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Past Quotes

“If we have learned anything in the past ten years, it is that these lovely things about America were never lovely. We have been expansionist and aggressive and mean to other people from the beginning. And we've been aggressive and mean to people in this country, and we've allocated the wealth of this country in a very unjust way. We've never had justice in our courts for the poor people, for black people, for radicals. Now how can we boast that America is a very special place? It's not that special. It really isn't.”

PeopleIfsWayYearsMeanHas BeensCountryAmericaPastBlackWealthJusticePoorSpecialTenCourtLovelyRadicalAggressiveBlack PeopleUnjustPoor PeopleBoastSpecial PlacesLovely Things
Author:Howard Zinn
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“There is the past and its continuing horrors: violence, war, prejudices against those who are different, outrageous monopolization of the good earth's wealth by a few, political power in the hands of liars and murderers, the building of prisons instead of schools, the poisoning of the press and the entire culture by money. It is easy to become discouraged observing this, especially since this is what the press and television insist that we look at, and nothing more.”

LooksDifferentWarHandsSchoolEarthPastPoliticalCultureEasyWealthViolenceTelevisionBuildingHorrorPrejudicePressesPrisonLiarsContinuingMurdererDiscouragedObservingOutrageousPolitical PowerPoisoningGood Earth
Book:A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present
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“The school was nothing but reminiscence - of an Italian hill town, a French abbey, an English academy, the different sources improbably but convincingly melded into a fantasy about the classic sites of Europe as imagined by exiles from cold peripheral lands, nostalgia about somebody else's past.”

DifferentSchoolPastFantasyLandSourceColdEuropeTownsNostalgiaHillsClassicItalianSiteExileAcademyAbbey
Book:A Boy's Own Story: Picador Classic
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“How thrilling to discover one had depths, how consoling to find them less polluted than the shallows, how encouraging to identify the enemy not as a fissure in the will but as a dead fetus in the specimen jar of the unconscious. My attention was being paternally led away from the excruciating present to the happy, healthy future that would be enabled by an analysis of the sick past, as though the priest had nothing to do but study old books and make bright forecasts, the present not worthy of notice.”

BookWould BePastAttentionEnemyStudyHealthySickDepthWorthyAnalysisUnconsciousPriestsThrillingJarsForecastsNot WorthyFetusConsolingOld Books
Author:Edmund White
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“The task of the mind is to produce future, as the poet Paul Valery once put it. A mind is fundamentally an anticipator, an expectation-generator. It mines the present for clues, which it refines with the help of the materials it has saved from the past, turning them into anticipations of the future. And then it acts, rationally, on the basis of those hard-won anticipations.”

MindHardHelpingPastProduceMinesPoetMaterialsExpectationsTasksBasesSavedAnticipationClueGenerator
Author:Daniel Dennett
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“In its relation to the reality of daily life, the high culture of the past was many things opposition and adornment, outcry and resignation. But it was also the appearance of the realm of freedom: the refusal to behave.”

RealityPastCultureRelationAppearanceBehaveRealmsOppositionDaily LifeRefusalResignationAdornment
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“As I looked more carefully at the listening matrix I saw that during the past twenty years we had taken a magnifying glass to the first of these four quadrants, the female experience of powerlessness. I saw I was subconsciously making a false assumption: The more deeply I understood women's experience of powerlessness, the more I assumed men had the power women did not have. In fact, what I was understanding was the female experience of male power.”

MenYearsFirstsFactsPastUnderstandingTakenSawsFourListeningUnderstoodFemaleTwentiesMalesGlassesAssumptionPowerlessnessMagnifyingMagnifying GlassFalse Assumptions
Author:Warren Farrell
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“In a sense, sexual harassment lawsuits are just the latest version of the female selection process allowing her to select for men who care enough for her to put their career at risk; who have enough finesse to initiate without becoming a jerk and enough guts to initiate despite a potential lawsuit. In the past, though, the process of his overcoming her barriers was called 'courtship.' Now it is called either 'courtship' or 'sexual harassment'.”

MenEnoughCarePastProcessCareersRiskBecomingFemaleOvercomingVersionsDespiteGutsBarriersAllowingWho CaresSelectionSelectJerkHarassmentCourtshipInitiateLawsuitFinesse
Author:Warren Farrell
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“You should never fall in love with your own press clippings, because it is very much the nature of the beast that the same journalists who build you up between Monday and Friday tear you down for weekend fun...My family's habit of living in the past seems to me pathological, even dangerous. If all greatness lies in the past, what is the point of the future?”

IfsShouldSeemsPastLyingFallFunLove YouDangerousGreatnessTearsHabitMy FamilyPressesFalling In LoveJournalistBeastWeekendMondayFridayLiving In The PastNever Fall In Love
Author:Stephen L. Carter
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“Your desire or beliefs will literally be reaching back into time, teaching the nerves new tricks. Definite reorganizations in that past will occur in your present, allowing you to behave in entirely new fashions. Learned behavior therefore alters not only present and future but also past conduct.”

PastDesireBeliefTeachingFashionBehaviorTricksBehaveReachingNervesAllowingDefiniteReorganizationLearned BehaviorReaching Back
Book:The Nature of Personal Reality (A Seth Book): Specific, Practical Techniques for Solving Everyday Problems and Enriching the Life You Know
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“True humility is a Christian grace and one of the fruits of the Spirit, originating in a deep consciousness of sin past and present, and leading us to discover our nothingness in the view of God, our insufficiency for any thing that is good, and prompting us, as we feel our infirmities, to strive after higher and yet higher attainments.”

FeelsChristianPastSpiritSinViewsConsciousnessGraceHumilityHigherFruitStriveNothingnessAttainmentPast And PresentInfirmityTrue HumilityInsufficiencyFruits Of The SpiritGrace Christian
Author:James McCosh
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“For the bookish, London is a book. For criminals, a map of opportunities. For unpapered immigrants, it is a nest of skinned eyes; sanctioned gunmen ready to blow your head off as you run for a train. When the city of distorting mirrors revealed itself, through its districts and discriminations, I discovered more about London's past as a reworking of my own submerged history.”

BookEyeRunningPastOpportunityMy OwnCitiesReadyMirrorsTrainBlowLondonCriminalsDiscriminationImmigrantsMapsNestsSubmergedGunmen
Book:London: City of Disappearances
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“I've had a lot of people in my past who were friends with me just to get publicity. When I was young, my mom or sister used to have to point out if someone was using me to make a name for themselves – you know, linking arms with me on the red carpet and trying to get in every picture. But now I can see for myself when someone is just hungry for attention.”

PeopleIfsKnowsTryingI CanPastYoungUsedNamesAttentionArmsMomRedMy MomHungryCarpetPublicityMy PastRed CarpetUsing Me
Author:Paris Hilton
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“The first job of the historian and of the journalist is to find facts. Not the only job, perhaps not the most important, but the first. Facts are the cobblestones from which we build roads of analysis, mosaic tiles that we fit together to compose pictures of past and present. There will be disagreement about where the road leads and what reality or truth is revealed by the mosaic picture. The facts themselves must be checked against all the available evidence. But some are round and hard--and the most powerful leaders in the world can trip over them. So can writers, dissidents and saints.”

WorldFirstsImportantHardFactsRealityTogetherJobsPastPowerfulLeaderFitTruth IsEvidenceRoundsSaintAvailableJournalistAnalysisMost PowerfulHistorianDisagreementPast And PresentDissidentsMosaicsPowerful LeadersTilesCobblestone
Author:Timothy Garton Ash
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“In Britain, journalists often view comparisons with our society going back two, three, or seven centuries as more relevant than comparisons going back two, three, or seven decades. Drunkenness centuries ago is more illuminating than comparative sobriety 30 years ago. The distant past, selectively mined for evidence that justifies our current conduct, becomes more important than living memory.”

YearsTwoImportantPastThreeMemoriesViewsCenturyEvidenceYears AgoSevenCurrentsDecadesJournalistBritainOur SocietyComparisonJustifyRelevantDrunkennessSobrietyIlluminating
Author:Anthony Daniels
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“More attention to the History of Science is needed, as much by scientists as by historians, and especially by biologists, and this should mean a deliberate attempt to understand the thoughts of the great masters of the past, to see in what circumstances or intellectual milieu their ideas were formed, where they took the wrong turning or stopped short on the right track.”

ShouldMeanIdeasPastAttentionMastersNeededCircumstancesIntellectualScientistTrackHistorianDeliberateBiologistHistory Of ScienceRight TrackMilieuWrong Turn
Author:Ronald Fisher
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“The success that comes from my books is not something I feel very comfortable with. Past a certain point you have to accept the idea that the success is a lot to do with the timing and luck and that divorces you from it massively. There are aspects of it that I haven't got used to at all. But I've enjoyed some parts of it massively. It relates to the same reason I did a lot of backpacking — partly for the experience — it's something to tell my grandkids. It's a weird chain of events to have in your life.”

FeelsBookIdeasReasonPastUsedCertainAcceptingEventsHavensComfortableAspectLuckDivorceChainsEnjoyedRelateTimingGrandkidsBackpackingChain Of Events
Author:Alex Garland
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“All the real money in investment will have to be made as most of it has been in the past not out of buying and selling but out of owning and holding securities, receiving interests and dividends therein, and benefiting from their long-term increases in value. Hence stockholder's major energies and wisdom as investors should be directed toward assuring themselves of the best operating results from their corporations. This in turn means assuring themselves of fully honest and competent managements.”

ShouldMeanLongHas BeensMadeRealPastValuesTurnsEnergyTermInterestResultsHonestSecurityMajorsIncreaseManagementInvestmentSellingCorporationsLong TermBuyingInvestorsReceivingCompetentDividendsBuying And Selling
Author:Benjamin Graham
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“The history of the past fifty years, and longer, indicates that a diversified holding of representative common stocks will prove more profitable over a stretch of years than a bond portfolio, with one important provisio that the shares must be purchased at reasonable market levels, that is, levels that are reasonable in the light of fairly well-defined standards derived from past experience.”

YearsWellsImportantLightPastLevelsCommonShareProveStandardsDefinedReasonableFiftyRepresentativesProfitablePortfoliosPast Experiences
Book:The Intelligent Investor: A Book of Practical Counsel
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