Monuments

"The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power."

"Baltimore uprooted General Lee under the cover of night. New Orleans removed its four Confederate statues to mixed reactions—some voicing relief, others, disapproval. And with the violence that followed the events in Charlottesville, when white nationalists killed one counter-protestor and injured 19 more, the question of how America deals with its history of racism has continued to grow in urgency."

"There’s no easy answer when the monument in question is carved into a mountain, when Confederate generals continue to provoke strong emotions. What the debate boils down to is whose version of history will endure. And even when you have a 1,000-foot-granite wall at your disposal, it will never be enough space to capture the complexity of the nation’s centuries-long struggle with the legacy of slavery."

"He made him a hut, wherein he did put The carcass of Robinson Crusoe. O poor Robinson Crusoe!"

"Tombs are the clothes of the dead. A grave is but a plain suit, and a rich monument is one embroidered."

"The righteous require no monuments; their lives and their teachings are their monuments."

"My engagements will not permit me to be present, and I believe if there I could not add anything material to the information existing on the subject. I think it wiser, moreover, not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered."

"Soldats, du haut ces Pyramide quarante siècles vous contemplent."

"Where London's column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies."

"Jove, thou regent of the skies."

"The tap'ring pyramid, the Egyptian's pride, And wonder of the world, whose spiky top Has wounded the thick cloud."

"Gold once out of the earth is no more due unto it; what was unreasonably committed to the ground, is reasonably resumed from it; let monuments and rich fabricks, not riches, adorn men's ashes."

"To extend our memories by monuments, whose death we daily pray for, and whose duration we cannot hope, without injury to our expectations in the advent of the last day, wore a contradiction to our belief."

"But monuments themselves memorials need."

"You shall not pile, with servile toil, Your monuments upon my breast, Nor yet within the common soil Lay down the wreck of power to rest, Where man can boast that he has trod On him that was "the scourge of God.""

"Exegi monumentum ære perennius Regalique situ pyramidum altius, Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens Possit diruere aut innumerabilis Annorum series et fuga temporum. Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei Vitabit Libitinam."

"Incisa notis marmora publicis, Per quæ spiritus et vita redit bonis Post mortem ducibus."

"Cœlo tegitur qui non hatet urnam."

"Thou, in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a life-long monument."

"For men use, if they have an evil tourne, to write it in marble; and whoso doth us a good tourne we will write it in duste."

"Towers of silence."

"Factum abiit; monumenta manent."

"Let it rise! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and the parting day linger and play on its summit."

"If we work upon marble it will perish. If we work upon brass time will efface it. If we rear temples they will crumble to dust. But if we work upon men's immortal minds, if we imbue them with high principles, with the just fear of God and love of their fellow men, we engrave on those tablets something which no time can efface, and which will brighten and brighten to all eternity."