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Our Past Quotes

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Our Past Quotes

“Even in a jungle, lovely flowers will spring up here and there, such being the fecundity of nature, and however badly our pastors and masters run our society, however much they pull to pieces that which they claim to be keeping intact, nature remains fecund, human beings are born with human traits, sometimes human strength outweighs human weakness, and human grace shows itself amid human ugliness. ‘In the bloodiest times,’ as our play has it, ‘there are kind people.’”

PeopleHumansKindSometimesPlayShowsRunningBornHuman BeingsGracePiecesFlowerMastersSpringWeaknessClaimsRemainsLovelyOur SocietyTraitsOur PastPastorJungleUglinessHere And ThereKind PeopleHuman Strength
Book:Bentley on Brecht
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“You can accept or reject the way you are treated by other people, but until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed. You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex, but eventually, it will all ooze through and stain your life. You must find the strength to open the wounds, stick your hands inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories, and make peace with them.”

PeopleWayHandsPainPastSexMemoriesHealingAcceptingDrugSticksAlcoholWoundsCoreHealTreatedRejectsHuman ConditionCigaretteOur PastYour PastBleedingStainsMaking PeaceBandagesOld Wounds
Author:Iyanla Vanzant
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“Everyone has options. They are a fixed set of predetermined scenarios, points of view, perceived limitations that already reside in your data bank. If you depend on your options to formulate your future, that future will be no more than a rearrangement of your past. Then he says, “Possibilities are completely different. When you ask ‘what is possible?’ you must stretch your imagination out of the confines of the familiar. To live a life beyond the mediocre, ask not ‘what are my options?’ but ‘What is possible?’”

IfsDifferentPastAsksImaginationViewsPossibilityDependsPoint Of ViewFamiliarDataLimitationFixedOur FutureOur PastMediocreYour FutureYour PastScenariosPredetermined
Author:Nicholas Lore
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“How hard a thing is life to the lowly and yet how human and real is it? And all this life and love and strife and failure, - is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day? The answer lies in each of us. For somewhere in your past ... somewhere some 100 years ago?there rose from the smoldering ashes of slavery?a proud and humble family who suffered and struggled with life. A family who found the strength to endure all the indignities of life in America, and that family had the hope for a taste of her bounties in the future.”

YearsHumansRealHardAmericaPastLyingFoundBlackAnswersProudTasteYears AgoAnd LoveSlaveryRoseEndureHumbleThis LifeTwilightAshesOur PastStrifeLife And LoveYour PastBountyIndignityNightfall
Author:W. E. B. Du Bois
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“The past is a trail you leave behind, much like the wake of a speedboat. That is, it's a vanishing trail temporarily showing you where you were. The wake of a boat doesn't affect it's course-obviously it can't since it appears behind the boat. So consider this image when you exclaim that your past is the reason you aren't moving forward.”

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Author:Wayne Dyer
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“In the annals of science fiction, where dystopias rule the imaginative roost, Star Trek stood nearly alone in telling us that our future would be better than our past, that our common problems would be solved, that we, as a species, were fundamentally good, and that the universe would reward us for our goodness.”

ProblemWould BePastUniverseStarsCommonFictionGoodnessScience FictionSpeciesRewardsOur FutureOur PastImaginativeDystopiaRoost
Author:Charles Shaar Murray
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“Every event has a purpose and every setback its lesson. I have realized that failure, whether of the personal, professional or even spiritual kind, is essential to personal expansion. It brings inner growth and a whole host of psychic rewards. Never regret your past. Rather, embrace it as the teacher that it is.”

KindWholePastSpiritualPurposeGrowthTeacherEventsRegretLessonsEssentialsEmbraceRewardsHostExpansionOur PastPsychicsYour PastSetbackNever RegretInner Growth
Book:The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny
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“Born Losers is a beautiful piece of writing. Scott Sandage is history's Dickens; his bleak house, the late nineteenth century world of almost anonymous American men who failed. With wit and sympathy, Sandage illuminates the grey world of credit evaluation, a little studied smothering arm of capitalism. This is history as it should be, a work of art exploring the social cost of our past.”

MenWorldShouldWritingLittlesArtPastBeautifulHouseSocialBornPiecesCenturyArmsCostLateCapitalismCreditWitWorks Of ArtLoserExploringOur PastGreyNineteenth CenturyBleakDickensEvaluationBleak House
Author:William S. McFeely
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“Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story, one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into the future so that we can take the next step… If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.”

IfsWantWholeStoriesLightPastNextBitsPowerfulStepsRevolutionShiningMythTalesAlternativesOur PastReformationNext StepsPersuasive
Author:Ivan Illich
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“To say that you can 'have experience,' means, for one thing, that your past plays into and affects your present, and that it defines your capacity for future experience. As a social scientist, you have to control this rather elaborate interplay, to capture what you experience and sort it out; only in this way can you hope to use it to guide and test your reflection, and in the process shape yourself as an intellectual craftsman”

WayMeanPlayUsePastSocialProcessOne ThingShapesIntellectualReflectionCapacityTestsScientistGuidesCaptureOur PastYour PastCraftsman
Book:The Sociological Imagination
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“One day I was living silently in a personal hell, without anyone to tell what I felt, without even knowing that the feelings I had were possible to have; and then one day I was not living like that at all. I had begun to see the past like this: there is a line; you can draw it yourself, or sometimes it gets drawn for you; either way, there it is, your past, a collection of people you used to be and things you used to do. Your past is the person you no longer are, the situations you are no longer in.”

PeopleWayPersonsSometimesFeelingsPastUsedFeltLinesSituationHellKnowingOne DayDrawsUsed To BeCollectionsOur PastYour Past
Author:Jamaica Kincaid
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“Meteorologists have the right perspective. They ground themselves in the current conditions (today’s highs/lows). They briefly acknowledge significant events of the past (record temps). And they keep an eye on the future (five-day forecast). Honor your past accomplishments, live in the present moment, and look to the future.”

LooksMomentsEyeTodayPastRecordsFiveConditionsEventsPerspectiveHonorLowsCurrentsSignificantAcknowledgeAccomplishmentPresent MomentOur PastYour PastLive In The PresentForecastsLooking To The FutureSignificant EventsMeteorologists
Author:Clifton Anderson
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“With tremendous clarity and wisdom, Daniel Tomasulo has crafted a memoir at once heartbreaking and uplifting. Layers of time and memory—childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle age—are so beautifully revealed here, a trenchant reminder that our pasts are alive inside of us. There are psychologists who can write, and writers who can psychologize, but rarely have the two met on the page with such moving, profound results.”

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Author:Dani Shapiro
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“Healing from our past is an essential aspect of expanding our sense of self and awakening our capacity to love. This shift often manifests as a change in the questions we've been asking ourselves. Instead of What do I need? we ask, How can I serve? Instead of What am I getting out of this? we start to ask, What can I bring to this situation to promote the highest possible outcome for everyone involved?”

LoveNeedsSelfPastAsksHealingSituationInvolvedEssentialsHighestCapacityAspectAskingAwakeningOutcomesOur PastExpandingSense Of SelfCapacity To Love
Author:David Simon
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“In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty...in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe.”

MindWisdomPastLyingUniverseFunKnownStepsCreativeFieldsPossibilityPrisonSurrenderUncertaintyWillingnessOur PastDetachmentConditioningCreative Mind
Author:Deepak Chopra
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“Perhaps myself the first, at some expense of popularity, to unfold the true character of Jefferson, it is too late for me to become his apologist. Nor can I have any disposition to do it. I admit that his politics are tinctured with fanaticism, that he is too much in earnest in his democracy, that he has been a mischievous enemy to the principle measures of our past administration, that he is crafty & persevering in his objects, that he is not scrupulous about the means of success, nor very mindful of truth, and that he is a contemptible hypocrite.”

FirstsMeanHas BeensCharacterTruthPastEnemyPrinciplesDemocracyToo MuchObjectsLateAdministrationToo LateExpensesPopularityOur PastDispositionEarnestHypocriteFanaticismMischievousCraftyTrue Character
Book:Correspondence [contin.] 1795-1804; 1777; 1791. Letters of H.G. 1789. Address to public creditors. 1790. Vindication of funding system. 1791
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