“This ability to incorporate the past gives the sharpest diagnostic tool, if one asks whether a body of knowledge is a science or not. Do present practitioners have to go back to an original work of the past? Or has it been incorporated? ... Science is cumulative, and embodies its past.” IfsKnowsGivingBodyPastScienceAsksAbilityKnowledgeToolsAccountsOriginalsCumulative Author:C.P. Snow
“Art need no longer be an account of past sensations.” NeedsArtPastAccountsSensations Author:Angela Carter
“I think Santa Claus is, by and large, quite beneficial, for when the child is finally allowed -- or forced -- to recognize the nonexistence of Santa Claus, then the child is able to go through the vital intellectual process of reconstructing reality in light of new evidence, complete with back-forming new stories to account for past events. This prepares the child for many other disillusionments and gives her vital and well-supported experience in maintaining her grip on reality independent of the stories told to her at any given time.” ThinkingGivingWellsChildrenStoriesRealityLightAblePastGivenProcessEventsIntellectualEvidenceAccountsIndependentMaintainingBeneficialSantaSanta ClausDisillusionmentPast EventsReconstructing Author:Orson Scott Card
“The politics of our society are a conversation in which past, present and future each has a voice; and though one or other of them may on occasion properly prevail none permanently dominates, and on this account we are free.” MayPastVoiceConversationAccountsOccasionsOur SocietyPast PresentPast Present And Future Author:Michael Joseph Oakeshott
“The accounts that history presents have to be paid. Past has to be reconciled with present in the life of a nation. History is an insistent force: the past is what put us where we are. the past cannot be put behind until it is settled with.” PastForceNationsBehindsAccountsPaid Author:William Pfaff