All 10 Uses
posterity
in
Common Sense, by Thomas Paine
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- To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity.†
Chpt 2.
- Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honours than were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honours could have no power to give away the right of posterity.†
Chpt 2. *
- 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now.†
Chpt 3.
- The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.†
Chpt 3.
- As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that THIS GOVERNMENT is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully.†
Chpt 3.
- If you cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity.†
Chpt 3.
- Can we but leave posterity with a settled form of government, an independent constitution of its own, the purchase at any price will be cheap.†
Chpt 4.
- But to expend millions for the sake of getting a few vile acts repealed, and routing the present ministry only, is unworthy the charge, and is using posterity with the utmost cruelty; because it is leaving them the great work to do, and a debt upon their backs, from which they derive no advantage.†
Chpt 4.
- Our present union is marked with both these characters: we are young and we have been distressed; but our concord hath withstood our troubles, and fixes a memorable area for posterity to glory in.†
Chpt 4.
- When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember, that virtue is not hereditary.†
Chpt 4.
Definitions:
-
(1)
(posterity) all future generations
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) More rarely, posterity can refer to the future generations descended from an individual.