F. W. de Klerk (1936) South African politician
Speech to the Good-will Foundation (9 March 1991)
1990s
“Shall we never never get rid of this Past?… It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body.”
Source: The House of the Seven Gables
Last update June 3, 2021. History
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Nathaniel Hawthorne128
American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879) 1804–1864Related quotes
“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
William Faulkner book Requiem for a Nun
Act 1, sc. 3; this has sometimes been paraphrased or misquoted as "The past isn't over. It isn't even past."
Source: Requiem for a Nun (1951)
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist
Daily News (18 February 1905)
Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist
Lecture at Mount Holyoke College, August 1944; later published as 'A Tour of the Sublime', in 'Tiger's Eye', 15 Dec. 1948; as cited in 'Robert Motherwell, American Painter and Printmaker' https://www.theartstory.org/artist-motherwell-robert-life-and-legacy.htm#writings_and_ideas_header, on 'Artstory' <br class="br">1940s
Gordon Lightfoot (1938) Canadian singer-songwriter
Black Day In July, Track 3, (mono 45 edit), UNITED ARTISTS 50281, March 1968
Did She Mention My Name? (1968)
“Pleasure is always in the past or in the future, never in the present.”
Giacomo Leopardi book Zibaldone
Il piacere è sempre o passato o futuro, non mai presente.
29th September 1823, Festival of Saint Michael the Archangel.
Zibaldone (1898)
Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author
The Golden Man (1954)
Context: "He can look ahead. See what's coming. He can — prethink. Let's call it that. He can see into the future. Probably he doesn't perceive it as the future."
"No," Anita said thoughtfully. "It would seem like the present. He has a broader present. But his present lies ahead, not back. Our present is related to the past. Only the past is certain, to us. To him, the future is certain. And he probably doesn't remember the past, any more than any animal remembers what happened."
"As he develops," Baines said, "as his race evolves, it'll probably expand its ability to prethink. Instead of ten minutes, thirty minutes. Then an hour. A day. A year. Eventually they'll be able to keep ahead a whole lifetime. Each one of them will live in a solid, unchanging world. There'll be no variables, no uncertainty. No motion! They won't have anything to fear. Their world will be perfectly static, a solid block of matter."
"And when death comes," Anita said, "they'll accept it. There won't be any struggle; to them, it'll already have happened."
“We never escape our past. It is mirrored in our present. It repeats itself in our future.”
Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer
Marius Melville in Ch. 17
Cassidy (1986)
Camille Paglia (1947) American writer
As quoted in "Babylon Nights : A David Spandau Novel" (2010) by Daniel Depp
Context: Popular culture is the new Babylon, into which so much art and intellect now flow. It is our imperial sex theater, supreme temple of the western eye. We live in the age of idols. The pagan past, never dead, flames again in our mystic hierarchies of stardom.