G. H. Hardy Quotes

I am aware of the words 'national treasure' being attached to me occasionally. It just makes me feel old.

Josephine Baker is such an iconic woman that once you've touched her and she has touched you, it never goes away. I'm stuck with her. I'm sure 50 years from now, when they write my obituary, they will mention that I played Josephine Baker. It'll be on my epitaph.

With sincere modesty, if there is such a thing, I have never thought of legacy at all. I am always grateful if people like what I have done. A legacy is something no one can forsee.

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

When I think of the library of Alexandria and of the fact that, although it burnt down, people continue to sort the letters of the alphabet according to that tradition, then that makes certain expressions of modernity, even of interventions on the textual level, possible.

What is true for book publishing is true for civilization: the books that survive the test of time are humanity's backlist, our collective memory.

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

No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.

Books are not men and yet they stay alive.

Audiences aren't going to get rid of me. One thing I can say, with absolute certainty, is that my shows will still be performed when I'm dead, buried and forgotten. They're going to absolutely outlive me, which is a wonderful thing to think about.

I'm always happy to be a part of history. When you're a part of history, you live forever. 'The T.A.M.I. Show' will live forever because now it's brand new. We did that 40-odd years ago, and people are really starting to see it now. I was a part of history when I recorded that show.

When I'm dead, I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do. I don't wanna get ideas above my station, but why shouldn't this be comparable? Pop music was supposed to be a flash in the pan, but here we are 50 years later, and it means something to us, and it always will do. It's incredibly important.

… the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity.

To think I thought you could lose your place in history.

The idea of a piece of literature as a vessel that could contain your life and lived after you had died and been forgotten struck me as akin to artificial intelligence.

In two thousand years all our generals and politicians may be forgotten, but Einstein and Madame Curie and Bernard Shaw and Stravinsky will keep the memory of our age alive.

Ideas are intangible forces, but they have more power than the physical brains that give birth to them. They have the power to live on, after the brain that creates them has returned to dust.

You may make something you don't think is very important during your lifetime and it'll last for a thousand years.

I love how pop culture shapes a generation. The trends, fashion and events all play a key part in how we live our present lives, and will mark how we will be remembered in the future.

At first I didn’t give a damn to go down in history. I wanted to win. But the more I won, the more I thought about leaving something behind. Yes, it's as important as hell to me. I want to leave something that people will remember me by. Of course, a lot of boxers want to do that. But it's not easy. Take Larry Holmes, he was the big man after Muhammad Ali, he wanted to emulate him, but for some reason the public didn’t take him like they did to Ali. I think people won’t fully understand what I contributed to the sport for years.

Till the Future dares Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be An echo and a light unto eternity!

Two things significantly distinguish human beings from the other animals; an interest in the past and the possibility of language. Brought together they make a third: Art. The invisible city not calculated to exist. Beyond the lofty pretensions of the merely ceremonial, long after the dramatic connivings of plitical life, like it or not, it remains. Time past eternally present and undestroyed.

Art is the suitcase of history, carrying the essentials. Art is the life buoy of history. Art is seed, art is memory, art is vaccine.

Only the great generalizations survive. The sharp words of the Declaration of Independence, lampooned then and since as 'glittering generalities,' have turned out blazing ubiquities that will burn forever and ever.

Every image of the past that is not recognised by the present as one of its own threatens to disappear irretrievably.