Let’s say this together: “Great me no greats”, and leave this grading to posterity.
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“A Poet’s Own Way”, p. 202Randall Jarrell
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The small are always dependent on the great; they are “small” precisely because they think they are independent. The great thinker is one who can hear what is greatest in the work of other “greats” and who can transform it in an original manner.
Martin Heidegger
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
Posterity alone rightly judges kings. Posterity alone has the right to accord or withhold honors.
Napoleon Bonaparte
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?John Trumbull
The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity—unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity.
Henry Clay
Jarrell, Randall
Jarry, Alfred
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