“As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.”
Variant translation: When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
Book Four, Chapter VIII
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Four
“The printing press is the greatest weapon in the armory of the modern commander…”
The Evolution of A Revolt (1920)
“When a business is bought, it is bought for its potential—for its future, not its past.”
Source: 1990s, Re-Creating the Corporation (1999), p. 133.
Source: 1800s, Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820), Ch. 1, plate 15, lines 6-9
The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: All hopes and despairs vanish in the voracious, funneling whirlwind of God. God laughs, wails, kills, sets us on fire, and then leaves us in the middle of the way, charred embers.
And I rejoice to feel between my temples, in the flicker of an eyelid, the beginning and the end of the world.
I condense into a lightning moment the seeding, sprouting, blossoming, fructifying, and the disappearance of every tree, animal, man, star, and god.
All Earth is a seed planted in the coils of my mind. Whatever struggles for numberless years to unfold and fructify in the dark womb of matter bursts in my head like a small and silent lightning flash.
Ah! let us gaze intently on this lightning flash, let us hold it for a moment, let us arrange it into human speech.
Let us transfix this momentary eternity which encloses everything, past and future, but without losing in the immobility of language any of its gigantic erotic whirling.
Source: The Image of the Future, 1973, p. 1 (as cited in: H.C. Marais (1988) South Africa: perspectives on the future. p. 15)
Source: "Some Perplexities about time: with an attempted solution" (1925), p. 150
“The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand”
Page 10
Invisible Cities (1972)
Context: As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. (di quest'onda che rifluisce dai ricordi la città s'imbeve coma una spugna e si dilata). The city, however, does not tell of its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand...
“It is obvious: The past was once the future and the future will become the past.”
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (1991)
