Posterity Quotes

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. (Thomas Paine)
We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us. View quote
Joseph Addison
People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors. View quote
Edmund Burke
Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn. View quote
Joseph Addison
Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators. View quote
Friedrich Schiller
The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity-unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity. View quote
Henry Clay
Posterity is the world to come; the world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibility. We must do what America does best: offer more opportunity to all and demand responsibility from all. View quote
Bill Clinton
We are a kind of posterity in respect to them. View quote
Benjamin Franklin
Here you would know and enjoy what posterity will say of Washington. For a thousand leagues have nearly the same effect with a thousand years. View quote
Benjamin Franklin
It was a wise and useful provision of the ancients to transmit their thoughts to posterity by recording them in treatises, so that they should not be lost, but, being developed in succeeding generations through publications in books, should gradually attain in later times, to the highest refinement of learning. View quote
Vitruvius
Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honoured by posterity because he was the last to discover America. (James Joyce)
What artists call posterity is the posterity of the work of art. View quote
Marcel Proust
The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing. View quote
Jorge Luis Borges
Why should I care about posterity? What's posterity ever done for me? View quote
Groucho Marx
Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness. View quote
James Madison
Historic figures have homes to visit for posterity; the Lord of history left no home. Luminaries leave libraries and write their memoirs; He left one book, penned by ordinary people. Deliverers speak of winning through might and conquest; He spoke of a place in the heart. View quote
Ravi Zacharias
I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity. View quote
Robert E. Lee
Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse between the author and his fellow-men is ever new, active, and immediate. View quote
Washington Irving
The function of posterity is to look after itself. View quote
Dylan Thomas
So true is it that all transactions of preeminent importance are wrapt in doubt and obscurity; while some hold for certain facts the most precarious hearsays, others turn facts into falsehood; and both are exaggerated by posterity. View quote
Tacitus
Let us not despair; it is a blessed cause, and success, ere long, will crown our exertions. Already we have gained one victory; we have obtained, for these poor creatures, the recognition of their human nature, which, for a while was most shamefully denied. This is the first fruits of our efforts; let us persevere and our triumph will be complete. Never, never will we desist till we have wiped away this scandal from the Christian name, released ourselves from the load of guilt, under which we at present labour, and extinguished every trace of this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times, will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonour to this country. (William Wilberforce)
In the Army of the Shenandoah, you were the First Brigade! In the Army of the Potomac you were the First Brigade! In the Second Corps of this Army, you are the First Brigade! You are the First Brigade in the affections of your general, and I hope by your future deeds and bearing you will be handed down the posterity as the First Brigade in this our Second War of Independence. Farewell! View quote
Stonewall Jackson
You will, by the dignity of your Conduct, afford occasion for Posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to Mankind, had this day been wanting, the World had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining. View quote
George Washington
Posterity always degenerates till it becomes our ancestors. View quote
Horace Walpole
What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man!-To be regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion! To receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius have in general received only from posterity; to be more intimately known to posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries! View quote
Thomas Babington Macaulay