Successor Quotes

“it is easy to surpass a predecessor, but difficult to avoid being surpassed by a successor.”

“What now matters most is how we respond to various risks to the survival of humanity. We are creating some of these risks, and discovering how we could respond to these and other risks. If we reduce these risks, and humanity survives the next few centuries, our descendants or successors could end these risks by spreading through this galaxy.Life can be wonderful as well as terrible, and we shall increasingly have the power to make life good. Since human history may be only just beginning, we can expect that future humans, or supra-humans, may achieve some great goods that we cannot now even imagine. In Nietzsche’s words, there has never been such a new dawn and clear horizon, and such an open sea.If we are the only rational beings in the Universe, as some recent evidence suggests, it matters even more whether we shall have descendants or successors during the billions of years in which that would be possible. Some of our successors might live lives and create worlds that, though failing to justify past suffering, would give us all, including some of those who have suffered, reasons to be glad that the Universe exists.”

“Success without a successor is a failure”

“Since defeat in the Struggle must always be envisaged, the preparation of one's own successors is as important as what one does for victory.”

“I believe in evolution in the sense that a short-tempered man is the successor of a crybaby.”

“Without triers they would never be any successors”

“Without triers there would never be any successors”

“Nothing succeeds like one's own successor.”

“No matter how many men you kill, you can't kill your successor.”

“The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection and will in turn be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow.”