“We need not destroy the past. It is gone.”
John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer
"Lecture on Nothing" (1949)
1940s
“We need not destroy the past. It is gone.”
John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer
"Lecture on Nothing" (1949)
1940s
“Oh God, without them [libraries], what have we? We have no past and we have no future.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer
Mojave magazine (November 1990)
“We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear the future; we grab for it.”
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Bloody Sunday Speech (March 2015)
Context: We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some fragile thing. We are large, in the words of Whitman, containing multitudes. We are boisterous and diverse and full of energy, perpetually young in spirit. That’s why someone like John Lewis at the ripe old age of 25 could lead a mighty march. And that’s what the young people here today and listening all across the country must take away from this day. You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, because you’re ready to seize what ought to be. For everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken, there’s new ground to cover, there are more bridges to be crossed. And it is you, the young and fearless at heart, the most diverse and educated generation in our history, who the nation is waiting to follow.
“We don’t need any more heroes; we just need someone to take out the recycling.”
Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter
Wall and Piece (2005)
Newton Lee American computer scientist
Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015
“God has promised to supply our needs. What we don’t have now we don’t need now.”
Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary
Source: The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God
Chris Grabenstein book Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library
Source: Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library
John Bellamy Foster (1953) Sociology professor and Marxist writer
Interview with Left Voice (2017)
“We need to figure out how to have the things we love, and not destroy the world.”
Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur
[Driving With Elon Musk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSNXhHTLLIk, 26 March 2012]