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Past Quotes

“I discovered that I had, in the past two decades, written a far greater amount in the essay form than I remembered. Certainly I have written enough of it to demonstrate that I harbor no disdain for literary journalism or just plain journalism, under whose sponsorship I have been able to express much that has fascinated me, or alarmed me, or amused me, or otherwise engaged my attention when I was not writing a book.”

Source: This Quiet Dust and Other Writings

“The execution of William Bonin was not the traditional gas chamber of the past. That has been ruled cruel and unusual. Instead, we have something that seems very kind and benign and technical; the injection of chemicals, Nazi-style.”

Kind Has Beens Seems Past Style Traditional Gas Chemicals Unusual Execution Nazi Chamber Benign Injection Gas Chambers

Author:Jerry Brown

“The historian is looked upon as objective when he measures the past by the popular opinions of his own time, as subjective when he does not take these opinions for models. That man is thought best fitted to depict a period of the past, who is not in the least affected by that period. But only he who has a share in building up the future can grasp what the past has been, and only when transformed into a work of art can history arouse or even sustain instincts.”

Men Doe Has Beens Art Past Opinion Share Building Periods Models Instinct Objectives Affected Works Of Art Historian Transformed Subjective Building Up Popular Opinion

Author:Georg Brandes

“When one becomes for an instant one's former self, that is to say different from what one has been for some time past, one's sensibility, being no longer dulled by habit, receives from the slightest stimulus vivid impressions which make everything that has preceded them fade into insignificance, impressions to which, because of their intensity, we attach ourselves with the momentary enthusiasm of a drunkard.”

Has Beens Different Self Past Habit Impression Enthusiasm Former Instant Intensity Fades Sensibility Vivid Stimulus Momentary Drunkards Insignificance Times Past

Book:In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV: Sodom and Gomorrah (A Modern Library E-Book)

Source: In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV: Sodom and Gomorrah (A Modern Library E-Book)

“We see many instances of cities going down like sinking ships to their destruction. There have been such wrecks in the past and there surely will be others in the future, caused by the wickedness of captains and crews alike. For these are guilty men, whose sin is supreme ignorance of what matters most.”

Men Has Beens Matter Past Sin Cities Ignorance Destruction Supreme Ships Guilty Instance What Matters Captains Crew Wickedness Wrecks Sinking

Book:Plato's Statesman

Source: Plato's Statesman

“Because we have sought to cover up past evil, though it still persists, we have been powerless to check the new evil of today.Evil unchecked grows, Evil tolerated poisons the whole system. And because we have tolerated our past and present evils, international affairs are poisoned and law and justice have disappeared from them.”

Source: Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru: Advisory Board: M. Chalapathi Rau, H. Y. Sharada Prasad, and B. R. Nanda; General Editor: S. Gopal

“To be sure, the ancient belief that the dream reveals the future is not entirely devoid of truth. By representing to us a wish as fulfilled the dream certainly leads us into the future; but this future, taken by the dreamer as present, has been formed into the likeness of that past by the indestructible wish.”

Has Beens Dream Past Belief Wish Taken Ancient Dreamer Fulfilled Representing Indestructible

Book:THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS - The Royal Road to the Unconscious: Rules of Dream Interpretation: The Dream as a Fulfillment of a Wish, Distortion in Dreams, The Method of Dream Interpretation, The Sources of Dreams & The Psychology of the Dream Activities

Source: THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS - The Royal Road to the Unconscious: Rules of Dream Interpretation: The Dream as a Fulfillment of a Wish, Distortion in Dreams, The Method of Dream Interpretation, The Sources of Dreams & The Psychology of the Dream Activities

“Had the employers of past generations all of them dealt fairly with their men there would have been no unions.”

Men Has Beens Past Generations Unions Employers Past Generations

Author:Stanley Baldwin

“We have unmistakable proof that throughout all past time, there has been a ceaseless devouring of the weak by the strong.”

Has Beens Past Strong Weak Proof Conquest Devouring

Book:The Principles of Biology

Source: The Principles of Biology

“There are very few things in the mind which eat up as much energy as worry. It is one of the most difficult things not to worry about anything. Worry is experienced when things go wrong, but in relation to past happenings it is idle merely to wish that they might have been otherwise. The frozen past is what it is, and no amount of worrying is going to make it other than what it has been. But the limited ego-mind identifies itself with its past, gets entangled with it and keeps alive the pangs of frustrated desires.”

Mind Has Beens Might Past Desire Energy Wish Difficult Worry Alive Amount Ego Happenings Relation Frustrated Idle Frozen Might Have Been Difficult Things When Things Go Wrong

Author:Meher Baba

“The American people were, in the beginning, Revolutionaries and Tories. The American people ever since have been Revolutionaries and Tories. They have been Revolutionaries and Tories regardless of the labels of the past and present. Regardless of whether they were Federalists, Democrat-Republicans, Whigs, Know-Nothings, Free Soilers, Unionists or Confederates, Populists, Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Communists, or Progressives. They have been and are profiteers and patriots. They have been and are conservatives, liberals, and radicals.”

People Knows Has Beens Past Republican Democrat Radical Labels Revolutionary Communist Patriot Past And Present Populist Federalist Confederate

Author:Saul Alinsky

“Advanced cultures are usually sophisticated enough, or have been sophisticated enough at some point in their pasts, to realize that foxes shouldn't be relied on to guard henhouses.”

Has Beens Enough Past Culture Realizing Sophisticated Foxes

Author:Jane Jacobs

“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.”

People Ifs Way Years Mean Has Beens Country America Past Black Wealth Justice Poor Special Ten Court Lovely Radical Aggressive Black People Unjust Poor People Boast Special Places Lovely Things

Author:Howard Zinn

“Zidane is the master. Over the past 10 years, there's been no-one like him, he has been the best player in the world.”

World Years Has Beens Past Player Masters Over The Past Best Players Zidane

Author:Zinedine Zidane

“Zidane is probably the best player there has been in the past 20 years ... France have recovered the best Zidane and they have progressively grown throughout this tournament.”

Years Has Beens Past Player France Tournaments Best Players Zidane

Author:Zinedine Zidane

“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.”

“We believe, from everything we have been told by the intelligence community, by 12 years of history with Iraq, by the experience of the U.N. inspectors and by other intelligence agencies in other countries that Saddam Hussein had the intention to develop weapons of mass destruction and to have such weapons, and that was a sound judgment which I still believe to this day because he had had them in the past, he'd used them in the past.”

“The tribunal here and your American newspapers talk so much about our sharp Nazi methods, but do you realize that within the past year, since the defeat of Germany, 1 million Germans have been evicted from what was originally German territory and which has now been given to Poland? No League of Nations or other body intervened.”

Years Has Beens Body Past Given Nations Realizing Millions Method Defeat Newspapers League Germany Territory Nazi Poland Tribunals League Of Nations

Author:Alfred Rosenberg

“Today, I will try to remember to regret the past. I will think of how many mistakes I have made throughout my life. I will say to myself, "If only I could go back in time and make different choices, so that my life could be the way it should have been." Then I will remind myself that I cannot.”

Ifs Thinking Way Should Trying Has Beens Made Different Today Past Remember Choices Mistake Regret Should Have Should Have Been Back In Time Go Back In Time Different Choices Past Regrets

Author:John S. Hall

“There's no denying that the way horror has been packaged in the past has done it no favours. Lurid black covers adorned with skulls, corpses crawling with insects and scantily clad maidens being chewed into by vampires -- all good clean fun, but it doesn't do much to give the genre an air of respectability or seriousness to the casual browser.”

Way Giving Has Beens Done Past Fun Black Air Horror Clean Vampire Genre Favour Insects Corpses Casual Seriousness Skulls Maidens Crawling Respectability Browsers

Author:Tim Lebbon

“Reality looks much more obvious in hindsight than in foresight. People who experience hindsight bias misapply current hindsight to past foresight. They perceive events that occurred to have been more predictable before the fact than was actually the case.”

People Looks Has Beens Facts Reality Past Cases Events Currents Obvious Perceive Bias Predictable Foresight Hindsight

Book:Beyond Greed and Fear: Understanding Behavioral Finance and the Psychology of Investing

Source: Beyond Greed and Fear: Understanding Behavioral Finance and the Psychology of Investing

“Some god or Weltgeist has been making a movie out of us for the past six thousand years, and now we have turned a corner on the movie set of reality and have discovered the boards propping up the two-dimensional monuments of human history. The movement of humanism has reached its limit, and now at that limit it is breaking apart into the opposites of mechanism and mysticism and moving along the circumference of a vast new sphere of posthuman thought.”

Source: Passages about Earth: An Exploration of the New Planetary Culture

“I have a lot of -- I struggle with a lot of shame over my past. There have been times when I've been incredibly embarrassed about the things that happened to me. I don't think that there is one human being in this world that would wish, you know, to be injured as a kid the way -- in ways that I was.”

Thinking Knows World Way Humans Has Beens Kids Past Wish Human Beings Struggle Happened This World Shame Embarrassed Injured Wish You My Past

Author:Traci Lords

“Prince William's pregnant wife, Kate Middleton, is past her due date. Doctors may have to induce labor. To speed up the birth, doctors have been telling the baby, 'Come on out. You will never have to work a day in your life.'”

May Has Beens Past Wife Baby Birth Labor Doctors Dues Speed Pregnant Kate Due Date Pregnant Wife

Author:Conan O'Brien

“The Secret Service said there have been 40 fence-jumping incidents at the White House in the past five years. Half of them were intruders trying to get in. The other half was President Obama trying to get out.”

Trying Years Has Beens Said Past House President White Secret Half Five Five Years White House President Obama Fence Jumping Incidents Other Half Secret Service Intruders

Author:Conan O'Brien

“Solitary confinement has been used extensively, it always has. I was in prison for 44 years; it was a normal part of life - the practice of it. They put you in solitary confinement for disciplinary reasons, they put you in solitary confinement to protect you from violence or whatever, and they also put you in solitary confinement just to show you who has got the power ... It's not something new; it's just something that nobody really cared about in the past.”

Years Has Beens Reason Shows Past Used Practice Violence Protect Normal Prison Something New Solitary Parts Of Life Protect You Confinement Solitary Confinement

Author:Wilbert Rideau

“Generally, we are united in the belief that all rod design has been progressive and that the ideas about fly rods in the past were so bad as to make it amazing that people were able to fish at all.”

People Has Beens Ideas Able Past Belief United Sea Design Rivers Fishes Boat Lakes Fishing Progressive

Book:The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing

Source: The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing

“The game must have been past my bed-time.”

Has Beens Past Games Football Bed Managers Soccer Chairman Bed Time

Author:Theo Walcott

“If the common man in the past had a grave respect for property, it may conceivably have been because he sometimes had some of his own.”

Ifs Men May Has Beens Sometimes Wisdom Past Politics Common Economy Property Graves Liberalism Common Man

Book:The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton

Source: The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton

“There are many reasons why the general public doesn't really understand our monetary system. In the first place, money is something that people tend to get emotional about. After all, money involves, and always has involved, something closely akin to faith-which probably explains why in many past societies the money system has been in the hands of a priesthood, the subject of magical rites, and the ceremonial services of the tribe's medicine man.”

“There is no future and there is no past, there never has been, there never will be. You just think there is. It's not life that moves; it's awareness.”

Thinking Has Beens Past Moving Awareness Mysticism Be You

Author:Frederick Lenz

“But the Progressive Conservative is very definitely liberal Republican. These are people who are moderately conservative on economic matters, and in the past have been moderately liberal, even sometimes quite liberal on social policy matters.”

People Has Beens Sometimes Matter Past Social Economic Policy Republican Conservative Progressive Social Policy

Author:Stephen Harper

“Awakenings are always terrifying as they force you to realize your past has been lived in confinement, the most disturbing part is when you recognize that the shackle holding you down are largely once you have placed upon yourself, the prison is self constructed”

Has Beens Self Past Force Realizing Prison Awakening Our Past Disturbing Your Past Shackles Confinement

Author:Dean Karnazes

“When the family has been brought into its natural order, the individual can leave it behind him while still feeling the strength of his family supporting him. Only when the connection to his family is acknowledged, and the person's responsibility seen clearly and then distributed, can the individual feel unburdened and go about his personal affairs without anything from the past weighing him down or holding him back.”

Feels Persons Has Beens Stills Feelings Past Order Individual Natural Behinds Responsibility Connections Affair Weighing Natural Order

Author:Bert Hellinger

“One of the problems we've had is that the ICT curriculum in the past has been written for a subject that is changing all the time. I think that what we should have is computer science in the future - and how it fits in to the curriculum is something we need to be talking to scientists, to experts in coding and to young people about.”

People Thinking Needs Should Has Beens Problem Past Young Talking Written Subjects Fit Computer Should Have Scientist Experts Computer Science Curriculum Ict

Author:Michael Gove

“If a friend is the one who summons us to our best, then is not Jesus Christ our best friend, and should we not think of the Communion as one of His chief appeals to us to be our best? The Lord's Supper looks not back to our past with a critical eye, but to our future, with a hopeful one. The Master appeals from what we have been to what we may be. He bids us come, not because we are better than we have been, but because He wants us to be. To stay away because our hearts are cold is to refuse to go to the fire till we are warm.”

Source: Thoughts for Every-day Living from the Spoken and Written Words of Maltbie Davenport Babcock

“Reform is a good replete with paradox; it is a cathartic which our political quacks, like our medical, recommend to others, but will not take themselves; it is admired by all who cannot effect it, and abused by all who can; it is thought pregnant with danger, for all time that is present, but would have been extremely profitable for that which is past, and will be highly salutary for that which is to come.”

Has Beens Past Political Effects Danger Medical All Time Reform Paradox Pregnant Profitable Quacks Cathartic

Book:Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

“Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and far from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Ionia.”

Thinking Men May Littles Has Beens Philosophy Past Force Grows Virtue My Friends Gains Dignity Bravery Senses Ruins Association Indifferent Marathon Piety Envied Frigid

Author:Samuel Johnson

“We shall some day be heeded, and when we shall have our amendment to the Constitution of the United States, everybody will think it was always so, just exactly as many young people believe that all the privileges, all the freedom, all the enjoyments which woman now possesses always were hers. They have no idea of how every single inch of ground that she stands upon today has been gained by the hard work of some little handful of women of the past.”

Source: Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words

“When something like this happens, you suddenly have no sense of reality at all. You have lost a piece of your past. The infidelity itself is small potatoes compared to the low-level brain damage that results when a whole chunk of your life turns out to have been completely different from what you thought it was. It becomes impossible to look back at anything that's happened ... without wondering what was really going on.”

Looks Has Beens Different Whole Reality Happens Past Turns Lost Levels Results Brain Wonder Pieces Impossible Happened Lows Damage Infidelity Our Past Potatoes Your Past Chunks Low Level

Book:Heartburn

Source: Heartburn

“When I read or hear of the mutual injuries of England and Ireland, I fancy it would have been a blessed thing had the sea never flowed between the two countries. Had they been all in one, surely there would have been more unity between them of interests and of feelings. But let us hope that days of peace and general enlightenment will arrive by ways past man's finding out.”

Men Way Has Beens Two Country Feelings Past Interest Sea Findings Enlightenment England Blessed Unity Fancy Injury Mutual Ireland Two Countries

Book:Memoir and Letters

Source: Memoir and Letters

“God must have been engaged from the beginning, and must now be engaged in progressive development, and infinite as God is, he must have been less powerful in the past than he is today.... We may be certain that, through self-effort, the inherent and innate powers of God have been developed to a God-like degree. Thus he has become God.”

May Has Beens Self Today Past Certain Powerful Effort Development Degrees Infinite Engaged Progressive Inherent Innate Power Of God

Author:John Andreas Widtsoe

“This is a city of absolute enchantment in the literal sense of the word. It loosens all the bonds binding the traveller to his own age and sets him free to live in a past that is vital and crude but never ugly. Herat is as old as history and as moving as a great epic poem - if Afghanistan had nothing else it would have been worth coming to experience this.”

Ifs Has Beens Age Past Moving Cities Absolutes Ugly Afghanistan Epic Asia Literal Traveller Crude Binding Enchantment Epic Poems

Book:Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

Source: Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

“I am 46, and have been for some time past.”

Has Beens Age Past Times Past

Author:Anita Brookner

“Even when men approve of the same arrangements, it must be asked whether they approve of them because they exist or because they are desirable in themselves. The common resistance to the collectivist tide should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the belief in integral freedom is based on an essentially forward-looking attitude and not on any nostalgic longing for the past or a romantic admiration for what has been.”

Men Should Has Beens Facts Past Belief Common Attitude Longing Resistance Admiration Tides Arrangements Obscure Desirable Nostalgic

Author:Friedrich August von Hayek

“There is nothing in the world so dangerous, or so overwhelming as stupidity; perhaps there is no more of it now than there has been at any time, but I do not think the witless of past generations had so much power. The powers of darkness are the powers of misdirected knowledge.”

Thinking World Has Beens Past Darkness Generations Dangerous Stupidity Overwhelming Past Generations

Author:Gwethalyn Graham

“one of the great weaknesses of the women's rights movement over the past two hundred years has been the tendency of its history to disappear, so that it must be resurrected for each new generation.”

Years Has Beens Two Past Rights Generations Movement Weakness Hundred Disappear Tendencies Womens Rights Over The Past New Generation

Author:Susan Jacoby

“The rapid deterioration of education has been recognized as a national problem for the past several years. Consequently, American businesses must meet the immediate challenge of poorly-educated people in today's workforce by strengthening employee training programs.”

People Years Has Beens Problem Today Past Challenges Training Program Educated Employee Rapids Strengthening Workforce Deterioration American Business Training Programs

Author:Gregory Balestrero

“The past has been given to us. The future must be built, as others have built our past.”

Has Beens Past Given Future Built Our Past

Book:Sing Out the Glory

Source: Sing Out the Glory

“Maleficent has suffered abuse in the past, and there's a reason why she is now as furious as she is. And I think that children who have been outcast and abused in any way will relate to her. There's a beautiful side to her; she's not just a dark person. She has all these facets. And that is interesting.”

Thinking Way Children Persons Has Beens Reason Past Beautiful Sides Dark Interesting Abuse Relate Reason Why Furious Outcast Facets Maleficent

Author:Angelina Jolie