Quotes About Posterity

The men who founded and governed Massachusetts and Connecticut took themselves so seriously that they kept track of everything they did for the benefit of posterity and hoarded their papers so carefully that the whole history of the United States, recounted mainly by their descendants, has often appeared to be the history of New England writ large.

the man was incapable of accepting blame, or assuming responsibility, for the mistakes that had been made. Already he was beginning to cover his tracks, to write his own posterity papers. He had started to formulate a defense for himself, a counter-narrative that, in many ways, would appear to be delusional. He would argue that he had known all along that the Chinese were going to intervene en masse. He had seen it coming for many weeks.

pois é óbvio que, por mais que um pensador se preocupe com a eternidade, no instante em que se dispõe a escrever os seus pensamentos deixa de estar fundamentalmente preocupado com a eternidade e volta sua atenção para a tarefa de legar aos pósteros algum vestígio deles. p28

Each generation of humanity takes the earth as trustees... We ought to bequeath to posterity as many forests and orchards as we have exhausted and consumed.

Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.

I often quote an African proverb that says: "The world is not ours, the earth is not ours, It's a treasure we hold in trust for future generations." And I often hope we will be worthy of that trust.

The World is not ours to keep. We hold it in trust for future generations.

Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers and of love for our posterity.

Not for an instant did he flinch from the mere fact of dying to-day…To die 'untimely,' as men called it, was the timeliest of deaths for one who had carved his youth to greatness. What perfection could he, Dorset, achieve beyond what was already his? Future years could but stale, if not actually mar, that perfection. Yes, it was lucky to perish leaving much to the imagination of posterity. Dear posterity was of a sentimental, not a realistic, habit.

Dear posterity was of a sentimental, not a realistic, habit.

some of our descendents

Soltanto le costruzioni piccole possono essere portate a compimento dal loro primo architetto; le grandiose, le vere, lasciano sempre la pietra della cimasa alla posterità. Dio mi guardi dal completare alcunché. Questo intero libro non è che un abbozzo… anzi, non è che l'abbozzo di un abbozzo.

I feel like I have at least begun to make a contribution, but my most significant concern has to do with whether my actual art will be preserved for future generations or be erased.

Posterity! Why should people be less stupid tomorrow than they are today?

I haven't inherited the earth from my parents, I am borrowing it from my children.

The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.

the Times is so wrapped up in its duty to posterity it bores you to death.

Biographies, as generally written, are not only misleading but false... In most instances, they commemorate a lie and cheat posterity out of the truth.

Since it is not granted to us to live long, let us transmit to posterity some memorial that we have at least lived.

But say, my lord, it were not regist'red, Methinks the truth should live from age to age, As 'twere retailed to all posterity, Even to the general all-ending day.

Ruskin never escaped his prudish ways or gave any indication of desiring to. After the death of J. M. W. Turner, in 1851, Ruskin was given the job of going through the works left to the nation by the great artist and found several watercolors of a cheerfully erotic nature. Horrified, Ruskin decided that they could only have been drawn "under a certain condition of insanity," and for the good of the nation destroyed almost all of them, robbing posterity of several priceless works.

The future that I will not live to see is the one my children will live in. That's my immortality. And I shouldn't try to mortgage theirs for my benefit.

Art, to be fully appreciated, must be true to contemporaneous life. It is not that we should ignore the claims of posterity, but that we should seek to enjoy the present more. It is not that we should disregard the creations of the past, but that we should try to assimilate them into our consciousness.

The noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men, which have sought to express the image of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed. So the care of posterity is most in them that they have no posterity.