Top 100 Legacy Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”

— Abraham Lincoln

52. “We get one opportunity in life, one chance at life to do whatever you’re going to do, and lay your foundation and make whatever mark you’re going to make. Whatever legacy you’re going to leave; leave your legacy!”

— Ray Lewis

53. “Hope will never be silent.”

— Harvey Milk

54. “When our hearts turn to our ancestors, something changes inside us. We feel part of something greater than ourselves. Our inborn yearnings for family connections are fulfilled when we are linked to our ancestors...”

— Russell M. Nelson

55. “Leave this world a little better than you found it.”

— Robert Baden-Powell

56. “I don’t wanna gain the whole world and lose my soul.”

— TobyMac

57. “The value of life is not in its duration, but in its donation.”

— Myles Munroe

58. “I’d rather die enormous than live dormant.”

— Jay-Z

59. “Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

60. “What really matters are the lives you touch along the way and how you finish your journey.”

— Nick Vujicic

61. “The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

62. “O man, whoever you are and wherever you come from, for I know you will come, I am Cyrus who won the Persians their empire. Do not therefore begrudge me this bit of earth that covers my bones.”

— Cyrus the Great

63. “It is not how you start the race or where you are during the race-it is how you cross the finish line that will matter.”

— Robert D. Hales

64. “Everything you gain in life will rot and fall apart, and all that will be left of you is what was in your heart.”

— Jim Carrey

65. “If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets as Raphael painted pictures, sweep streets as Michelangelo carved marble, sweep streets as Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

66. “I want to try the impossible to show that it can be done.”

— Terry Fox

67. “The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.”

— Corrie ten Boom

68. “If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

69. “Make the world a better place because you have lived in it.”

— Edgar Cayce

70. “Lead such a life, that, when you die, the people may mourn you, and while you are alive they long for your company.”

— Ali ibn Abi Talib

71. “Enter to learn; depart to serve.”

— Mary McLeod Bethune

72. “If you have achieved any level of success, then pour it into someone else. Success is not success without a successor.”

— T.D. Jakes

73. “When you go home, tell them of us and say, for their tomorrow we gave our today.”

— John Maxwell Edmonds

74. “It is not what you gather but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.”

— Helen Walton

75. “No one gets remembered for the things they didn’t do.”

— Frank Turner

76. “One day you’ll leave this world behind, so live a life you will remember.”

— Avicii

77. “I am the dream and the hope of the slave.”

— Maya Angelou

78. “I can’t go back and change the hands of time but what I can do is create a new legacy.”

— Eric Thomas

79. “Create your legacy, and pass the baton.”

— Billie Jean King

80. “I don’t want to be the next Michael Jordan, I only want to be Kobe Bryant.”

— Kobe Bryant

81. “May you grow up to be righteous, may you grow up to be true. May you always know the truth and see the lights surrounding you. May you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong. May you stay forever young.”

— Bob Dylan

82. “One must care about a world one will not see.”

— Bertrand Russell

83. “Leadership is not about the next election, it’s about the next generation.”

— Simon Sinek

84. “What you do today creates every tomorrow.”

— Oprah Winfrey

85. “The measure of your life will not be in what you accumulate, but in what you give away.”

— Wayne W. Dyer

86. “Write what should not be forgotten.”

— Isabel Allende

87. “A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.”

— Charles H. Spurgeon

88. “The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.”

— Kalu Ndukwe Kalu

89. “You must believe in yourself enough to be the person now that others will remember you for later.”

— Greg Plitt

90. “It’s not what you take when you leave this world behind you. It’s what you leave behind you when you go.”

— Randy Travis

91. “Live amongst people in such a manner that if you die they weep over you and if you are alive they crave for your company.”

— Ali ibn Abi Talib

92. “Don’t be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams.”

— Derek Sivers

93. “Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom. Of course the task will not be easy. But not to do this would be a crime against humanity, against which I ask all humanity now to rise up.”

— Nelson Mandela

94. “The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.”

— William Shakespeare

95. “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”

— Nelson Mandela

96. “Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance.”

— Ruth E. Renkel

97. “Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought a flower would grow.”

— Abraham Lincoln

98. “Your life matters. You can’t live through a day without making an impact on the world. And what’s most important is to think about the impact of your actions on the world around you.”

— Jane Goodall

99. “As a whole forest becomes fragrant by the existence of a single tree with sweet-smelling blossoms in it, so a family becomes famous by the birth of a virtuous son.”

— Chanakya

100. “Be what you wish your children to be. Parents have perpetuated by precept and example their own stamp of character to their posterity.”

— Ellen G. White