12 Orson Scott Card Quotes on Legacy

Orson Scott Card quotes on legacy

44. He is dead...because we have forgotten him.

129. Life, so long waited for, and not until today could she be sure that she would be, not the last of her tribe, but the first.

171. I thought: if I could just make a good family, if I could just learn to be to a mother to the children, their whole lives, what [he] was, coming so late into ours, then that would mean more in the long run, it would be a finer accomplishment than anything I could ever do with my mind or my hands.

199. Only you have the power to kill me completely. Only you have the power to make it so my death means nothing, so that all my people die after me and there is no one left to remember. Why shouldn't I leave my testament with you alone? Only you will decide whether or not it has any worth.

205. Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear.

235. How do we remember? Is the brain a jar that holds our memories? Then when we die, does the jar break? Are our memories spilled on the ground and lost? Or is the brain a map that leads down twisted paths and into hidden corners? Then when we die, the map is lost but perhaps some explorer could wander through that strange landscape and find out the hiding places of our misplaced memories.

410. That's what survival means, for me. I thought it was a matter of staying alive, but it isn't. Nobody lives forever anyway. It's how you're remembered. It's what your children thought of you, what they think of you after you're dead. That's survival. And if there's one thing that can truly be said about me, it's this: I survive.

670. Death isn't the worst thing in the world Yes it is, you lose everything You keep your memories, in the end that's all we have

750. All that you do is mortal - it is all born. It all dies. And yet you struggle against mortality and have overcome it, building up tremendous stores of shared knowledge through your finite books and your finite words. You put frames on everything Mass insanity, then. But it explains nothing about why you worship. You must come here to mock us. Not to mock you. To envy you Then die

778. First we try to preserve ourselves, until we see that we can't. Then we try to preserve our children, until we see we can't. Then we act to preserve our kin, and then our village or tribe, and when we see we can't preserve even them, then we act in order to preserve our memory. And if we can't do that, what is left? We finally have the perspective of trying to act for the good of humanity as a whole Or despairing

1024. A house of your own soon enough It was this house I wanted to belong in. He hates me now,, and ill never have a chance again to make it right Give him time to see you as a man on your own, and he'll come around, you'll see. Now me. He wont forgive me. I look too much like grandfather, don't you see? I never had a chance here

1063. I am going to write you into a story someday, my friend. Remember that the ultimate power is mine. You may decide what you will do in this life, up to the point. But I will decide what others think of you, and not just now but long after you're dead. (The Tales of Alvin Maker)