Greatest Generations Quotes & Sayings

This isn't just about today, this about generations to come. And you've got a chance to be the greatest conservation President since Theodore Roosevelt, and I think he's done it. — Bruce Babbitt

It is perhaps my greatest hope, Mr. President, that some day we'll consider tax and spending measures with no one else in mind but future generations of American taxpayers. We're tying a millstone of debt around their necks, and it is a grave mistake. — John McCain

Men can see the greatest miracles and miss the glory of God. What generation was ever favored with miracles as Jesus' generations was? Yet that generation crucified the Son of God! — Tom Wells

Greatest generation came through some stuff that we can't even imagine - the Depression, World War I - and all they wanted after that was a breather and a calm and a quiet life, and they get us. — P. J. O'Rourke

Not only was he one of history's greatest leaders, Abraham Lincoln was one of history's most devoted readers. Doris Kearns Goodwin writes of Lincoln, "Books became his academy, his college. The printed word united his mind with the great minds of generations past. — Pat Williams

I was robbed, Errin." He strokes my face with his thumb before turning it back to him. "Of my life. Of my inheritance. Snuffed out at barely twenty-two years old. I have spent five hundred years asleep. I woke to nothing. The legacy my family spent generations building is ash, scattered to the wind. I was promised a kingdom," he snarls. "I was promised the greatest kingdom the world had ever known. And I will have one. If it means cobbling one together from the ruins of Lormere and Tregellan. — Melinda Salisbury

It's not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for. — Robert Kiyosaki

The generation that has the greatest access to knowledge in the history of mankind is the one that cares the least about it. — James St. James

The greatest significance of the present student generation is that it is through them that the point of view of the subjugated is finally and inexorably being expressed. — James A. Baldwin

The tale of America coming out of the Great Depression and not only surviving but actually transforming itself into an economic giant is the stuff of legend. But the part that gives me goose bumps is what we did with all that wealth: over several generations, our country built the greatest middle class the world had ever known. We built it ourselves, using our own hard work and the tools of government to open up more opportunities for millions of people. We used it all - tax policy, investments in public education, new infrastructure, support for research, rules that protected consumers and investors, antitrust laws - to promote and expand our middle class. The spectacular, shoot-off-the-fireworks fact is that we succeeded. — Elizabeth Warren

PPLI is one of the greatest investment products out there for those who want to protect their money from unnecessary taxation and leave it for future generations. — Jonathan Feldman

Being a dad is quite rewarding and even magical at times. It is our greatest chance to do something right in our lives that will keep making the world a brighter place even generations after we are gone. — Timothy Pina

The presence of the blacks is the greatest evil that threatens the United States. They increase, in the Gulf States, faster than do the whites. They cannot be kept for ever in slavery, since the tendencies of the modern world run strongly the other way. They cannot be absorbed into the white population, for the whites will not intermarry with them, not even in the North where they have been free for two generations. Once freed, they would be more dangerous than now, because they would not long submit to be debarred from political rights. A terrible struggle would ensue. — James Bryce

We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve nowadays are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our nation's uniform. — George W. Bush

This story began with a single, starving family, hunted and alone on the plains of Mongolia - and ends with Kublai Khan ruling an empire larger than that of Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. Over just three generations, that is simply the greatest rags-to-riches tale in human history. — Conn Iggulden

I believe in America. I believe in her purpose and her promise. I believe her best days have not yet been lived. I believe her greatest deeds are reserved for the generations to come. — Rick Perry

When school district officials literally laughed at the notion that the Me Generation - this was the label for my generation - would jump at the chance to teach in urban and rural communities, their concerns, too, went unheard. My very greatest asset was that I simply did not understand what was impossible. — Wendy Kopp

Why does every generation have to think that he lives in the period with the greatest turbulence? — Henry Mintzberg

Today I have lost one of my dearest friends, England one of her greatest men. Keith Joseph understood that it was necessary to win again the intellectual argument for freedom, and that to do this we must start from first principles. He was in many ways an unlikely revolutionary. For all his towering intellect, he was deeply humble. He spoke out boldly, however hostile the audience. Yet he hated to give offence. Above all, his integrity shone out in everything he said and did. His best memorial lies in the younger generations of politicians whom he inspired. But for me he is irreplaceable. — Margaret Thatcher

The greatest danger to the liberal vision are facts about the consequences of liberalism itself and the laws, policies, and ways of life that the left has spawned. That the black family, which survived centuries of slavery and generations of discrimination, has disintegrated in the wake of the liberal welfare states is only one example. — Thomas Sowell

Kaitlin said, "I'm so sick of that 'Greatest Generation' crap. We finally drove a silver nail through the heart of Generation X, only to have this new monster rear its head. And I'm soooooo sick of Tom Hanks looking earnest all the time. They should make a Tom Hanks movie where Tom kills off Greatest Generation figureheads one by one."
Bree arrived on cue: "And then he starts killing other generations. He becomes this supernova of hate
all he wants to do is destroy."
"Hate clings to him like a rich, lathery shampoo. His lungs secrete it like anthrax foam."
Mom lost it. "Stop it! All of you! Tom Hanks is a fine actor who would never hurt anybody. At least not onscreen."
I thought, 'Hey, didn't Tom Hanks mow down half of Chicago in "Road to Perdition?"' Well, whatever. — Douglas Coupland

Today the ministry of culture is the ministry of defense. A hundred thousand Jews are fighting for their people's freedom - that is the greatest human creation in our era. It will serve as a source for literature and art for generations to come. [Answering question, why the government had not set up a ministry of culture] — David Ben-Gurion

No generation can do another generation's work for it. What we human beings can do at most is to mark out the pathway a little clearer for the generations to come after, and put legible signboards at the points where the greatest dangers have threatened us, in the hope that our posterity will read, understand, and be warned. — Joseph Alexander Leighton

The soil is actually the greatest technology we have for adapting to climate change. And I feel it's our generation's duty to build it back up. — Jason Mraz

One of the greatest failures of every generation is that it refuses to read the minutes of the last meeting. — David A. Noebel

The joining together of a man and a woman to be legally and lawfully wed not only is preparation for future generations to inherit the earth, but it also brings the greatest joy and satisfaction that can be found in this mortal experience. — L. Tom Perry

Nuclear disarmament is one of the greatest legacies we can pass on to future generations. — Ban Ki-moon

Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire; what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation; what led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause. Hope is what led me here today
with a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have courage to remake the world as it should be. [January 3, 2008] — Barack Obama

The highly motivated young people who comprise the backbone of our military force truly are taking their place as one of America's greatest generations. — Trent Lott

The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty. — Seneca.

Lonesome Dove is a great book that had the rare fortune of being made into a great movie. And now, through Bill Wittliff's photographs, we have a third generation of Lonesome Dove artistry. The same creative power and conviction that allowed Larry McMurtry to transform a workaday scenario for an unproduced screenplay into one of the greatest novels of our time, and that transformed that novel into the greatest western movie ever made, are on display in this collection. A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove is a masterpiece begot by a masterpiece begot by a masterpiece. — Stephen Harrigan

The greatest of human inventions is the library, a vast repository of collective memory far larger than any single mind can hold. Written memory becomes fixed in time, regardless of the distortion it contains, and the adventures we recount on paper are there to be reexperienced by those who are not oneself, the writer. So long as one's narrative survives, one's ideas and versions of history are passed along, like genetic code, to ensuing generations. Control what goes into the library, what becomes the available record, and you control what the future thinks. — Tony Eprile

You have delivered up our holy German Fatherland to one of the greatest demagogues of all time. I solemnly prophesy that this accursed man will cast our Reich into the abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery. Future generations will damn you in your grave for what you have done. — Erich Ludendorff

The future of life on earth depends on our ability to take action. Many individuals are doing what they can, but real success can only come if there's a change in our societies and our economics and in our politics. I've been lucky in my lifetime to see some of the greatest spectacles that the natural world has to offer. Surely we have a responsibility to leave for future generations a planet that is healthy, inhabitable by all species — David Attenborough

Money is one of the greatest instruments of freedom ever invented by man. It is money which in existing society opens an astounding range of choice to the poor man, a range greater than that which not many generations ago was open to the wealthy — Friedrich August Von Hayek

Violence against women is the single greatest human rights violation of our generation, — Patrick Stewart

One of the greatest dignities of humankind is that each successive generation is invested in the welfare of each new generation. — Fred Rogers

This is the rollcall of evolution happening in the space of a few generations, the greatest loss of living things that make up our biodiversity since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. — Peter Garrett

It is my fault, and the fault of everyone of my generation. I wonder what the future generations will say about us. My grandparents suffered through the Depression, World War II, then came home to build the greatest middle class in human history. Lord knows they weren't perfect, but they sure came closest to the American dream. Then my parents' generation came along and f***ed it all up - the baby boomers, the "me" generation. And then you got us. Yeah, we stopped the Zombie menace, but we're the ones who let it become a menace in the first place. At least we're cleaning up our own mess, and maybe that's the best epitaph to hope for. 'Generation Z, they cleaned up their own mess. — Max Brooks

The greatest hope most Americans - including Republicans - had when Barack Obama was elected president was that the election of a black person as the country's president would reduce, if not come close to eliminating, the racial tensions that have plagued America for generations. — Dennis Prager

One of the greatest failures of our generation is not living out the biblical precepts which we so clearly articulate. — Ravi Zacharias