Quotes about forever
page 19

Carl Sagan photo
James Madison photo

“A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Letter to W.T. Barry http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch18s35.html (4 August 1822), in The Writings of James Madison (1910) edited by Gaillard Hunt, Vol. 9, p. 103; these words, using the older spelling "Governours", are inscribed to the left of the main entrance, Library of Congress James Madison Memorial Building.
1820s

RuPaul photo
Michael Moorcock photo

“Chaos has her moods and whims, that’s all. As I told you, she cannot remain stable. It is in her nature to be forever changing.”

“While it is in the nature of Law,” Alisaard explained, “to be forever fixed. The Balance is there to ensure that neither Law nor Chaos ever gain complete ascendancy, for the one offers sterility while the other offers only sensation.”
Book 3, Chapter 1 (p. 626)
Erekosë, The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

Alfred von Waldersee photo
Ernest Becker photo
John Witherspoon photo
Marco Rizzo photo

“Greta is built in a laboratory! She has the proper face, the proper pigtails, the proper illness, she is properly little… She and all her family settled down forever, but it is evident that they are used. After two days she shook hands with miss Christine Lagarde, who leads the IMF. She is pure laboratory creation.”

Marco Rizzo (1959) Italian politician

Rizzo (Pc): questa sinistra è tutta papista e gretina https://tv.iltempo.it/l-abitacolo/2019/05/17/video/rizzo-pc-questa-sinistra-e-tutta-papista-e-gretina-1155712, 17 May 2019

Marilyn Ferguson photo

“Another discovery: uncertainty. Not just the uncertainty of the moment, which may pass, but oceanic uncertainty, mystery that washes across our beaches forever.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Four, People Changing

Swami Vivekananda photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“Had Abraham Lincoln died from any of the numerous ills to which flesh is heir; had he reached that good old age of which his vigorous constitution and his temperate habits gave promise; had he been permitted to see the end of his great work; had the solemn curtain of death come down but gradually, we should still have been smitten with a heavy grief, and treasured his name lovingly. But dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence, killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate, for no man who knew Abraham Lincoln could hate him, but because of his fidelity to union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and his memory will be precious forever.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Fellow citizens, I end, as I began, with congratulations. We have done a good work for our race today. In doing honor to the memory of our friend and liberator, we have been doing highest honors to ourselves and those who come after us. We have been fastening ourselves to a name and fame imperishable and immortal; we have also been defending ourselves from a blighting scandal. When now it shall be said that the colored man is soulless, that he has no appreciation of benefits or benefactors; when the foul reproach of ingratitude is hurled at us, and it is attempted to scourge us beyond the range of human brotherhood, we may calmly point to the monument we have this day erected to the memory of Abraham Lincoln.
1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

Frederick Douglass photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Mohammad Hidayatullah photo
Victor Villaseñor photo
James K. Morrow photo
Slash (musician) photo
Erhard Milch photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham photo

“Our toast in general is,—Magna Charta, the British Constitution,—PITT and Liberty forever!”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

"A Son of Liberty in Bristol County, Mass.", Newport Mercury (19 May, 1766) on the repeal of the Stamp Act.
C. Rossiter, Seedtime of the Republic (New York, 1953), p. 360.
About William Pitt

Józef Piłsudski photo

“Józef Piłsudski will remain in the memory of our nation as the founder of independence and as the victorious leader who fended off a foreign assault that threatened the whole of Europe and its civilization. Józef Piłsudski served his country well, and has entered our history forever.”

Józef Piłsudski (1867–1935) Polish politician and Prime Minister

Declaration of the Sejm (Lower House) of the Polish Parliament, May 12, 1995, the 60th anniversary of Piłsudski's death. Józef Piłsudski http://members.lycos.co.uk/jozefpilsudski/index2.html
About him

F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Daniel Daly photo

“Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?”

Daniel Daly (1873–1937) United States Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipient

Battle cry at the Battle of Belleau Wood, World War I, June 1918
Who's Who in Marine Corps History: "Daniel Daly"
Compare Frederick the Great: Rogues, would you live forever? http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/wo/would.html
Source: "Sergeant Major Daniel "Dan" Joseph Daly, USMC (Deceased)", Who's Who in Marine Corps History, United States Marine Corps, 2015-09-18 https://www.mcu.usmc.mil/historydivision/Pages/Who%27s%20Who/D-F/Daly_DJ.aspx,

Lou Reed photo
Harlan Ellison photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
Margaret Cho photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Will Durant photo

“Here and everywhere is the struggle for existence, life inextricably enmeshed with war. All life living at the expense of life, every organism eating other organisms forever.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Source: Fallen Leaves (2014), Ch. 4 : On Old Age

George Gordon Byron photo

“Fare thee well! and if forever,
Still forever, fare thee well:
Even though unforgiving, never
'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Fare Thee Well http://readytogoebooks.com/LB-FTW46.htm, st. 1 (1816).

James Baldwin photo
Michel Henry photo

“So it's not the self-realization that the media existence proposes to the life, it's the escape, the opportunity for all those whose laziness, repressing their energy, make them forever dissatisfied of themselves to forget this dissatisfaction.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Michel Henry, La Barbarie, éd. Grasset, 1987, p. 244
Books on Culture and Barbarism, Barbarism (1987)
Original: (fr) Ce n'est donc pas l'autoréalisation que l'existence médiatique propose à la vie, c'est la fuite, l'occasion pour tous ceux que leur paresse, refoulant leur énergie, rend à jamais mécontents d'eux-mêmes d'oublier ce mécontentement.

William Wordsworth photo
Tanith Lee photo

“I had made vows and to spare, but the present cannot be ruled forever by the past.”

Book Two, Part II “White Mountain”, Chapter 3 (p. 283)
Quest for the White Witch (1978)

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo

“In this century we have seen into the heart of the atom. We transformed it—and history—forever. But we have also seen into the heart of the heart.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Thirteen, The Whole- Earth Conspiracy

Robert B. Reich photo
Arun Shourie photo
Sun Chunlan photo

“There must be no deserters (from the 2019-nCoV-infected containment), or they will be nailed to the pillar of historical shame forever.”

Sun Chunlan (1950) Politburo member of the Communist Party of China

Sun Chunlan (2019) cited in " Increasingly extreme measures taken in Wuhan https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/increasingly-extreme-measures-taken-in-wuhan" on The Straits Times, 8 February 2020.

Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“Captains may come and captains may go, but the administration goes on forever.”

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 5 (p. 74)

Robert Burns photo

“To see her is to love her,
And love but her forever;
For Nature made her what she is,
And never made anither!”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

Bonny Lesley
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Arthur C. Clarke photo

“Though I've often made fun of the scientists, they’ve freed us forever from the stagnation that was overtaking your race.”

The Road to the Sea, p. 298
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Han Fei photo

“No state is forever strong or forever weak. If those who uphold the law are strong, the state will be strong; if they are weak, the state will be weak.”

Han Fei (-279–-232 BC) Chinese philosopher

國無常強,無常弱。奉法者強則國強,奉法者弱則國弱。
Source: "On Having Standards", in Han Feizi: Basic Writings (2003)

Ray Bradbury photo

“All flesh is one: what matter scores;
Or color of the suit
Or if the helmet glints with blue or gold?
All is one bold achievement,
All is fine spring-found-again-in-autumn day
When juices run in antelopes along our blood, And green our flag, forever green…”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

"All flesh is one: what matter scores?" in When Elephants Last In The Dooryard Bloomed : Celebrations For Almost Any Day In The Year (1973)

Ram Dass photo

“We had gotten over the feeling that one experience was going to make you enlightened forever. We saw that it wasn't going to be that simple.
And for five years I dealt with the matter of "coming down."”

The coming down matter is what led me to the next chapter of this drama. Because after six years, I realized that no matter how ingenious my experimental designs were, and how high I got, I came down.
At one point I took five people and we locked ourselves in a building for three weeks and we took 400 micrograms of LSD every four hours. That is 2400 micrograms of LSD a day, which sounds fancy, but after your fist dose, you build a tolerance; there's a refractory period. We finally were just drinking out of the bottle, because it didn't seem to matter anymore. We'd just stay at a plateau. We were very high. What happened in those three weeks in that house, no one would ever believe, including us. And at the end of the three weeks, we walked out of the house and within a few days, we came down!
And it was a terribly frustrating experience, as if you came into the kingdom of heaven and you saw how it all was and you felt these new states of awareness, and then you got cast out again.
Be Here Now (1971)

Ram Dass photo

“I thought at that moment, Wow, I've got it made. I'm just a new beautiful being — I'm just an inner self — all I'll ever need to do is look inside and I'll know what to do and I can always trust it, and here I'll be forever.”

But two or three days later I was talking about the whole thing in the past tense. I was talking about how I "experienced" this thing, because I was back being that anxiety-neurotic, in a slightly milder form, but still, my old personality was sneaking back up on me.
Be Here Now (1971)

“People like to hold onto life in many ways, but everything is transitory. This is it, right now. Youth doesn’t last forever, beauty doesn’t last forever, so appreciate it for the moment.”

Gronk (artist) (1954) American artist

On the loss of site-specific artwork in “Gronk by Marisela Norte” https://bombmagazine.org/articles/gronk/ in BOMB Magazine (2007 Jan 1)

Jack Kirby photo

“I wasn't the kind of student that Pratt was looking for. They wanted people who would work on something forever. I didn't want to work on any project forever. I intended to get things done.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

Source: "'I've Never Done Anything Halfheartedly'". The Comics Journal. Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics Books (134). February 1990. Reprinted in George, Milo, ed. (2002). The Comics Journal Library, Volume One: Jack Kirby. Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics Books. p. 22.

James K. Morrow photo
James K. Morrow photo
Diane Ackerman photo
Warren Farrell photo

“Careers are for Now, Children are Forever.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 113

Guy P. Harrison photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Slavery is disheartening; but Nature is not so helpless but it can rid itself of every last wrong. But the spasms of nature are centuries and ages and will tax the faith of short-lived men. Slowly, slowly the Avenger comes, but comes surely. The proverbs of the nations affirm these delays, but affirm the arrival. They say, "God may consent, but not forever."”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

The delay of the Divine Justice — this was the meaning and soul of the Greek Tragedy, — this was the soul of their religion.
"The Fugitive Slave Law", a lecture in New York City (7 March 1854), The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1904), p. 238

Ron English photo

“Memories forever remake themselves.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

Ron English photo

“Even if you live to one hundred, you’ll still be dead forever.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Death and the Eternal Forever (2014)

Ron English photo

“The end of the world goes on forever.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

Ron English photo

“You’re only young forever.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

Chiang Kai-shek photo

“If when I die, I am still a dictator, I will certainly go down into the oblivion of all dictators. If, on the other hand, I succeed in establishing a truly stable foundation for a democratic government, I will live forever in every home in China.”

Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) Chinese politician and military leader

Taiwan's Modernization: Americanization and Modernizing Confucian Manifestations, Wei-Bin Zhang, 2003, World Scientific, 2003, 177, 9814486132, 23 May 2021 https://books.google.com/books?id=J3BpDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA177,

Mary Ruwart photo
Ishirō Honda photo
Megan Whalen Turner photo

“Nothing mortals make lasts; nothing the gods make endures forever.”

An unnamed goddess
The Queen of Attolia (2000)

Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Samuel Beckett photo
Isaac Asimov photo

“Scientific theories can always be improved and are improved. That is one of the glories of science. It is the authoritarian view of the Universe that is frozen in stone and cannot be changed, so that once it is wrong, it is wrong forever.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"The Nearest Star" (1989) (reprinted in The Secret of the Universe (1992), p. 82)
General sources

“And now I think about it, I never really wanted to live forever. I just want to live well.”

Source: Between the Strokes of Night (1985), Chapter 29 (p. 342)

George W. Bush photo

“Twenty years ago, we all found in different ways, in different places, but all at the same moment, that our lives would be changed forever.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2020's, Speech during a 9/11 commemoration at the Flight 93 National Memorial

Menotti Lerro photo

“Philosophy will fail forever its primary aim because it searches for something that does not exist.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

La filosofia fallirà per sempre il suo primario obiettivo, poiché ricerca qualcosa che non esiste.

Example (musician) photo

“If we're meant to be together,
change the way you see the weather
Live for now, forget forever”

Example (musician) (1982) English rapper and singer

"Midnight Run" (song)
("Midnight Run", Official video on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwYGi7YG4Js
(+ "Midnight Run", a lyrics version on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPthxsXgSl4
(+ "Midnight Run" (Wilkinson Remix on YouTube)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt_38kriBBg
(+ "Midnight Run" (Wideboys Remix on YouTube)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qwxq4qxEqQ
Studio albums, Playing in the Shadows (2011)

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Benjamin Creme photo

“We now have no option but to end war forever because with the nuclear bombs and armament today, we can destroy all life... it's up to us. We have to do it. We have to make the decision.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The State of the World 2010, public lecture in New York City, USA, (July 2010)

Marie Brenner photo

“Every life has moments that change us forever and make us who we are.”

Marie Brenner (1949) About someone's LIFE and Hers

Source: Apples and Oranges https://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/non-fiction/79-apples-a-oranges-brenner?start=3

Michael Moorcock photo
Mikheil Saakashvili photo

“Georgia's character - now and forever - celebrates tolerance, embraces diversity, relishes lively and open debate, and above all, respects liberty and human dignity. Georgia is a democracy, because above all - its national identity is rooted in the traditions of democracy.”

Mikheil Saakashvili (1967) Georgian-Ukrainian politician, President of Georgia and Governor of Odessa

Remarks to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (2005)
Source: As quoted in "Remarks of the President of Georgia H.E. Mikheil Saakashvili to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe" https://reliefweb.int/report/georgia/remarks-president-georgia-he-mikheil-saakashvili-parliamentary-assembly-council (26 January 2005), ReliefWeb

Arthur C. Clarke photo
Mia Mottley photo

“Our people humanized the violent, inhumane slave plantation society that the British colonialists had established, (but) we are still faced with the insidious nature of a culture that is intended to dehumanize black people wherever black or blackness is found, and our parliaments therefore, while we shall be in the vanguard of removing all laws of discrimination, it is the mental emancipation that shall forever always matter.”

Mia Mottley (1965) prime minister of Barbados

Mia Mottley (2021) cited in: " Mia Mottley: Barbados’ first female leader on a mission to transform island https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/03/mia-mottley-barbados-first-female-leader-mission-to-transform-island" in The Guardian, 3 December 2021.

Robert Frost photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Ivan Kozhedub photo

“My life is forever connected with aviation. I cannot live without the sky. I continue to improve my flying skills on modern domestic aircraft, I dream that, perhaps, I will have to lift a peaceful aircraft into space.”

Ivan Kozhedub (1920–1991) Soviet aviator, thrice hero of the Soviet Union

Source: As quoted in his memoirs in 1969, ""Без боя не уйду". Как летчик-ас Кожедуб сбивал вражеские самолеты" https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/8658487

Jay Samit photo

“You cannot live forever, but what you create and build in your lifetime can.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)

“We are trying to help in every way we can, and above all in order to prevent people from choosing the solution of leaving the country forever, and in many cases risking their lives trying to cross the ocean.”

Antoine Chbeir (1961) Lebanese cleric, Maronite bishop of Latakia

Source: Bishop Chbeir – “The end of the war in Syria is in the hands of the international community” https://acninternational.org/bishop-chbeir-the-end-of-the-war-in-syria-is-in-the-hands-of-the-international-community/ (23 March 2018)

Jonathan Bailey photo

“Theatre has often saved the day for me and that’s why I’ll forever think I’m a theatre actor more than anything else.”

Jonathan Bailey (1988) British actor

"Jonathan Bailey: Jonathan Bailey: brilliant from top to bottom" in The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jonathan-bailey-interview-brilliant-from-top-to-bottom-z6k8fct79 (20 December 2020)

Ron English photo

“Death would be better if it weren’t forever.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

Joe Biden photo

“We cannot bury pain and trauma forever. As I said in Tulsa, great nations do not hide from their histories. We are a great nation, and by reckoning with and remedying the injustices of the past, America will become greater still.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2022, June 2022, Statement by President Joe Biden on the 101st Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre

Vladimir Zhirinovsky photo

“I grew up in a world where there was no warmth - not from my parents, not from my friends or teachers. I felt somehow superfluous, forever in the way, an object of criticism.”

Vladimir Zhirinovsky (1946–2022) Russian politician and political activist

"OBITUARY Vladimir Zhirinovsky, dark showman of the Russian far right" in Reuters https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/obituary-vladimir-zhirinovsky-dark-showman-russian-far-right-2022-04-06/

Kim Stanley Robinson photo