Quotes about posterity

We are always doing, says he, something for posterity, but I would see posterity do something for us.

— Joseph Addison

After being Turned Down by numerous Publishers, he had decided to write for Posterity.

— George Ade

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

— Jorge Luis Borges

Posterity is as likely to be wrong as anybody else.

— Heywood Broun

A blot in thy escutcheon to all futurity.

— Miguel De Cervantes

History is fond of her grandchildren, for it offers them the marrow of the bones, which the previous generation had hurt its hands in breaking.

— Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky

Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity; and none will do it enthusiastically. Posterity has done nothing for us; and theorize on it as we may, practically we shall do very little for it, unless we are made to think we are at the same time doing something for ourselves.

— Abraham Lincoln

Men of genius are not to be analyzed by commonplace rules. The rest of us who have been or are leaders, more commonplace in our quality, will do well to remember two things. One is never to forget posterity when devising a policy. The other is never to think of posterity when making a speech.

— Robert Menzies

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.

— Thomas Paine

Posterity gives every man his true value.

— Publius Cornelius Tacitus