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Past Quotes

“I confessed recently to an old friend, "I realized I was looking at you, in your visit, through old glasses. Speaking old words. Telling old stories. I realize that in my life I've made so many physical changes and I need to give my spirit time to catch up." Time for my spirit to look at my friend through the new glasses of current life experiences. Old friends are precious. They become even more treasured when they are wrapped in the currentness of life experiences and not relegated to the past in which they once lived.”

NeedsGivingLooksMadeStoriesPastSpiritRealizingMy FriendsGlassesCurrentsI RealizedRedemptionLife ExperienceOld FriendsTreasuredNew Relationship
Author:Mary Anne Radmacher
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“There is plenty of blame to go around for the U.S. housing bubble, but not much of it belongs to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two giant housing-finance institutions made many mistakes over the decades, some of them real whoppers, but causing house prices to soar and then crater during the past decade weren't among them.”

MadeTwoRealPastHouseMistakeInstitutionsBlameDecadesFinancePlentyGiantsBubblesSoarHousingMacsMaeCratersHouse PricesHousing Bubble
Author:Mark Zandi
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“Had history been democratic in its ways, there would have been no farming and no indsturial revolution. Both leaps into the future were occasioned by unbearably painful crises that made most people wish they could recoil into the past.”

PeopleWayHas BeensMadePastWishRevolutionCrisisDemocraticPainfulLeapFarmingIndustrial RevolutionRecoil
Book:The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy
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“As the strata of the earth preserve in succession the living creatures of past epochs, so the shelves of libraries preserve in succession the errors of the past and their expositions, which like the former were very lively and made a great commotion in their own age but now stand petrified and stiff in a place where only the literary palaeontologist regards them.”

MadeAgeEarthPastCreaturesRegardErrorsLibraryFormerPreservesShelvesSuccessionLivelyLiving Creatures
Book:On the Suffering of the World
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“In retrospect, the past seems not one existence with a continuous flow of years and events that follow each other in logical sequence, but a life periodically dividing into entirely separate compartments. Change of surroundings, interests, pursuits, has made it seem actually more like different incarnations.”

YearsMadeDifferentSeemsPastInterestExistenceEventsReflectionFlowPursuitMade ItLogicalSurroundingsSequenceIncarnationRetrospectDividing
Book:The Fabric of Memory
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“There is one key area in which Zuma has made no attempt at reconciliation whatsoever: criminal justice and security. The ministers of justice, defence, intelligence (now called "state security" in a throwback to both apartheid and the ANC's old Stalinist past), police and communications are all die-hard Zuma loyalists. Whatever their line functions, they will also play the role they have played so ably to date: keeping Zuma out of court - and making sure the state serves Zuma as it once did Mbeki.”

MadeHardStatesPlayPastDiesLinesJusticeRolesSecurityCommunicationKeysAreasFunctionPoliceCourtCriminalsMinistersReconciliationDefenceApartheidCriminal JusticeThrowbackLoyalistsZuma
Author:Mark Gevisser
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“A race that is solely dependent upon another for economic existence sooner or later dies. As we have in the past been living upon the mercies shown by others, and by the chances obtainable, and have suffered there from, so we will in the future suffer if an effort is not made now to adjust our own affairs.”

IfsMadePastSufferingDiesChanceEffortRaceExistenceEconomicMercyAffairDependentSooner Or Later
Book:The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Or, Africa for the Africans
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“What I got out of baseball is what I have today, and I've got to look at that. I still see some of my friends that never made it past Triple-A. I made that last big step. I was lucky. I'm in love with my land. I got it all from playing ball. It gives me prestige. Someone says, 'What you got?' I say, 'One hundred and twenty-one acres of nice land.'”

GivingLooksMadeStillsBigsTodayLastsPastStepsNiceLandLuckyHundredMy FriendsBaseballBallsGive MeTwentiesMade ItTwenty OnePrestigeAcres
Author:Mark Fidrych
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“May it not be asked of every intelligent friend to the liberties of his country, whether the power exercised in such an act as this ought not to produce great and universal alarm? Whether a rigid execution of such an act, in time past, would not have repressed that information and communication among the people which is indispensable to the just exercise of their electoral rights? And whether such an act, if made perpetual, and enforced with rigor, would not, in time to come, either destroy our free system of government, or prepare a convulsion that might prove equally fatal to it?”

PeopleIfsMayMadeCountryGovernmentMightPastLibertyRightsInformationProduceCommunicationOughtExerciseProveUniversalConstitutionIntelligentPerpetualExecutionIndispensableAlarmsRepressedRigorSystems Of GovernmentTimes PastInformation And Communication
Book:The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. Together with the Journal of the Federal Convention, Luther Martin's Letter, Yates's Minutes, Congressional Opinions, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of '98-'99, and Other Illustrations of the Constitution
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“Our world is not an optimal place, fine tuned by omnipotent forces of selection. It is a quirky mass of imperfections, working well enough (often admirably); a jury-rigged set of adaptations built of curious parts made available by past histories in different contexts. A world optimally adapted to current environments is a world without history, and a world without history might have been created as we find it. History matters; it confounds perfection and proves that current life transformed its own past.”

WorldWellsHas BeensMadeDifferentMatterEnoughMightPastForceEnvironmentFineProveMassBuiltPerfectionCurrentsAvailableCuriousOur WorldImperfectionTransformedSelectionMight Have BeenAdaptationJuryAdaptedQuirkyOmnipotentRiggedOptimal
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
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“Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White is remarkable for its truth-telling about two important issues concerning Alabama's past and present: the civil rights movement and immigration. These stories, rendered through the words and eyes of a young Latina girl who came from Argentina to Marion, Alabama, are made vivid and immediate through Weaver's highly accessible drawings and dialogue. This is a book-about maturation, family, education, and social change-every schoolchild, parent, and citizen should experience.”

ShouldMadeTwoImportantBookStoriesEyePastYoungGirlSocialParentBlackWhiteIssuesRightsMovementCitizensDrawingImmigrationMemoirDialogueCivil RightsTelling The TruthRemarkableBlack And WhiteSocial ChangeVividCivil Rights MovementAlabamaPast And PresentArgentinaImportant IssuesLatinaWeaversThis Is A BookDarkroomFamily Education
Author:Sena Jeter Naslund
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“No man-made law ever, no matter whether derived from the past or projected onto a distant, unforeseeable future, can or should ever be empowered to claim that it is greater than the Natural Law from which it stems and to which it must inevitably return in the eternal rhythm of creation and decline of all things natural.”

MenShouldMadeMatterPastLawNaturalGreaterCreationReturnEternalAll ThingsClaimsRhythmDeclineStemEmpoweredNatural Law
Book:Selected Writings: An Introduction to Orgonomy
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“Television is a new, hard test of our wisdom. If we succeed in mastering the new medium it will enrich us. But it can also put our mind to sleep. We must not forget that in the past the inability to transport immediate experience and to convey it to others made the use of language necessary and thus compelled the human mind to develop concepts. For in order to describe things one must draw the general from the specific; one must select, compare, think. When communication can be achieved by pointing with the finger, however, the mouth grows silent, the writing hand stops, and the mind shrinks.”

IfsThinkingWritingMindHumansMadeHardUseHandsPastOrderLanguageGrowsSleepForgetTelevisionCommunicationSucceedDrawsMouthsConceptsTestsSilentFingersMediumsCompareHuman MindCompelledInabilityPointingShrinksSelectTransportUse Of Language
Book:Film as Art
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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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“To the extent that sacrifices need to be made, shouldn't the people who've made out like bandits this past generation be first in line? The problem with getting out of the slump is that we need to spend more. It's not that somebody needs to spend less. We have idle workers who have the skills and the willingness to work. We have idle factories. Dealing with this is not about saying somebody needs to suffer. It's saying that we need to be prepared to open the taps.”

PeopleNeedsFirstsMadeProblemPastSufferingLinesGenerationsSacrificeSkillsPreparedWorkersWillingnessFactoriesIdleBe PreparedBanditsSlumpsPast Generations
Author:Paul Krugman
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“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.”

IfsThinkingWayShouldTryingHas BeensMadeDifferentTodayPastRememberChoicesMistakeRegretShould HaveShould Have BeenBack In TimeGo Back In TimeDifferent ChoicesPast Regrets
Author:John S. Hall
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“Sometimes we say we want an end to hate or racism or sexism. But we all participate in keeping these structures alive. If everyone decided to relinquish the past what would happen to people who feel that there hasn't been proper atonement made to them? And what happens to the person who feels that the constant atonement is their identity?”

PeopleIfsWantFeelsPersonsMadeEndsSometimesHappensPastHateAliveIdentityRacismDecidedStructureConstantSexismAtonement
Author:Chris Abani
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“We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.”

HumansMadeDifferentProblemActionPastCertainChoicesKnowledgeTeachGenerationsEventsExamplePossibilityCircumstancesDemandConsequenceClimate ChangeDetermineUndoneAnalogiesHuman ActionsFuture EventsPast GenerationsActions Have Consequences
Book:Why History Matters: Life and Thought
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“Who you really are, your True Nature, is no more tied to the kind of person you've been than the wind is tied to the skies through which it moves. Your past is just that, the past, a place within your psyche with no more reality to it than a picture of a castle on a postcard is made from stone. You have a destination far beyond where you find yourself standing today.”

KindPersonsMadeRealityTodayPastMovingSkyWindStandingStonesFinding YourselfDestinationTiedOur PastCastlesYour PastTrue NaturePostcards
Author:Guy Finley
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“When I was a young girl salmon fishing with my father in the Straits of Juan de Fuca in Washington State I used to lean out over the water and try to look past my own face, past the reflection of the boat, past the sun and darkness, down to where the fish were surely swimming. I made up charm songs and word-hopes to tempt the fish, to cause them to mean biting my hook. I believed they would do it if I asked them well and patiently and with the right hope. I am writing my poems like this. I have used the fabric and the people of my life as the bait.”

PeopleIfsWritingTryingWellsLooksMeanMadeStatesPastFacesYoungUsedSongGirlFatherCausesWaterMy OwnDarknessSunSeaReflectionRiversFishesBoatCharmLakesFishingSwimmingFabricHookBaitBitingSalmonJuanWashington State
Author:Tess Gallagher
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“Like sex, poverty and power, suicide may always be with us. But like them again, the actual form is takes is essentially time-specific and culture-bound, not only in the past but in the present too. The people who took their lives, the paths which led them to that end, and the experience of dying in this way were deeply influenced by specific historical circumstances. Only by making a greater effort at historical understanding can this most secret house of death be made to yield up more of its confidences.”

PeopleWayMayMadeEndsPastFormCultureHouseSexUnderstandingEffortSecretPovertyPathGreaterDyingCircumstancesSuicideHistoricalBoundsYieldBritish History
Author:David Cannadine
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“The common sense of the word (navy) as we use it today refers to a permanent fighting service made up of ships designed for war, manned by professionals and supported by an adminsistrative and technical infrastructure. A navy in this sense is only one possible method of making war at sea, and by some way the most difficult and the most recent. There have in the past been, and to some extent still are, many other ways of generating sea power.”

WayMadeStillsWarUseTodayPastFightingDifficultCommonSeaMethodCommon SenseShipsPermanentNavyInfrastructureSea Power
Author:Nicholas Rodger
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“While all the pomp and circumstance of war animated others, it only saddened me; and all of past reflection, all of future dread, made the whole grandeur of the martial scene, and all the delusive seduction of martial music, fill my eyes frequently with tears.”

MadeWarWholeEyePastTearsCircumstancesSceneReflectionDreadSeductionAnimatedGrandeurMilitarismSaddened
Book:Complete Works of Frances Burney (Delphi Classics)
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