Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 46
Context: We've tended in our cosmologies to make things familiar. Despite all our best efforts, we've not been very inventive. In the West, Heaven is placid and fluffy, and Hell is like the inside of a volcano. In many stories, both realms are governed by dominance hierarchies headed by gods or devils. Monotheists talked about the king of kings. In every culture we imagined something like our own political system running the Universe. Few found the similarity suspicious.
“In all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.”
1950s, Rediscovering Lost Values (1954)
Context: Sometimes, you know, it's necessary to go backward in order to go forward. That's an analogy of life. I remember the other day I was driving out of New York City into Boston, and I stopped off in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to visit some friends. And I went out of New York on a highway that’s known as the Merritt Parkway, it leads into Boston, a very fine parkway. And I stopped in Bridgeport, and after being there for two or three hours I decided to go on to Boston, and I wanted to get back on the Merritt Parkway. And I went out thinking that I was going toward the Merritt Parkway. I started out, and I rode, and I kept riding, and I looked up and I saw a sign saying two miles to a little town that I knew I was to bypass—I wasn't to pass through that particular town. So I thought I was on the wrong road. I stopped and I asked a gentleman on the road which way would I get to the Merritt Parkway. And he said, "The Merritt Parkway is about twelve or fifteen miles back that way. You've got to turn around and go back to the Merritt Parkway; you are out of the way now." In other words, before I could go forward to Boston, I had to go back about twelve or fifteen miles to get to the Merritt Parkway. May it not be that modern man has gotten on the wrong parkway? And if he is to go forward to the city of salvation, he's got to go back and get on the right parkway. [... ] Now that's what we've got to do in our world today. We've left a lot of precious values behind; we've lost a lot of precious values. And if we are to go forward, if we are to make this a better world in which to live, we've got to go back. We've got to rediscover these precious values that we've left behind.
“For a bunch of hairless apes, we've actually managed to invent some pretty incredible things.”
Source: Ready Player One
“The things we've done, they were our ambitions, say 9 months ago.”
Asked for his greatest ambition. Pop Chronicles, Show 28 - The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!: The U.S.A. is invaded by a wave of long-haired English rockers. Part 2 http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19783/m1/, ( 1964 https://archive.is/ty0cr, broadcast 1969 http://classicdjradioscrapbook.blogspot.com/2009/04/krla-pop-chronicles-program-1969-2-of-2.html).
Context: If you'd have asked me that question, 9 months ago, well, I would have been able to say, to come to America, to have a number one hit in America, and to play Carnegie Hall, to play the Palladium, to play in front of the Queen, and all that.... The things we've done, they were our ambitions, say 9 months ago.
CS Monitor Story 'Paulsen's Running - But Where Is He?" http://www.csmonitor.com/1992/0205/05091.html
Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign Korea 1950, Martin Russ, 1998
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)
Letter to M.V. Kiseleva (January 14, 1887
Letters
1970s, BOBBY FISCHER SPEAKS OUT! (1977)
Playboy interview, May 1971
Context: There's a lot of things great about life. But I think tomorrow is the most important thing. Comes in to us at midnight very clean, ya know. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.
