Quotessence
Home / Topics / Past Quotes

Past Quotes

Browse 13378 quotes about Past.

Related topics

IfsPeopleThinkingYearsWayKnowsWorldMenHas BeensOur PastMomentsLooksWantMemoriesTodayYour PastMindTryingFeelsDoneMayNeedsLongShouldGivingMovingMy PastRememberStillsMadeBelieveMeanOver The PastWellsPersonsWritingDoeKindHumansFirstsDifferentLittlesAgeTwoHappenedI CanForgetSeemsCountryImportantLastsRealSaidFutureSometimesBookArtDreamMatterStoriesHistoryChildrenHeartLifeInspirationalEndsGonePast LifeRealityOur FutureEventsIdeasFactsMistakeHappensAbleReasonMightUseRegretWholeTimeProblemLyingStatesFeelingsUsedLife IsSelfActionHelpingCenturyEnoughHardWould BeAmericaFormBehindsFacesSoulmore

Past Quotes

“To avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, an alert citizenry today should take the trouble to learn how easy it can be for a powerful minority to manipulate information to win the support-or the indifference-of the majority towards an action.”

ShouldTodayActionPastWinningEasyPowerfulMistakeSupportTroubleInformationMajorityIndifferenceMinoritiesManipulateCitizenry
Book:Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion
Create image

“Surrendering to change is always a leap of faith. For something new to enter your life, you have to let go of the past and join your immediate experience right now. The key is less in what you do than how connected you are in yourself as you do it. In life there is no predetermined path you should or have to walk; you lay down the path by how you take each step. This is one of life's greatest truths.”

ShouldPastChangeWalksStepsPathKeysRight NowLetting GoLaysConnectedSomething NewLeapLeap Of FaithPredetermined
Author:Richard Moss
Create image

“O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, even our brothers, the animals, to whom Thou gavest the earth as their home in common with us. We must remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to thee in song, has been a groan of pain. May we realize that they live, not for us alone, but for themselves and for Thee and that they love the sweetness of life.”

MenShouldMayHas BeensHomeEarthPainPastRememberSongVoiceRealizingAnimalCommonGoneBrotherCreaturesShould HaveShameCrueltyTheeSweetnessFellowshipLiving ThingsRuthlessDominionSweetness Of Life
Author:Saint Basil
Create image

“I never in a million years thought I would be starring in Hairspray, ever. Because if you think about my past, it's been 30 years of playing a macho leading man, so when I was offered it, I said: "Why? Why me? What have I done to deserve that you think I should do this?" After much convincing, over a year and two months, I was convinced they wanted to make a great movie.”

IfsThinkingMenShouldYearsSaidTwoDoneWould BeWantedPastMillionsMonthsDeserveConvincedConvincingMy PastTwo MonthsMachoWhy MeHairspray
Author:John Travolta
Create image

“How often are you worrying about the present moment? The present moment is usually all right. If you're worrying, you're either agonizing over the past which you should have forgotten long ago, or else you're apprehensive over the future which hasn't even come yet. We tend to skip over the present moment which is the only moment God gives any of us to live.”

IfsGivingShouldLongMomentsPastWorryShould HaveForgottenPresent MomentLong AgoOver The PastSkipAgonizing
Author:Peace Pilgrim
Create image

“We should always look back on our own past with a sort of contempt, as long as the tenderness is there - but please let some of the contempt be there.”

ShouldLooksLongPastPleaseContemptTenderness
Book:An interview with Dennis Potter: an edited transcript of Melvyn Bragg's interview with Dennis Potter, broadcast on the 5th of April 1994
Create image

“We can't have an idea of what life should look like, about how spirit should be manifesting as our very life, because all of those ideas would just be products of the past - something we learned, imagined, or desired. Once again, we find ourselves back in the unknown - not in the idea of the unknown, but in the lived reality of it. It's the mind humbled, on its knees, with bare feet and free of the known.”

ShouldMindLooksIdeasRealityPastSpiritKnownFeetProductsKneesManifestBare Feet
Author:Adyashanti
Create image

“Every historian loves the past or should do. If not, he has mistaken his vocation; but it is a short step from loving the past to regretting that it has ever changed. Conservatism is our greatest trade-risk; and we run psychoanalysts close in the belief that the only "normal" people are those who cause no trouble either to themselves or anybody else.”

PeopleIfsShouldRunningPastBeliefCausesStepsRiskTroubleChangedRegretNormalTradeHistorianMistakenVocationConservatism
Author:A. J. P. Taylor
Create image

“For who can wonder that man should feel a vague belief in tales of disembodied spirits wandering through those places which they once dearly affected, when he himself, scarcely less separated from his old world than they, is for ever lingering upon past emotions and bygone times, and hovering, the ghost of his former self, about the places and people that warmed his heart of old?”

PeopleMenWorldFeelsShouldHeartSelfPastSpiritBeliefEmotionWonderGhostTalesWanderFormerAffectedVagueSpookyOld WorldLingeringHovering
Book:The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Other Stories
Create image

“There is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present. For the future we must provide by maintaining what the present gives us and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that what was won in want should be lost in plenty.”

WantGivingShouldMayPastWinningLostWealthEffortVirtueHabitReflectionResourcesAdvantageShould HaveFruitPlentyLabourMaintainingHereditary
Book:The Peloponnesian War
Create image

“The key problem is to find out why that sector of society of the past, which I would not hesitate to call capitalist, should have lived as if in a bell jar, cut off from the rest; why was it not able to expand and conquer the whole of society?... [Why was it that] a significant rate of capital formation was possible only in certain sectors and not in the whole market economy of the time?”

IfsShouldWholeProblemAblePastCertainEconomyCuttingKeysShould HaveRateSignificantConquerCapitalistBellsFormationJarsMarket EconomyBell Jar
Book:Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century: The wheels of commerce
Create image

“The busy chatter of the heat Shrilled like a parakeet; And shuddering at the noonday light The dust lay dead and white As powder on a mummy's face, Or fawned with simian grace Round booths with many a hard bright toy And wooden brittle joy: The cap and bells of Time the Clown That, jangling, whistled down Young cherubs hidden in the guise Of every bird that flies; And star-bright masks for youth to wear, Lest any dream that fare Bright pilgrim past our ken, should see Hints of Reality.”

ShouldHardDreamRealityLightPastFacesYoungJoyStarsWhiteGraceYouthBirdLaysRoundsBusyDustHeatMaskBellsToysClownHintsCapsPilgrimPowderGuiseChatterMummyShudderingCherubsParakeets
Book:The canticle of the rose: poems: 1917-1949
Create image

“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.”

IfsShouldBelieveWellsLittlesRealityPastPurposeImaginationSpaceModernPossibilityElementsConceptsPhysicsTreatedDimensionsBetrayIntroducingHypothesisEquationsDeitiesAxesFinalityCausalityModern Physics
Author:Arthur Koestler
Create image

“The explorers of the past were great men and we should honour them. But let us not forget that their spirit lives on. It is still not hard to find a man who will adventure for the sake of a dream or one who will search, for the pleasure of searching, not for what he may find.”

MenShouldMayStillsHardDreamPastSpiritForgetPleasureAdventureSakeGreat MenExplorationHonourExplorersMt Everest
Book:High Adventure: Our Ascent of the Everest
Create image

“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
Create image

“The art of the poem nowadays is something unstable; but at least the construction of the poem should make sense; you should know where you stand. Many questions haven't been answered as yet. Our poets may be wrong; but what can any of us do with his talent but try to develop his vision, so that through frequent failures we may learn better what we have missed in the past.”

KnowsShouldTryingMayArtPastVisionTalentHavensPoetMake SenseConstructionUnstableWhere You Stand
Author:William Carlos Williams
Create image

“There's no doubt that I really have a feeling for the theater. These past few days it has occurred to me to do a comedy whose chief characters are photographic enlargements. Those people we see in doorways. Newlyweds, sergeants, dead girls, an anonymous crowd full of mustaches and wrinkles. It should be terrible. If I focus it well, it will possess pathos without consolation. In the midst of those people I will place an authentic fairy.”

PeopleIfsShouldWellsCharacterFeelingsPastGirlDoubtComedyFocusTerribleTheaterCrowdsChiefsNo DoubtFairyMidstConsolationWrinklesDoorwaysMustachePathosSergeantsNewlywedsEnlargement
Author:Federico Garcia Lorca
Create image

“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
Create image

“It is obvious that the fascist mass pestilence, with its background of thousands of years, cannot be mastered with social measures corresponding to the past three hundred years. The discovery of the natural biological work democracy in international human intercourse is the answer to fascism. This will be no less true even if not one of the living sex-economists, orgone biophysicists or work democrats should live to see its general functioning and its victory over the irrationalism in social life.”

IfsShouldYearsHumansPastThreeSocialSexNaturalAnswersDemocracyVictoryMassHundredDiscoveryDemocratInternationalObviousBackgroundsFascismEconomistIntercourseFascistsSocial LifeCorrespondingPestilence
Author:Wilhelm Reich
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“Karma is not something pessimistic. If you think of karma as something wrong, you are seeing karma only according to what happened in the past. You look at the past and karma becomes a monster. So you should also look at karma in the present and future. Then karma becomes something very wide and really alive. Through karma you can understand what your destiny is. Destiny itself has no solid form; it's something you can create. You can create your life. That is why we study karma.”

IfsThinkingShouldLooksPastFormDestinyStudyAliveSeeingHappenedWideKarmaMonstersOur DestinyYour DestinyPessimistic
Book:Each Moment Is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time
Create image

“Our faith in democracy, personal freedoms and human 'rights', and the other comforting prescriptions of the humanist liberal credo stem from the supremacy of maritime over territorial power. Pragmatists may deplore this as crude determinism, as another vain attempt to construct a general theory of history. They should reflect on the sort of political philosophy and structures we might now adhere to had the Habsburgs, Bourbons, Bonaparte, Hitler, Stalin or his heirs prevailed in the titanic world struggles of the past four centuries.”

WorldShouldHumansMayPhilosophyMightPastPoliticalStruggleDemocracyFourRightsCenturyTheoryStructureHuman RightsVainHumanistStemConstructsComfortingPolitical PhilosophyPrescriptionsCrudeHeirsSupremacyDeterminismPersonal FreedomTerritorialBourbonCredoMaritimePragmatistsBonaparte
Book:Maritime Supremacy & the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World
Create image

“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.”

PeopleThinkingNeedsShouldHas BeensProblemPastYoungTalkingWrittenSubjectsFitComputerShould HaveScientistExpertsComputer ScienceCurriculumIct
Author:Michael Gove
Create image

“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.”

IfsThinkingWantShouldLooksHeartMayHas BeensEyePastJesusChristLordFireMastersColdJesus ChristRefuseWarmCriticalChiefsAppealsHopefulOur FutureCommunionOur PastWant USupperLord's Supper
Book:Thoughts for Every-day Living from the Spoken and Written Words of Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Create image

“When parents put gold into the hands of youth, when they should put a rod under their girdle--when instead of awe they make them past grace, and leave them rich executors of goods, and poor executors of godliness, then it is no marvel that the son being left rich by his father's will, becomes reckless by his own will.”

ShouldHandsPastFatherLeftParentPoorRichGraceYouthSonGoldAweGoodsRecklessGodlinessExtravaganceGirdlesExecutors
Book:John Lyly 'Euphues: the Anatomy of Wit' and 'Euphues and His England': An Annotated, Modern-Spelling Edition
Create image