“We are a kind of posterity in respect to them.”
Letter to William Strahan (1745); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Epistles
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Benjamin Franklin 183
American author, printer, political theorist, politician, p… 1706–1790Related quotes
Colin Serjent, "Blake's 08, http://www.catalystmedia.org.uk/issues/nerve9/peter_blake.php Nerve, Autumn 2006
On producing serigraph prints to celebrate Liverpool as the 2008 European Capital of Culture.
Art
“We are always doing something for Posterity, but I would fain see Posterity do something for us.”
No. 587 (20 August 1714).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
“I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law”
As quoted in The Harper Book of Quotations (1993) edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry, p. 420
Context: I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.
In a debate in the Irish House of Commons on the vote of a grant which was recommended by Sir John Parnell, Chancellor of the Exchequer, as one not likely to be felt burdensome for many years to come, it was observed in reply that the House had no right to load posterity with a debt for what could in no degree operate to their advantage. This quotation was Sir Boyle's response.
[Barrington, Jonah, Personal sketches and recollections of his own times, Chapter XVII https://archive.org/details/personalsketche06barrgoog]
“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.”
1770s, Common Sense (1776)
“We should not miss the present opportunity or we shall be blamed by posterity.”
Quoted in "Enter Japan" - "Time Magazine" article - July 8, 1940
“We cannot defer this responsibility to posterity. Time will not wait.”
UN Address (1999)
Context: We cannot defer this responsibility to posterity. Time will not wait. Democracy, civilization itself, is at stake. Within the next few years we must change the basic structure of our global community from the present anarchic system of war and ever more destructive weaponry to a new system governed by a democratic UN federation.
Respect For Things (page 81)
Not Always So, practicing the true spirit of Zen (2002)