Posterity Quotes - page 2

When modernist poetry, or what not so long ago passed for modernist poetry, can reach the stage where the following piece by Mr. Ezra Pound is seriously offered as a poem, there is some justification for the plain reader and orthodox critic who shrinks from anything that may be labelled 'modernist' either in terms of condemnation or approbation.... Better he thinks, that ten authentic poets should be left for posterity to discover than one charlatan should be allowed to steal into the Temple of Fame. (Laura Riding)
The eyes of all America are upon us, as we play our part in posterity will bless or curse us. View quote
Henry Knox
A man doesn't plant a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity. View quote
Alexander Smith
Nor, in truth, is it of little importance to prevent the suspicion of any difference having arisen between us from being handed down in any way to our posterity; for it is worse than absurd that parties should be found disagreeing on the very principles, after we have been compelled to make our departure from the world. View quote
John Calvin
But all this language gotten, and augmented by Adam and his posterity, was again lost at the tower of Babel, when by the hand of God, every man was stricken for his rebellion, with an oblivion of his former language. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
Though a hundred crooked paths may conduct to a temporary success, the one plain and straight path of public and private virtue can alone lead to a pure and lasting fame and the blessings of posterity. View quote
Edward Everett
Ancestors do not mean so much. The rebel who succeeds generally makes it easier for the posterity that follows him; so these descendants are usually contented and smug and soft. Rebels are made from life, not ancestors. View quote
Clarence Darrow
Why we should put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity, for what has posterity ever done for us? View quote
Boyle Roche
Posterity alone rightly judges kings. Posterity alone has the right to accord or withhold honors. View quote
Napoleon Bonaparte
That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. View quote
George Mason
What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
We should not miss the present opportunity or we shall be blamed by posterity. View quote
Shunroku Hata
But I hope that by the decision and authority of wise princes that sometime devout and learned men from the churches of other nations and of ours may be summoned together to deliberate about all the controversies and that there be handed down to posterity one harmonious, true, and clear form of doctrine, without any ambiguity. Meanwhile, as far as possible, let us encourage the union of our churches with measured advice. View quote
Philipp Melanchthon
I will not go down to posterity talking bad grammar. View quote
Benjamin Disraeli
[P]erhaps a day might come when there would be at last be enough to go round, and when posterity could enter into the enjoyment of our labors. View quote
John Maynard Keynes
All doctrines relating to the creation of the world, the government of man by superior beings, and his destiny after death, are conjectures which have been given out as facts, handed down with many adornments by tradition, and accepted by posterity as "revealed religion". They are theories more or less rational which uncivilised men have devised in order to explain the facts of life, and which civilised men believe that they believe. View quote
William Winwood Reade
Our enlightened posterity will look back upon us who eat oxen and sheep, just as we look upon cannibals. View quote
William Winwood Reade
If you never look just wrong to your contemporaries you will never look just right to posterity - every writer has to try to be, to some extent, sometimes, a law unto himself. View quote
Randall Jarrell
I regard posterity as vulgar as success. I don't trust posterity. I don't think what's good is necessarily recognized in the long run. Too many good writers have disappeared. View quote
Peter Biskind
Never forget posterity when devising a policy. Never think of posterity when making a speech. View quote
Robert Menzies
I thought I had to make an impact on history. I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission. Posterity deals with us however it sees fit. But I gave it 20 years of my best shot. (Twyla Tharp)
If conquest does not bind posterity, so neither can compact bind it. View quote
Charlotte Turner Smith
I suggest that what we want to do is not to leave to posterity a great institution, but to leave behind a great tradition of journalism ably practiced in our time. View quote
Henry R. Luce
As though there were a tie And obligation to posterity. We get them, bear them, breed, and nurse: What has posterity done for us. That we, lest they their rights should lose, Should trust our necks to gripe of noose? View quote
John Trumbull
Each generation takes the earth as trustees. We ought to bequeath to posterity as many forests and orchards as we have exhausted and consumed. View quote
Julius Sterling Morton