Literary notes about Perpetuate (AI summary)
The term "perpetuate" is used in literature to invoke a sense of enduring influence—whether preserving memory, legacy, behavior, or even error. In some instances, writers use it to emphasize the lasting impression of an action or idea, as when Jefferson laments that his "folly" might be immortalized in a monument ([1]), or Hume suggests that current events will be preserved for future generations ([2]). Others evoke its ability to extend intangible qualities, such as Durkheim’s observation that an institution must rely on human agents to perpetuate itself ([3]) or Whitman’s reflection on a nation's capacity not just to form but to "perpetuate anything" ([4]). The word also carries a cautionary tone in works like those of Dumas ([5]) and Thoreau ([6]), where perpetuation is linked with the continuation of both positive inspirations and negative traditions, as seen in Riis’s depiction of past social ills ([7]). Thus, across diverse contexts—from personal legacy to social critique—the word "perpetuate" functions as a powerful metaphor for the endurance of both human accomplishment and folly.
- "My actions," he wrote, "have been so inconsiderable in the world, that the most durable monument will not perpetuate my folly while it lasts."
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - This circumstance alone preserves the evidence of history, and will perpetuate the memory of the present age to the latest posterity.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume - Yet we have seen that to perpetuate itself it has need of the aid of men.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim - They only put the nation in form, finally tell anything—prove, complete anything—perpetuate anything.
— from Complete Prose Works by Walt Whitman - I will perpetuate the crime and punishment by making a frightful example.
— from Twenty years after by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau - These are the houses that to- day perpetuate the worst traditions of the past, and they are counted by thousands.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. Riis
