Monuments

Monuments are structures either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which have become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as examples of historic architecture. In English the word "monumental" is often used in reference to something of extraordinary size and power, as in monumental sculpture, but also to mean simply anything made to commemorate the dead, as a funerary monument or other example of funerary art.

• The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.
  • Francis Bacon, Essex's Device (1595).

• 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.
  • Lorraine Boissoneault, “What Will Happen to Stone Mountain, America’s Largest Confederate Memorial?”, Smithsonianmag.com, (August 22, 2017).

• 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.
  • Lorraine Boissoneault, “What Will Happen to Stone Mountain, America’s Largest Confederate Memorial?”, Smithsonianmag.com, (August 22, 2017).

• He made him a hut, wherein he did put
  The carcass of Robinson Crusoe.
  O poor Robinson Crusoe!
  • Samuel Foote, Mayor of Garratt (1763, published 1764), Act I, scene 1.

• Tombs are the clothes of the dead. A grave is but a plain suit, and a rich monument is one embroidered.
  • Thomas Fuller, The Holy State and the Profane State (1642), Book III. Of Tombs.

• The righteous require no monuments; their lives and their teachings are their monuments.
  • Genesis Rabbah 82, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p. 84

• 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.
  • Robert E. Lee, Letter regarding war monuments (1869), as quoted in Personal reminiscences, anecdoates, and letters of gen. Robert E. Lee (1874), by John William Jones, p. 234. Also quoted in "Renounce the battle flag: Don't whitewash history" (26 June 2015), by Petula Dvorak, The Washington Post, Washington, D.C. This quote is also given as: "I think it wisest 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.
  • Soldiers, forty centuries are looking down upon you from these pyramids.
  • Napoleon, to his army before the Battle of the Pyramids (July 2, 1797). Also quoted "twenty centuries".

• Where London's column, pointing at the skies,
  Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies.
  • Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle III, line 339.

• Jove, thou regent of the skies.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act V, scene 1, line 320.

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 524-25.

• The tap'ring pyramid, the Egyptian's pride,
  And wonder of the world, whose spiky top
  Has wounded the thick cloud.
  • Robert Blair, The Grave, line 190.

• 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.
  • Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia, Chapter III.

• 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.
  • Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia, Chapter V.

• But monuments themselves memorials need.
  • George Crabbe, The Borough (1810), Letter II.

• 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."
  • Edward Everett, Alaric the Visigoth.

• 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.
  • I have reared a memorial more enduring than brass, and loftier than the regal structure of the pyramids, which neither the corroding shower nor the powerless north wind can destroy; no, not even unending years nor the flight of time itself. I shall not entirely die. The greater part of me shall escape oblivion.
  • Horace, Carmina, III. 30. 1.

• Incisa notis marmora publicis,
  Per quæ spiritus et vita redit bonis
  Post mortem ducibus.
  • Marble statues, engraved with public inscriptions, by which the life and soul return after death to noble leaders.
  • Horace, Carmina, IV. 8.

• Cœlo tegitur qui non hatet urnam.
  • He is covered by the heavens who has no sepulchral urn.
  • Lucanus, Pharsalia, Book VII. 831.

• Thou, in our wonder and astonishment
  Hast built thyself a life-long monument.
  • John Milton, Epitaph, On Shakespeare.

• 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.
  • Thomas More, Richard III.

• Towers of silence.
  • Robert X. Murphy, according to Sir George Birdwood, in a letter to the London Times (Aug. 8, 1905).

• Factum abiit; monumenta manent.
  • The need has gone; the memorial thereof remains.
  • Ovid, Fasti, Book IV. 709.

• 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.
  • Daniel Webster, Address on Laying the Corner Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, Works, Volume I, p. 62.

• 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.
  • Daniel Webster, speech in Faneuil Hall (1852).

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