Quotes about the past
page 43

“Let us revere, let us worship, but erect and open-eyed, the highest, not the lowest; the future, not the past!”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer

Future

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Dreams, Future, Motivational, Deep

“I was born in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, during the Soviet-era when there wasn’t any Tatar language…and without any Muslim tradition. I was a Soviet child without my past, without my family roots, because at the time it was forbidden to explain anything.”

Chulpan Khamatova (1975) Russian actress

As quoted in "Russia’s Chulpan Khamatova on Stalinist Backlash Over ‘Zuleikha’ (EXCLUSIVE)" in Variety (10 June 2020) https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/chulpan-khamatova-communist-backlash-zuleikha-1234627594/

Family, Time

“Now we are living in the digital age. I feel very lucky and appreciative that young people now have the opportunity of coming to know the kind of films we shot in the past.”

Brigitte Lin (1954) Taiwanese actress

As quoted in "Brigitte Lin, a timeless national treasure" in Taipei Times (15 May 2018) https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2018/05/15/2003693091

People, Age, Feeling

“But as an actor you do want to challenge yourself and step outside what you have done in the past and that what I like to do, I like to jump around and try different things and stretch myself.”

Mary Elizabeth Winstead (1984) American actress and singer

"Exclusive Mary Elizabeth Winstead Interview (Page 2)" in Female First (29 July 2008) https://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/Exclusive+Mary+Elizabeth+Winstead+Interview-153677-page2.html

“Never allow your past to interfere with your future.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Non consentire mai al tuo passato di interferire con il tuo avvenire.
Source: prevale.net

Future

“Telling the truth about the past helps cause justice in the present.”

James W. Loewen (1942) American historian

Truth, Justice, Help

“You might be surprised to find this out, but sweets were a big problem for me when I was younger. It didn't matter what it was, I couldn't walk past it without buying it. Now I've cut sweets out. It actually took me several years to get to this point. Now I don't really like sweets anymore.”

Robert Lewandowski (1988) Polish association football player

"Lewandowski exclusive, pt II: 'We're stronger now'" https://www.bundesliga.com/en/news/Bundesliga/noblmd09-fc-bayern-muenchen-robert-lewandowski-exclusive-interview.jsp (2016)

Problem

“The past and present speak to the future. The future does not speak, but waits to see what we bring to it.”

Randolph Roque Calvo (1951) Catholic bishop

Bishop visits Virginia City to give homily at final St. Mary's Mass https://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/2008/sep/08/bishop-visits-virginia-city-to-give-homily-at-fina/ (September 8, 2008)

Waiting, Future

“It’s always good to be recognized for hard work you’ve done in the years past. While you’re doing it, you don’t think of it so much. You’re just working. It’s a wonderful thing for someone to acknowledge it.”

Barbara Eden (1931) American actress and singer

'I Dream of Jeannie' star Barbara Eden describes working with Larry Hagman, Elvis and Lucille Ball https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/i-dream-of-jeannie-star-barbara-eden-describes-working-with-larry-hagman-elvis-and-lucille-ball (October 6, 2017)

Thinking

“The dark shadow we seem to see in the distance is not really a mountain ahead, but the shadow of the mountain behind - a shadow from the past thrown forward into our future. It is a dark sludge of historical sectarianism. We can leave it behind us if we wish.”

David Trimble (1944–2022) Northern Irish politician

David Trimble in: Peace 1996-2000 http://books.google.com/books?id=zCmliED4M_UC&pg=PA114, World Scientific, 2005, p. 114

Mountain, Future

“The difference between past and future... cause and effect... memory and hope... regret and intention... in the elementary laws that describe the mechanisms of the world, there is no such difference.”

Carlo Rovelli book The Order of Time

2. Loss of Direction. Where Does the Eternal Current Come From?
The Order of Time (2018)

World, Law, Hope, Memory

“Ethics and honesty, [are] rare amongst scholars working on the Indian past.”

Shereen Ratnagar Indian archaeologist

quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2007). Asterisk in bharopiyasthan: Minor writings on the Aryan invasion debate.

“We cannot change the past to rewrite a better beginning - But we can work for the future and strive for a better ending.”

Yasir Qadhi (1975) Pakistani-American preacher and imam

Change, Future

“The past is in us, and not behind us. Things are never over.”

Tim Winton book The Turning

Short story, 'Aquifer' - p.53
Short stories, The Turning (2004)

“I imagined the structure of the novel like a braid. My job was to blend three strands evenly and neatly. Each piece of the braid represented one of the stories. The characters were very different but they had something in common: they were emotionally wounded by events of their past.”

Isabel Allende (1942) Chilean writer

On her work In the Midst of Winter in “INTERVIEWS: Isabel Allende” https://bookpage.com/interviews/21986-isabel-allende-fiction#.XajuoPlKjcs in BookPage (2017 Oct 31)

Imagination

“We have become aware of the responsibility for our attitude towards the dark pages in our history. We have understood that bad service is done to the nation by those who are impelling to renounce that past. Such attitude leads to a moral self-destruction.”

Aleksander Kwaśniewski (1954) Polish politician, president of Poland

"Speech at the Jedwabne Ceremony" http://www.dialog.org/hist/kwasniewski.html (10 July 2001)

History

“Sports brings people together. People in all of our countries are tired of ideological differences, of going back into the past all the time.”

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović (1968) President of Croatia

"AP Interview: Croatian leader says Trump, Putin key to peace" in Associated Press https://apnews.com/article/7a9da0dd58174bca9a02c9f4d12595bd (15 July 2018)

People, Sport, Time, Country

“The past is therefore a permanent dimension of the human consciousness, an inevitable component of the institutions, values and other patterns of human society. The problem for historians is to analyse the nature of this 'sense of the past' in society and to trace its changes and transformations.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

Chap. 2 : The Sense of the Past
On History (1997)

Nature, Problem, Sense, Change

“Technology is a capability. To be good is a choice. Over the past 23 years, Tencent has managed to come this far because society and our country have provided support that allowed Tencent to continuously grow.”

Ma Huateng (1971) Chinese internet entrepreneur

"Tencent founder Pony Ma emphasises company’s investment in social value amid increasing antitrust and gaming scrutiny" in South China Morning Post (23 April 2021) https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3130836/pony-ma-emphasises-tencents-investment-social-value-amid-increasing

Support, Country

“My life? Oh, my life I abandon without a regret! I have seen the Past; and I foresee the Future. What friend of his country would wish to survive the moment when he could no longer serve it — when he could no longer defend innocence against oppression?”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Last Speech to the National Convention (26 July 1794)

Life, Future, Country

“The only thing that is certain now is that we must focus all our energies solely on racial survival and allow no peripheral issues like argument over past institutions to divide our energies.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

An Interview by Focus Fourteen with David lane
Focus Fourteen

“How much of what you know about business is shaped by mistaken reactions to past mistakes?”

Peter Thiel (1967) American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager

Source: ZERO to ONE

Business

“As you can tell at this crucial point, in life, it is only the present moment that matters to us and not the past events.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life

“It appears both amusing and terrifying at the same time, that the majority of the women claim to be the victims of narcissistic behaviours. I have no doubt that, this is something to do with the newly introduced gender equality, I called it ‘new’ because it has been put into practice only in the past decades.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Women, Appearance, Time

“Sometimes, we find peace by becoming forgetful of the past events. That is truly the bright-side of forgetting negative things in our lives.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Peace, Forgetting

“There is no peace without forgetting past events.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Peace, Forgetting

“We are quick to forgive and forget about the past, or our memories when we find the present satisfying.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Forgiveness, Memory, Forgetting

“God knows the past, the present and the future. Therefore, He created angels, demons, and men mixed together for a specific purpose.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Men, God, Angels, Future

“If you continue to visualize things in the past, you are unlikely to make much progress in the present and the future.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Future

“Our minds must be capable of concentrating and living in the present moment, rather than always seeking for the past events that cannot be proven to be true.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“A society has many pasts from which it chooses those that go into the creation of its history. The choice is made by those in authority—the authority being of various kinds—although occasionally the voice of others may be heard.”

Romila Thapar (1931) Indian historian

The Past as Present : Forging Contemporary Identities Through History

History

“Epic literature is not history but is again a way of looking at the past.”

Romila Thapar (1931) Indian historian

Source: Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300, p. 100.

Way, History, Literature

“Nationalism seeks legitimacy from the past and history therefore becomes a sensitive subject.”

Romila Thapar (1931) Indian historian

Source: Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300, p. 19.

History

“To categorize some people as indigenous and others as alien, to argue about the identity of the first inhabitants of the subcontinent, and to try and sort out these categories for the remote past, is to attempt the impossible.”

Romila Thapar (1931) Indian historian

Introduction, xxiv.
Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300

People

“Criticism and prophecy must be the two categories that meet in the salvation of the past”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

Source: Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels [Origin of the German Mourning Play] (1925), p. 53-54 (trans. John Osborne (London: Verso, 1977)

“I love a lot of different genres of music, but, to me, the most exciting genre right now, and probably for the past two decades, is hip hop. That’s where the most innovation is, although electronic music now is starting to produce some real interesting stuff, and I’m really digging on that a lot.”

Richard Wolf American music producer

Composer Spotlight: Richard Wolf https://www.mixonline.com/sfp/composer-spotlight-richard-wolf-369033 (January 1, 2002)

Love, Music

“In other words, a record of our past is etched into our genes.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 2 “Species” (p. 35)

“We Croatians are suffering from an overdose of history during the past century. Of course we still have some nationalism. But the feelings are slowly cooling down.”

Zoran Milanović (1966) Croatian politician

Source: "'Germany Is a Role Model for Us'" in Speigel International https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-croatian-prime-minister-milanovic-germany-is-a-role-model-a-856179.html (17 September 2012)

Feeling, History, Suffering

“If history is to teach us anything, it must teach us that there is a continuity which binds together the present and the past, the East and the West. And no branch of history teaches that lesson more powerfully than the history of language and the history of religion.”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

Religion, History

“When you’re in this room, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s soaked in history. It just washes over you. I mean, it’s not even like it’s in the past. You’re in history. You’re in it.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Source: " Stephen Colbert Tells Rep. Adam Schiff What Russian Oligarch Revealed About Trump 'Pee Tape' https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stephen-colbert-adam-schiff-pee-tape_n_616e2de7e4b00cb3cbd6ead0" (2021?)+videos

History

“There is a kind of selective memory that afflicts men when they view the past. They see the good and overlook the evil.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Source: The Roman Empire (1967), p. 191

Men, Affliction, Memory, Evil

“We will endeavour to produce a guide book to progress for those of us who accept this new challenge of adulthood... we will outline the picture of past and present trends of human development.”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Introduction p. I - XII

Books, Adulthood

“He who doesn't prize his past, ill-prepares his future.”

José Hermano Saraiva (1919–2012) Historian, Jurist, Politician

Original: (pt) Quem mal-preza o seu passado, mal-prepara o seu futuro.
Source: "A Alma e a Gente - Os Lusitanos", 24 Jan 2010

Future

“There is no doubt that we have a different vision of the past. What’s important is that I see no reasons for any kind of conflicts in the future. We have no interests that could be contradictory in the future.”

Ivica Dačić (1966) Serbian politician

Source: "Ivica Dacic: Forced solutions don’t lead to stability of the region" in The Srpska Times https://thesrpskatimes.com/ivica-dacic-forced-solutions-dont-lead-to-stability-of-the-region/ (18 September 2018)

Future

“There does not fall under the scope of God's omnipotence anything that implies a contradiction. Now that the past should not have been implies a contradiction.... Whence, that the past should not have been, does not come under the scope of divine power.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

Source: Summa Theologica (1265–1274), I, q. 25, art. 4

God

“Sexual relations are driven not by what is good, in evolutionary terms, for men or for women, but for their chromosomes. The ability to seduce a woman was good for Y chromosomes in the past; the ability to resist seduction by a man was good for X chromosomes in the past.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter X and Y “Conflict” (p. 115)

Women, Men

“In the absence of more consumers, capital finds ways to get existing consumers to consume more. Indeed, the dominant story for the past few hundred years: the growth rate of material use has always significantly outstripped the growth rate of the population.”

Jason Hickel (1982) author

Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (2021)
Source: Rise of the Juggernaut, pp. 111-112

Way

“It was only with the rise of capitalism over the past few hundred years, and the breathtaking acceleration of industrialization from the 1950s, that on a planetary scale things began to tip out of balance.”

Jason Hickel (1982) author

Capitalism: A Creation Story, p. 39
Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (2021)

“An accurate history should not only record the periods of glory but the moments of degeneration, of the missed opportunities, and of the failure to forge national unity at crucial junctures in time. It should draw lessons for the future generations from costly errors in the past.”

Subramanian Swamy (1939) Indian politician

2015-Present
Source: Foreword by Subramanian Swamy in Atri, N., & Sagar, M. A. (2017). Brainwashed republic.

Error, History, Failure, Time

“If we disown history we are at its mercy. To have a reasonable knowledge of the past is to possess an anchor which is likely to prevent us from being swept towards false ideas about the present and future.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

Source: The Great Seesaw: A New View of the Western World, 1750-2000 (1988)

History, Idea, Knowledge, Future

“Remember that neither the future nor the past pains thee, but only the present. But this is reduced to a very little, if thou only circumscribest it, and chidest thy mind, if it is unable to hold out against even this.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VIII, 36

Pain, Future

“Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book III, 10

Life

“I foretell the future. I predict the past. I don't need a crystal ball; a football, a tennis ball, a moth ball, any old ball will do. When the power is upon me, there is no holding me back, I just let loose and prophesy all over the place.”

Brother Theodore (1906–2001) German-American monologuist and comedian

Future, Football

“Feelings are better with a bit of depth. Many revolutionary leaps and achievements are accompanied by the colors of romance. Being able to remember the past with sentimentality is therefore a type of virtue. Regarding melancholy, I don’t like this emotion.”

Bo Xilai (1949) former Politburo member of the Communist Party of China

Source: Excerpts of letter to his first wife (14 July 1975)

Color, Feeling

“This law will be strictly enforced to prevent the type of nuisance and violence that happened in the past...It's not possible to have it all—happiness, equality, democracy—without giving us the tools.”

Prayut Chan-o-cha (1954) Thai military officer, junta chief, and politician

Law curbing public assembly takes effect in Thailand (13 August 2015)
Source: [Law curbing public assembly takes effect in Thailand, https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/law-curbing-public-assembly-takes-effect-in-thailand/, 14 August 2015, The Seattle Times, Associated Press, 13 August 2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20201128115005/https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/law-curbing-public-assembly-takes-effect-in-thailand/, 28 November 2020, live]

Happiness, Law, Democracy

“I think to some degree, all politics is personal. It would be naïve of me to say I wrote a book just about immigrants and there's nothing political about it. As has been pointed out to me in the past, it's political to have the last name that I have. There's nothing that's not political…”

Cristina Henríquez (1977) American writer

Source: On the indirect relationship between literature and politics in “Cristina Henriquez Talks 'The Book of Unknown Americans,' POC vs. MFA, and Compassion” https://www.bustle.com/articles/27838-cristina-henriquez-talks-the-book-of-unknown-americans-poc-vs-mfa-and-compassion in Bustle (2014 Jun 13)

Books, Thinking, Personality

“We should admit some of the ineffective practices of our past labors. This confrontation needs be embraced by all of us on a personal level, at the local parish and throughout the diocese. There are many ways in which we can do this and now move forward. The mission of Christ is being strengthened.”

Stephen Jay Berg (1951) Fifth bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pueblo

Source: All our confidence is in God’s merciful love https://www.dioceseofpueblo.org/news/all-our-confidence-gods-merciful-love (September 22, 2020)

Way, Christ, Personality

“Like a cracked china cup, the continental crust is still fragile where it has been damaged in the past.”

Shawna Vogel science writer

Naked Earth: the New Geophysics (1995)

“This - this - was my life's work. My past - humanity's future. Foundation. So beatiful. So alive. And nothing can...Dors!”

Isaac Asimov book Forward the Foundation

The Foundation series (1951–1993), Forward the Foundation (1993)
Source: Part 5 "Epilogue", Hari Seldon's last words

Life, Future

“Exactly one year ago martial law was introduced. The year that has passed was a great test. We have passed it. It has been passed by the party, by the people's authority and all the citizens. But there is the only winner: the Polish nation. This is the shortest-put truth about the past year.”

Wojciech Jaruzelski (1923–2014) Polish military officer and politician

Source: Speech on 1982

People, Truth, Law

“The literature of India makes us acquainted with a great nation of past ages, which grasped every branch of knowledge, and which will always occupy a distinguished place in the history of the civilization of mankind.”

Magnus Björnstjerna (1779–1847) Swedish count and general (1779-1847)

Source: Count Magnus Fredrik Ferdinand Bjornstjerna in: The Theogony of the Hindoos with Their System of Philosophy and Cosmogony by Count M. Björnstjerna https://books.google.co.in/books?id=mHNK92IkdUkC&pg=PA85, Murray, 1844 , p. 85.

Age, History, Literature, Knowledge

“I have actually sat down to make a distinct History of the Norman Conquest, which I can do easier than anybody else, as I have worked so much at the subject for twenty years past, that is, a great part of the story; there will be little more to do than to write down what is already in my head.”

Edward Augustus Freeman (1823–1892) English historian (1823-1892)

Source: Letter to Dean Hook (23 December 1865), quoted in W. R. W. Stephens, The Life and Letters of Edward A. Freeman, Volume I (1895), p. 335

History, Parting

“It seems to me that an age of belief sowed the good seed of which an age of unbelief, an age at least of less fervent belief, reaps the fruits. It strikes me that the moral precepts and moral influences of Christianity needed the dogmatic teaching and the systematic discipline of past times to gain for them a hold in the world. The sower may sometimes have sowed tares along with his wheat, but the wheat has survived the tares. I believe that many a man who has little faith in Christian theology is deeply influenced by Christian morality, and that he is altogether a different man from what he would have been had Christianity never been.”

Edward Augustus Freeman (1823–1892) English historian (1823-1892)

Source: 'The Morality of Field Sports', The Fortnightly Review (October 1869), quoted in E. A. Freeman, The Morality of Field Sports (1874), p. 12

Age, World, Faith, Time

“We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return ... The coming of the rocket brought to an end a million years of isolation ... the childhood of our race was over and history as we know it began.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Source: Exploration of Space (1952)

History, Childhood

“[A]ttempting to organize and give structure to the study of legal silence has been a primary purpose of much of what I have written and taught over the past half-century.”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

Soundings and Silences (2016)

Study, Silence

“It’s really thrilling to teach somebody all the different things I’ve learned in the past and that I can cull from my own experiences. I’m fortunate to be able to do what I wanted to do most of my life.”

Marta Kristen (1945) Norwegian actress

Source: Marta Kristen and Mark Goddard – Fifty Years Later and Still Lost in Space https://www.popentertainmentarchives.com/post/marta-kristen-and-mark-goddard-fifty-years-later-and-still-lost-in-space (January 15, 2015)

Life, Learning

“All beings are not only the parents in the past.
They will become the Buddha in the future.
If you free their lives, you are Buddha.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Source: Buddha Book

Parent, Future

“The real lessons of life are learned by recognizing and coming to terms with being human. It is how we stand up to failure and duress which really marks our progress in life. Sometimes one of the most important lessons is to learn to just let go of the past.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Life, Failure, Learning

“Why from the plain truth should I shrink?
In woods men feel; in towns they think.
Yet, which is best? Thought, stumbling, plods
Past fallen temples, vanished gods,
Altars unincensed, fanes undecked,
Eternal systems flown or wrecked;
Through trackless centuries that grant
To the poor trudge refreshment scant,
Age after age, pants on to find
A melting mirage of the mind.
But feeling never wanders far,
Content to fare with things that are.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: At the Gate of the Convent (1885), "A Defence of English Spring", p. 58.

Men, God, Truth, Age

“It’s absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to sit in confinement with people of exactly the same age and social class. That system effectively cuts you off from the immense diversity of life and the synergy of variety; indeed it cuts you off from your own past and future, sealing you in a continuous present much the same way television does.”

John Taylor Gatto book Dumbing Us Down

Source: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (1992), p. 24

Life, People, Age, Way

“Years of bells will condition all but the strongest to a world that can no longer offer important work to do. Bells are the secret logic of school time; their logic is inexorable. Bells destroy the past and future, rendering every interval the same as any other, as the abstraction of a map renders every living mountain and river the same, even though they are not. Bells inoculate each undertaking with indifference.”

John Taylor Gatto book Dumbing Us Down

Source: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (1992), p. 6

Secret, World, School, Mountain

“Nature shouldn’t be able to do this, Sunday thought. It shouldn’t be able to produce something that resembled the work of directed intelligence, something artful, when the only factors involved were unthinking physics and obscene, spendthrift quantities of time. Time to lay down the sediments, in deluge after deluge, entire epochs in the impossibly distant past when Mars had been both warm and wet, a world deluded into thinking it had a future. Time for cosmic happenstance to hurl a fist from the sky, punching down through these carefully superimposed layers, drilling through these carefully superimposed layers, drilling the geological chapters like a bullet through a book. And then yesterday more time—countless millions of years—for wind and dust to work their callous handiwork, scouring and abrading, wearing the exposed layers back at subtly different rates depending on hardness and chemistry, util these deliberate-looking right-angled steps and contours began to assume grand and imperial solidity, rising from the depths like the stairways of the gods.
Awe-inspiring, yesterday. Sometimes it was entirely right and proper to be awed. And recognising the physics in these formations, the hand of time and matter and the nuclear forces underpinning all things, did not lessen that feeling. What was she, ultimately, but the end product of physics and matter? And what was her art but the product of physics and matter working on itself?”

Alastair Reynolds book Blue Remembered Earth

Source: Blue Remembered Earth (2012), Chapter 17 (pp. 292-293)

God, Books, World, Art

“Read history. That’s it. Read history. Read and read and read in both primary and secondary sources. Learn to evaluate and compare. And then… write. Writing will be the hardest thing you ever do. But it’s the goal— write about the past and how we see it.”

Christian Desaix

Source: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-become-historian-without-studying-history-in-University

History, Learning, Reading

“Suspended between fear of the past and fear of the future, I recorded the dream in my journal. Then, without any explanation, as if the connection between the two were obvious, I wrote, I don’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to get a decent education as a child.”

Tara Westover book Educated

Source: Educated (2018), Chapter 18, “Blood and Feathers” (p. 163)

Education, Fear, Dreams, Understanding

“I think you need to have bad times to learn about life. If you keep on being successful, you do not learn. If you do mistakes, you learn from them and become a better person. My past has helped me become a better cricketer and human being.”

Sanju Samson (1994) Indian cricketer

Source: Samson after hitting a century on 2017 Indian Premier League about his unsuccessful domestic season. Sanju Samson says bad times taught him a lot https://m.economictimes.com/news/sports/sanju-samson-says-bad-times-taught-him-a-lot/amp_articleshow/58144832.cms

Life, Thinking, Learning, Time

“History is our best guide. It faithfully records the past journey, and gives us inspiration for the future.”

Qin Gang (1966) politician

Source: "Keynote Speech by Ambassador Qin Gang at the Commemoration for the 50th Anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s Visit to China" https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/zwjg_665342/zwbd_665378/202203/t20220303_10647768.html (25 February 2021)

History, Future

“And in the time it had taken to reflect upon the significance of the moment, the moment was past. That was, after all, the nature of moments.”

Charles E. Gannon (1960) American novelist

Source: Trial by Fire (2014), Chapter 57 (p. 851)

Nature, Time

“You can only picture the future based on what you know about the past. If history dies the future can only be hideous.”

Jack Cady (1932–2004) American writer

Source: Kilroy Was Here (1996), p. 145

History, Future

“Memories remake the past, dreams remake the future.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

Dreams, Memory, Future

“Memories have their own way with the past.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

Way, Memory

“The impossible has no past.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

“In general, past things come to be in the memory not as they were, but as we would like or how we wanted them to have been.”

Daniel Salamanca (1863–1935) President of Bolivia (1863-1935)

Memory

“We cannot bury pain and trauma forever. As I said in Tulsa, great nations do not hide from their histories. We are a great nation, and by reckoning with and remedying the injustices of the past, America will become greater still.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2022, June 2022, Statement by President Joe Biden on the 101st Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre

Pain, History

“Let me tell you, if anyone in the past has spoken
ill of women, or speaks so now or will speak so
in the future, I’ll sum it up for him: Neither sea
nor land has ever produced a more monstrous
creature than woman.”

Euripidés book Hecuba

Hecuba, lines 1178-1182 ( tr. Jay Kardan and Laura-Gray Street (2010) http://didaskalia.net/issues/8/32/) <br class="br">Variant ( tr. E. P. Coleridge (1938) http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0006.tlg007.perseus-eng1:1145-1186): <br class="br">[I]f any of the men of former times have spoken ill of women, if any does so now, or shall do so hereafter, I will say all this in one short sentence; for neither land or sea produces such a race, as whoever has had to do with them knows.

Women, Future, Sea

“It is the function of Tradition to assure continuity. Tradition is the memory of a superpersonal soul [of culture]. It must see that the same creative spirit of the grand past is present at each innovation.”

Francis Parker Yockey (1917–1960) American writer

Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics (1948)

Soul, Memory

“The monetary belief, or the monetary myth, upon which a whole generation has been reared—that an injection of money into the system is the automatic cure for unemployment—has collapsed in the face of the experience of the past four or five years.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1971/nov/23/unemployment-1#column_1202 in the House of Commons (23 November 1971) <br class="br">1970s

Money

“The future belongs to those who can generate hope from the past rather than despair.”

Donal McKeown (1950) Roman Catholic bishop

Northern Ireland: Bloody Sunday commemorated 50 years on https://www.vaticannews.va/en/world/news/2022-01/northern-ireland-bloody-sunday-commemorated-50-years-on.html (29 January 2022)

Hope, Future, Despair

“However corrupt our hearts, and however wicked our past lives, there is hope for us in the Gospel.”

J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop

Vol. I, Luke V: 12–16, p. 137
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St. Luke (1858–1859)

Hope, Heart

“The big problem is that your mind keeps reminding you of things when you can't do anything about them. It has no sense of past or future.”

David Allen book Getting Things Done

Source: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (2001), Ch. 1

Problem, Sense, Future

“Our sacred duty is to overcome the shadows of the past, make new tragedies possible. Any encroachments on the peaceful future of Ukraine will meet with instant and resolute response...”

Viktor Yanukovych (1950) Ukrainian politician who was the President of Ukraine

Source: [2011-06-22, Янукович обмовився, пообіцявши "уможливити нові трагедії", https://tsn.ua/video/video-novini/yanukovich-obmovivsya-poobicyavshi-umozhliviti-novi-tragediyi.html, 2022-06-12, ТСН.ua, uk]

Peace, Future

“In these tempestuous times, we can't leave our enemies of the past and the present the monopoly on thought, imagination, and creativity.”

Thomas Sankara (1949–1987) President of Upper Volta

From a speech to the United Nations on 4 October 1984 https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2007/10/SANKARA/15203

Imagination, Time

“Peace will come only if we truly love one another. We might have hurt others and the environment in the past, and we should repent in this new year.”

Eduardus Sangsun (1943–2008) Indonesian bishop (1943-2008)

Church Leaders Ask People to Work For Peace, Care For Nature https://www.ucanews.com/story-archive/?post_name=/2008/01/10/church-leaders-ask-people-to-work-for-peace-care-for-nature&post_id=29096 (9 January 2008)

Love, Peace, Hurt

“A new reality is being formed: the unipolar world is irrevocably becoming a thing of the past, a multipolar one is taking shape. It’s an objective process. It’s unstoppable. In this reality, more than one power will “rule” it will be necessary to negotiate between all the key states that today have a decisive influence on the world economy and politics. At the same time, realizing their special situation, these countries ensure compliance with the basic principles of the UN Charter, including the fundamental one – the sovereign equality of states. No one on this Earth should be seen as a minor player. Everyone is equal and sovereign.”

Sergey Lavrov (1950) Russian politician and Foreign Minister

As quoted in Meet the New, Resource-Based Global Reserve Currency https://www.unz.com/pescobar/meet-the-new-resource-based-global-reserve-currency/, 31 March 2022

World, Reality, Decision, Time

“People living and dead, things past and present, all are contributories to that diminutive stream, oneself; a reflection which is essentially consoling, since it associates one with the sum of things and prevents one from living in barren isolation.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: The Garden That I Love: Second Series (1907), p. 4.

People, Dead

“Looking over the past two decades, we see close ties between gender-related attitudes and political ideology. A law seems to exist that sexism and heterosexism almost always travel alongside reactionary types of nationalism.”

Elizabeth Martinez (1925) American community organizer, activist, author, and educator

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

Law, Travel

“The voices of the grassroots, of people, must always be heard if we are to understand the past and move effectively toward the future”

Elizabeth Martinez (1925) American community organizer, activist, author, and educator

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

People, Understanding, Future

“Take the joy and bear the sorrow,
looking past your hopes and fears:
learn to recognize the measured
dance that orders all our years.”

Archilochus (-680–-645 BC) Ancient Greek lyric poet

Fragment 67

Fear, Hope, Learning, Joy

“I think Christian comedy has gotten a bad rap in the past because it's very passive, and it's not honest. It's like knock-knock jokes type humor. What we're bringing to the table is another level of honesty, and maybe transparency that I think does make some people uncomfortable.”

John Crist (comedian) (1984) American comedian

[Paulson, Dave, John Crist: A Christian comedian who's gently poking fun at faith, https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/2019/04/11/john-crist-christian-comedian-nashville-comedy-festival-ryman-auditorium/3215394002/, 6 September 2019, The Tennessean, April 11, 2019, en]

People, Thinking

“Immigration worked as a time machine, bringing up little islands of the past into the present.”

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer

Source: Blue Mars (1996), Chapter 12, “It Goes So Fast” (p. 598)

Time

Quotes about the past page 43

Quotes about the past
page 43