“Long ago we conquered our passions
Looking at ourselves in the mirror of eternity.”
Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman
"Prayer," p. 47
The Shape (2000), Sequence: “Pit of the Stone”
“we are not guiltless
long ago we became accomplices
of the history in the mirror”
— Bei Dao
"Accomplices", p. 89
The August Sleepwalker (1990)
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long ago we became accomplices
of the history in the mirror" by Bei Dao?
Bei Dao6
contemporary Chinese (PRC) avant garde poet 1949Related quotes
“Whoever writes on world history, but not as a forensic history, becomes thereby an accomplice.”
Karlheinz Deschner (1924–2014) German writer and activist
Wer Weltgeschichte nicht als Kriminalgeschichte schreibt, ist ihr Komplize.
Bissige Aphorismen, S. 54
Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist
Source: 1970s, Economics As a Science, 1970, p. 117
J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)
"Modern Ethics", pp. 270–271
The Universal Kinship (1906), The Ethical Kinship
Terry Gilliam (1940) American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe
On Heath Ledger's death in January 2008, as quoted in Terry Gilliam on Heath Ledger’s death and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (14 May 2008) http://cma.staging-thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/film/article2431428.ece <br class="br">Context: We were devastated. We spent the whole day — Amy Gilliam, Nicola Pecorini, the director of photography, and myself — lying flat on the floor. Heath Ledger's dead, and you don't quite get over that. I suppose I'm in an interesting position because while I'm cutting the film I'm basically working with him every day and he's fine; he's in good shape. Ideas are floating around. Then finally we decided, 'OK, let's get three other people to take over the part'. And we were lucky because we have a magic mirror in this movie. Not every movie has a magic mirror. So you can very genuinely say that these other actors are different aspects of the character that Heath plays. And it works. The point was, we've got to keep going. It was a bit like half being there, but apparently on autopilot I can still do a few things.
Jim Steinman (1947) American musician
"Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are"
Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell (1993)
Hans-Georg Gadamer book Truth and Method
Source: Truth and Method (1960), p. 289
Variant translation: In truth history does not belong to us but rather we to history. … The focus of subjectivity is a distorted mirror. Individual self-reflection is merely a flickering in the closed circuit of historical life. That is why the prejudices of an individual are —much more than that individual's judgments — the historical reality of his being.
As quoted in Tom Neton, "Hermeneutical Truth and the Structure of Human Experience: Gadamer's Critique of Dilthey" in The Specter of Relativism: Truth, Dialogue, and Phronesis in Philosophical Hermeneutics (1995) edited by Lawrence Schmidt.
Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) Novelist
"Honoria" (1957); republished in The New American, Vol. 19, No. 20, (6 October 2003)
1950s
“For our improvement we need a mirror.”
Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life
Zu unserer Besserung bedürfen wir eines Spiegels.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life