names and memories shall be remaining.

44. Give yourself a gift: the present moment. People out for posthumous fame forget that the Generations To Come will be the same annoying people they know now. And just as mortal. What does it matter to you if they say x about you, or think y?