Cato the Elder Quotes

I don't give a toss about being remembered after my death.

When I'm dead are they going to remember me ? I don't really think about it, it's up to them. When I'm dead, who cares ? I don't.

Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it; or we may liken it to a torch, which nothing but the last spark of life can light up; or we may compare it to the trumpet of the archangel, for it is blown over the dead; but unlike that awful blast, it is of earth, not of heaven, and can neither rouse nor raise us.

After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.

I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have one.

I can't be a legend yet. I'm not dead.

I hope when I'm dead I'll be considered an icon, though.

I'm lucky. Usually you're dead to get your own museum, but I'm still alive to see mine.

Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.

Of all the delusions that existed, Posthumous Fame was the greatest.

Oh, you know, your legacy's all you're gonna be remembered by.

It doesn't worry me how I'm remembered.

Everyone dies, and I am not, you know, I don't believe in the Homeric idea that, you know, immortality comes by, you know, having odes sung about you over the centuries, you know?

How prudently most men creep into nameless graves, while now and then one or two forget themselves into immortality.

I like to think of my shining tombstone. It gives me, as you might say, something to live for.

Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.

You hope people are going to be listening to you after you're gone. And they like you better after you're gone.

I don't think about my legacy, if indeed, I have one.

Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.

The only greatness for man is immortality.

I suppose that every one of us hopes secretly for immortality; to leave, I mean, a name behind him which will live forever in this world, whatever he may be doing, himself, in the next.

It's not whether you win or lose, it's how many people remember you when you die.

My audience is going to die before I do.

Age makes all things greater after their death; a name comes to the tongue easier from the grave.

Of present fame think little, and of future less; the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.