“Like rowers, who advance backward.”
Book III, Ch. 1. Of Profit and Honesty
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Michel De Montaigne264
(1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, … 1533–1592Related quotes
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution
Collected Works, Vol. 22, pp. 305–319.
Collected Works
Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
Strengthen Party Unity and Carry Forward Party Traditions http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_53.htm (30 August 1956)
“Life is like that. You live it forward but understand it backward.”
Abraham Verghese book Cutting for Stone
Variant: You live it forward, but understand it backward.
Source: Cutting for Stone
“Everything is backwards now, like out there is the the real world and this is the dream.”
James Cameron (1954) Canadian film director
Jake Sully
Avatar (2009)
“Sometimes providences, like Hebrew letters, must be read backwards.”
John Flavel (1627–1691) English Presbyterian clergyman
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 280.
“Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.”
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher
“Sit not, like the figure on our silver coin, looking ever backward.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer
1880s, The Scholar in a Republic (1881)
“Those who rebel advance, not those who obey.”
Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer
Original: Avanza chi si ribella, non chi obbedisce.
Source: prevale.net