Herodotus Ἡρόδοτος

c. 430 BC · Halicarnassus, ancient Greece

This is the setting out of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, so that what people have done may not fade with time.

Ἡροδότου Ἁλικαρνησσέος ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις ἥδε, ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται

Histories, the first sentence

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Wang Xizhi 王羲之

March 3, 353 · Eastern Jin China

Those who come after will look at us as we now look at those before. How sad!

後之視今，亦猶今之視昔。悲夫！

"Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection"

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Omar Khayyam عمر خیام

11th–12th century · Nishapur, Persia

Come, friend, let us not eat tomorrow's sorrow. Let us count this one moment of life as plunder. Tomorrow, when we leave this crumbling inn, we shall be level with those dead seven thousand years.

ای دوست بیا تا غم فردا نخوریم وین یکدم عمر را غنیمت شمریم فردا که ازین دیر فنا درگذریم با هفت هزار سالگان سر بسریم

A quatrain (rubai) handed down under Khayyam's name

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Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus

23 BC · Rome

I shall not wholly die: a great part of me will escape the goddess of death.

Non omnis moriar multaque pars mei uitabit Libitinam

Odes 3.30

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Uchimura Kanzo 内村鑑三

1894 · Meiji–Showa Japan

What, then, is the greatest legacy? As I see it, there is a legacy a person can leave to those who come after, one that anyone can leave, that brings only good and no harm. And what is it? I believe it is a brave and noble life.

それならば最大遺物とはなんであるか。私が考えてみますに人間が後世に遺すことのできる、ソウしてこれは誰にも遺すことのできるところの遺物で、利益ばかりあって害のない遺物がある。それは何であるかならば勇ましい高尚なる生涯であると思います。

The lecture "The Greatest Legacy" (Kosei e no saidai ibutsu)

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1 in 100 Billion · The social network of those who came before us