“What is, is, and what might have been could never have existed.”
Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator
Source: Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey
Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Eleven, "Age of the Great Capitalist Empires", p. 355
“What is, is, and what might have been could never have existed.”
Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator
Source: Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey
David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist
Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Five, "A Brief Treatise on the Moral Grounds of Moral Relations", p. 95
Stephen Wolfram (1959) British-American computer scientist, mathematician, physicist, writer and businessman
Stephen Wolfram: Fundamental Theory of Physics, Life, and the Universe (Sep 15, 2020)
Wong Kar-wai (1958) Hong Kong screenwriter, film producer and film director
"5 Questions for Wong Kar Wai" in Notebook Feature (19 March 2021) https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/5-questions-for-wong-kar-wai
Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer
Pursuit of Progress (Heinemann, 1953), pp. 44–45
1950s
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Source: 1860s, First State of the Union address (1861)
Context: Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation.
James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer
The Day the Universe Changed (1985), 10 - Worlds Without End