Posterity Quotes - page 10

Doubtless the fathers might err; even Peter, the prince of the apostles, fell into error: what wonder that the saints do not always show themselves inspired? The fathers did not themselves believe that they, or their companions, were always right. Augustine found himself mistaken in some cases and did not hesitate to retract his errors. He warns his admirers not to look upon his letters as they would upon the Scriptures, but to accept only those things which, upon examination, they find to be true. All writings belonging to this class are to be read with full freedom to criticize, and with no obligation to accept unquestioningly; otherwise they way would be blocked to all discussion, and posterity be deprived of the excellent intellectual exercise of debating difficult questions of language and presentation. (Peter Abelard)
We physicians who shepherd human life from birth to death have a moral imperative to resist with all our being the drift toward the brink. The threatened inhabitants on this fragile planet must speak out for those yet unborn, for posterity has no lobby with politicians. View quote
Bernard Lown
Of course, every revolution repudiates what went on before and considers itself a conscious break with the past; it is only posterity that sees, or imagines it sees, the historical continuity. Fascism, however, goes much further in its negation of the past than any earlier political movement, because it makes this negation its main platform. What is even more important, it denies simultaneously ideas and tendencies which are in themselves antithetic. It is antiliberal, but it is also anticonservative; antireligious and antiatheist; anticapitalist and antisocialist; antiwar and antipacifist... View quote
Peter Drucker
I come here today to speak not to posterity but to your generation. In a new and changing world you receive the oldest trust of all. George Washington, in his first Inaugural Address, said: "The destiny of the republican model of government is justly considered... as deeply, as finally staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people." In the years since he spoke the great experiment has prospered. Where we once stood alone, today the sun never sets on free men, or on men struggling to be free. Even where dictators rule, they often find it necessary to use the language of the rights of man and sometimes find it necessary to modify other dictatorships. For our democracy has proven the most powerful secular idea in the history of man. But the record of success does not mean that we will continue to be successful. The spread of freedom does not guarantee freedom will continue to flourish. The fact we have grown does not mean we will continue to grow. View quote
Lyndon B. Johnson