Generations quotes
1.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside generations — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Ignore that nightmare in the bathroom. Just another ugly refugee from the Love Generation, some doom-struck gimp who couldn't handle the pressure. My attorney has never been able to accept the notion - often espoused by reformed drug abusers and especially popular among those on probation - that you can get a lot higher without drugs than with them. And neither have I, for that matter."
"That was always the difference between Muhammad Ali and the rest of us. He came, he saw, and if he didn't entirely conquer - he came as close as anybody we are likely to see in the lifetime of this doomed generation."
"Unless we free ourselves from a dependence on these fossil fuels... we are condemning future generations to global catastrophe"
"In the future, a new generation of artists will be writing genomes as fluently as Blake and Byron wrote verses."
"National parks and reserves are an integral aspect of intelligent use of natural resources. It is the course of wisdom to set aside an ample portion of our natural resources as national parks and reserves, thus ensuring that future generations may know the majesty of the earth as we know it today."
"How comes it to pass, if they be only moved by chance and accident, that such regular mutations and generations should be begotten by a fortuitous concourse of atoms."
"The conservation of nature, the proper care for the human environment and a general concern for the long-term future of the whole of our planet are absolutely vital if future generations are to have a chance to enjoy their existence on this earth."
"Democracy is something that you must learn each generation. It has to be taught."
"Several generations of slum environment will produce a slum heredity."
"We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country."
"What we need is a generation of peace."
"Every generation must find its mission and fulfill it, as Fanon said - or betray it. So it is not something that you can write up on the wall, saying this is what has to be done. Every generation has to discover what it needs to do."
"Johnny Depp, as far as I'm concerned, is number one. Of his generation, there's no one who can touch him. Some performers, today, it's like looking at holes in the air."
"The most aggravating thing about the younger generation is that I no longer belong to it."
"I would suggest that the next generation stop looking for happiness outside of themselves but instead turn inward."
"Hip-hop gave a generation a common ground that didn't require either race to lose anything; everyone gained."
"I often quote an African proverb that says: "The world is not ours, the earth is not ours, It's a treasure we hold in trust for future generations." And I often hope we will be worthy of that trust."
"To your generation, I must represent the literary equivalent of tufted furniture and gas chandeliers."
"It’s a sort of furtiveness … Like we were a generation of furtive. You know, with an inner knowledge there’s no use flaunting on that level, the level of the ‘public’, a kind of beatness – I mean, being right down to it, to ourselves, because we all really know where we are – and a weariness with all the forms, all the conventions of the world … It’s something like that. So I guess you might say we’re a beat generation."
"If we don't start acknowledging our correct position as nothing more than a part of the planet as opposed to this perception that we're superior, then we won't have it much longer. We're facing a very turbulent, war-torn, drought-ridden existence for future generations unless we act now."
