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Past Quotes

“In this initial illimitableness of possibilities that characterizes one who has no nature there stands out only one fixed, pre-established, and given line by which he may chart his course, only one limit: the past.”

May Past Courses Given Lines Possibility Limits Fixed Standing Out Initials

Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset

“If time is treated in modern physics as a dimension on a par with the dimensions of space, why should we a priori exclude the possibility that we are pulled as well as pushed along its axis? The future has, after all, as much or as little reality as the past, and there is nothing logically inconceivable in introducing, as a working hypothesis, an element of finality, supplementary to the element of causality, into our equations. It betrays a great lack of imagination to believe that the concept of "purpose" must necessarily be associated with some anthropomorphic deity.”

“All "if" statements about the past are as dubious as prophecies of the future are. It seems fairly plausible that if Alexander or Ghengis Khan had never been born, some other individual would have filled his place and executed the design of the Hellenic or Mongolic expansion; but the Alexanders of philosophy and religion, of science and art, seem less expendable; their impact seems less determined by economic challenges and social pressures; and they seem to have a much wider range of possibilities to influence the direction, shape and texture of civilizations.”

“The aggregate energy of all the great masters of the past and those of the present communicates the greatest possibilities of art. It is from this position that the artist attains colossal strength.”

Art Past Artist Energy Strength Possibility Position Masters Communicate Colossal

Author:Jorg Immendorff

“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.”

Source: Why History Matters: Life and Thought

“Our understanding of the thought of the past is liable to be the more adequate, the less the historian is convinced of the superiority of his own point of view, or the more he is prepared to admit the possibility that he may have to learn something, not merely about the thinkers of the past, but from them.”

May Past Understanding Views Possibility Prepared Point Of View Convinced Thinker Historian Superiority Adequate Liable

Book:What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies

Source: What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies

“The next thing you think, the next action you take, will either create a new possibility for you, or it will repeat the past.”

Thinking Action Past Next Possibility Repeats New Possibilities

Book:Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul: How to Create a New Self

Source: Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul: How to Create a New Self

“In the past, the British had signally failed to build an effective structure of royal authority and administration in their American colonies. As a result, no possibility existed of soothing and winning over influential and talented Americans, in the way that influential and talented Scotsmen were increasingly being won over, by giving them increased access to state employment.”

Source: Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

“What was given to us by the past is adapted to the possibilities of the future.”

Past Given Possibility Adapted

Author:Carl Jung