Quotes About Legacy

Whatever the verdict on my presidency, I'm comfortable with the fact that I won't be around to hear it. That's a decision point only history will reach.

When my time is up," I would tell friends, "my dance card is going to be full.

George W. Bush

Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom.

I had watched Dad climb into the biggest arena and succeed. I wanted to find out if I had what it took to join him.

From the perspective of a single day, including this day of dedication, the issues and questions before our country are many. From the viewpoint of centuries, the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit to that cause?

I took my time to arrive, entering the world only after my grandmother Dorothy Walker Bush administered a healthy dose of castor oil to Mother. (It was my first taste of the oil business.)

George Washington famously warned against ... 'ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear

Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life. (Address to Congress on Resigning Commission Dec 23, 1783)

I can truly say I had rather be a Mount Vernon than to be attended at the Seat of Government by the Officers of State and the Representatives of every Power in Europe.

for happy, thrice happy, shall they be pronounced hereafter, who have contributed anything, who have performed the meanest Office, in erecting this Stupendious Fabrick of Freedom & Empire , on the broad basis of Independency ; who have assisted in protecting the rights of human nature, and establishing an Asylum for the poor, and oppressed of all nations and Religions.

In 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, they both died. They died on the same day, within a few hours of each other, and that day was the Fourth of July.

Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.

J'écris : j'écris parce que nous avons vécu ensemble, parce que j'ai été un parmi eux, ombre au milieu de leurs ombres, corps près de leur corps ; j'écris parce qu'ils ont laissé en moi leur marque indélébile et que la trace en est l'écriture : leur souvenir est mort à l'écriture ; l'écriture est le souvenir de leur mort et l'affirmation de ma vie.

It is the twenty-third of June nineteen seventy-five, and it is eight o'clock in the evening. Seated at his jigsaw puzzle, Bartlebooth has just died.

I could have been a surgeon too,' he thought to himself. And owned a car like that. Probably not a surgeon, but it was a fact that he had almost become a doctor. He had set out to study medicine and sometimes felt a hankering for the medical profession. If his father hadn't died three years too soon …

Does it ever occur to you, Mama, that my grandfather is a lunatic?

Why, her father would turn in his grave--well, as a matter of fact, he was cremated, but what I mean is, if he hadn't been he would have. [Ermyntrude]

even if there is a ghost it cannot possibly be more disagreeable to live with than your grandfather

grandson characteristically. He found

steward and his housekeeper, both persons of sentiment, hoped that upon his death-bed he would remember her, and speak of her

The only test, Baker, is how not to erase ourselves from the map. Our history is that things don't last. Every generation creates the right monsters to destroy itself.

Franklin Bond grew up in Greenfield," replied Rick. "When he was a young boy he knew Josiah Wade. By the time Franklin created the statue, Josiah was an old man. Franklin probably listened to Josiah's stories about the war. Maybe Josiah told Franklin he fought with the patriots.

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