People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
--
Volume iii, page 274.Edmund Burke
There is a similar quote by Edmund Burke "People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.", but the relationship between them is unclear.
George Santayana
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.
Clarence Darrow
No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward a time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more "modern," but more ancient than those of our Revolutionary ancestors.
Calvin Coolidge
Posterity always degenerates till it becomes our ancestors.
Horace Walpole
Sir, very few people reach posterity. Who amongst us may arrive at that destination I presume not to vaticinate. Posterity is a most limited assembly. Those gentlemen who reach posterity are not much more numerous than the planets.
Benjamin Disraeli
Burke, Edmund
Burke, James (science historian)
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