Long-Term Influence Quotes

When I'm asked about legacy, I say it's too early to talk about legacy.

The influence of one's parents is powerful and permanent.

Some people care about their work lasting forever - I have little interest in it.

I want to affect culture. I want to have my mark on everything. I give examples of people like Bill Cosby, Quincy Jones - those are the people who I look up to. The game wouldn't be the same without them. What happens in the course of 5 years isn't really important to me. I care about what they'll say about me in 50 years.

This sounds corny, but I once told a kid when I was in a the library conference, the best - not the best, what I really hope for is that someday 20, 30 years from now, some kid, 12-year-old, 15-year-old, in Des Moines will be going through the stacks, if they have stacks anymore - they probably won't - and find a book of mine and get something from it.

I don't want people to receive me because I scored 20 points. I want it to be because I made an impression on them that lasts forever.

If the American people don't love me, their descendants will.

The Internet has been the most fundamental change during my lifetime and for hundreds of years.

I'm an old-school, embarrassing Joni Mitchell fan. Her music made a hook in my soul and hasn't let go for all these years. I even sing her songs as lullabies to my kids.

Please think about your legacy, because you're writing it every day.

It will stick with you and show up for better or worse in spite of all you or anyone else can do.

So mothers everywhere take heart. The indoctrination you administer now may have unanticipated positive effects years later.

My legacy isn't about what I did playing football, but how I use the opportunities that came from playing football.

No artist knows in his own lifetime whether what he does will be the slightest good, because it takes at least seventy-five to a hundred years before the thing begins to sort itself out.

Like a lot of us, sometimes I'm preaching to the choir, and sometimes my voice doesn't even get heard at all. Sometimes I think that what I'm writing now might not even have an impact for the next three or four generations. Sometimes I sit there and write, and I think, "It'll be two hundred years before they get what I'm writing about."

At the end of the day, our work is what endures.

I want to make a serious legacy.

Posterity is something I'm a big fan of because that's how you leave your legacy. Not to sound pompous, but just to be truthful.

A book may lie dormant for fifty years or for two thousand years in a forgotten corner of a library, only to reveal, upon being opened, the marvels or the abysses that it contains, or the line that seems to have been written for me alone. In this respect the writer is not different from any other human being: whatever we say or do can have far-reaching consequences.

Over time, is it easier or harder to sustain your influence within your organization? With charisma alone, influence becomes increasingly more difficult to sustain. With character, as time passes, influence builds and requires less work to sustain.

Whenever I held my newborn baby in my arms, I used to think that what I said and did to him could have an influence not only on him but on all whom he met, not only for a day or a month or a year, but for all eternity - a very challenging and exciting thought for a mother.

Texting has added a new dimension to language use, but its long-term impact is negligible. It is not a disaster.

It's become a lot bigger than just winning championships. It's about inspiring hopefully millions at some point in my career.

No single crisis shapes a generation; but a succession of events, each one bringing its shaping blows to bear.

I saw what Purple meant to people and I still hear it now when I'm in Europe. I'm always shocked that I'm still asked about Purple because it was such a long time ago.