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Past Quotes

“Regular crises perpetuate the past by reinvigorating cycles which started long ago. In contrast, (capital-C) Crises are the past's death knell. They function like laboratories in which the future is incubated. They have given us agriculture and the industrial revolution, technology and the labour contract, killer germs and antibiotics. Once they strike, the past ceases to be a reliable predictor of the future and a brave new world is born.”

WorldLongPastGivenBornTechnologyRevolutionFunctionCrisisBraveStrikesCeaseLabourCyclesContractsNew WorldContrastKillersLong AgoAgricultureLaboratoryGermsIndustrial RevolutionBrave New WorldAntibiotics
Book:The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy
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“The foundation is being laid for the emergence of both wind and solar cells as cornerstones of the new energy economy. World wind generating capacity grew from 7,600 megawatts in 1997 to 9,600 in 1998, an expansion of 26 percent. At a national level, Germany led the way, adding 790 megawatts of capacity, followed by Spain with 380 megawatts, and the United States with 226 megawatts. In the past, U.S. wind generating capacity was concentrated in California, but in 1998, wind farms began generating electricity in Minnesota, Oregon, and Wyoming, broadening the new industry's geographical base.”

WorldWayStatesPastEnergyLevelsUnitedUnited StatesEconomyWindGrewIndustryPercentCapacityFoundationCellsAlternativesCaliforniaGermanyFarmsExpansionElectricitySpainEmergenceCornerstonesMinnesotaOregonWyomingNew EnergyWind FarmsSolar Cells
Author:Lester R. Brown
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“This world of ours is a new world, in which the unit of knowledge, the nature of human communities, the order of society, the order of ideas, the very notions of society and culture have changed, and will not return to what they have been in the past. What is new is new, not because it has never been there before, but because it has changed in quality.”

WorldHumansHas BeensIdeasPastOrderCultureCommunityQualityProgressThis WorldChangedReturnNotionNew WorldUnitsSociety And Culture
Book:Uncommon Sense
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“So when the great word "Mother!" rang once more, I saw at last its meaning and its place; Not the blind passion of the brooding past, But Mother -- the World's Mother -- come at last, To love as she had never loved before -- To feed and guard and teach the human race.”

WorldInspirationalHumansLastsPastMotherPassionRaceTeachSawsBlindHuman RaceBlindnessBrooding
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Illustrated)
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“Based on first-hand evidence of your own senses - the improved health and later ages at which acquaintances die nowadays as compared with the past; the material goods that we now possess; the speed at which information, entertainment, and we ourselves move freely throughout the world - it seems to me that a person must be literally deaf and blind not to perceive that humanity is in a much better state than ever before.”

WorldFirstsPersonsStatesHandsSeemsAgePastMovingHumanityDiesInformationMaterialsEvidenceBlindEntertainmentSpeedSensesPerceiveGoodsDeafAcquaintanceDeaf And Blind
Author:Julian Simon
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“We hence acquire this sublime and interesting idea; that all the calcareous mountains in the world, and all the strata of clay, coal, marl, sand, and iron, which are incumbent on them, are MONUMENTS OF THE PAST FELICITY OF ORGANIZED NATURE!”

WorldIdeasPastScienceInterestingMountainOrganizedAcquireSandIronSublimeCoalClayMonumentGeologyFelicityIncumbentsInteresting Ideas
Book:Phytologia, or the philosophy of agriculture and gardening; with the theory of draining morasses and with an improved construction of the drill plough
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“It has been the resolution of mankind in all ages of the world. No people, no age, ever threw away the fruits of past wisdom, or the enjoyment of present blessings, for visionary schemes of ideal perfection. It is the knowledge of the past, the actual infliction of the present, that has produced all changes, all innovations, and all improvements - not (as is pretended) the chimerical anticipation of possible advantages, but the intolerable pressure of long-established, notorious, aggravated, and growing abuses.”

PeopleWorldLongHas BeensAgePastGrowingMankindBlessingAdvantageIdealsPerfectionAbusePressureInnovationFruitImprovementEnjoymentResolutionAnticipationSchemesVisionariesNotoriousAggravatedInflictionKnowledge Of The Past
Book:Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
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“It is indeed strange that with all the knowledge we have gained in the past hundred years we preserve and practice the methods of an ancient and barbarous world in our dealing with crime. So long as this is observed and exercised there can be no change except to heap more cruelties and more wretchedness upon those who are the victims of our foolish system.”

WorldYearsLongPastPracticeCrimeStrangeHundredMethodVictimAncientFoolishCrueltyPreservesWretchedness
Book:The Story of My Life
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“Science fiction is the branch of literature that deals with the effects of change on people in the real world as it can be projected into the past, the future, or to distant places. It often concerns itself with scientific or technological change, and it usually involves matters whose importance is greater than the individual or the community; often civilization or the race itself is in danger.”

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Book:Road to Science Fiction 2
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“Dogs invite us not only to share their joy but also to live in the moment, where we are neither proceeding from nor moving toward, where the enchantment of the past and future cannot distract us, where a freedom from practical desire and a cessation of our usual ceaseless action allows us to recognize the truth of our existence, the reality of our world and purpose--if we dare.”

IfsWorldMomentsRealityActionPastMovingJoyDesirePurposeExistenceShareDogDarePracticalsOur WorldInvitesUsualLive In The MomentEnchantmentProceeding
Book:The Odd Thomas Series 7-Book Bundle: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, Odd Hours, Odd Apocalypse, Odd Interlude, Deeply Odd
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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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“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
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“London has changed enormously and so have the English in the past decade. They're more like Americans and more like Europeans, too. They're always eating out, and when they're at home they don't cook the way they did ten years ago. They're all sitting around in cafés, like the Continentals, drinking coffee and chattering and watching the world go by.”

WorldWayYearsHomePastChangedTenEatingSittingYears AgoDrinkingLondonDecadesCoffeeCooksSitting AroundDrinking CoffeeEating OutAlways Eating
Author:Doris Lessing
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“The world in the past has been ruled by force, and man has dominated over woman by reason of his more forceful and aggressive qualities both of body and mind. But the balance is already shifting—force is losing its weight and mental alertness, intuition, and the spiritual qualities of love and service, in which woman is strong, are gaining ascendancy. Hence the new age will be an age less masculine, and more permeated with the feminine ideals—or, to speak more exactly, will be an age in which the masculine and feminine elements of civilization will be more evenly balanced.”

MenWorldMindHas BeensReasonBodyAgePastSpiritualSpeakStrongForceQualityBalanceCivilizationElementsLosingIdealsWeightIntuitionFeminineAggressiveBalancedNew AgeMasculineShiftingMind And BodyAlertnessMasculine And FeminineAscendancy
Author:Abdu'l-Bahá
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“The apartments of the rich are cabinets of curiosities: a conglomeration of classical antiquity, gothic, renaissance; Louis XIII... Something from every century but our own, a predicament that has arisen in no other period... so that we seem to be subsisting on the ruins of the past, as if the end of the world were near.”

IfsWorldEndsSeemsPastRichCenturyPeriodsCuriosityRuinsApartmentEnd Of The WorldGothicRenaissanceCabinetsAntiquityPredicaments
Author:Alfred de Musset
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“When Arthur Ashe plays tennis, his purpose each day is to play the game in a way he has never played it before. It may be a backhand he uses, one that he may never have used before in that circumstance. His play is a fresh integration of his world at the instant of action. A really great scientist has the whole past at his disposal. At any instant he is rebuilding the world, molecule by molecule, in his subconscious. That is what you want in an athlete or a scientist.”

WorldWayWantMayPlayWholeUseActionPastUsedPurposeGamesCircumstancesScientistAthleteWhat You WantInstantTennisEach DaySubconsciousReally GreatIntegrationMoleculesArthurRebuildingGreat Scientist
Author:Edwin Land
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“The bodybuilding world has lost one of its greatest legends. I had a chance to speak with Steve Michalik a year ago at The Upper State Bodybuilding competition. We laughed and shared our personal opinions about bodybuilding [today's scene and how it was in the past]. Steve, we'll miss you. R.I.P.”

WorldYearsStatesTodayPastLostSpeakChanceOpinionMissingSceneYears AgoCompetitionLaughedLegendsBodybuildingLost OnesPersonal OpinionsWe'll Miss You
Author:Lee Haney
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“Contemporary Christian proclamation is faced with the question whether, when it demands faith from men and women, it expects them to acknowledge this mythical world picture from the past. If this is impossible, it has to face the question whether the New Testament proclamation has a truth that is independent of the mythical world picture, in which case it would be the task of theology to demythologize the Christian proclamation.”

IfsMenWorldWould BeChristianPastFacesCasesImpossibleDemandMen And WomenTasksIndependentTheologyContemporaryAcknowledgeTestamentNew TestamentProclamationContemporary Christian
Author:Rudolf Bultmann
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“It is impossible to repristinate a past world picture by sheer resolve, especially a mythical world picture, now that all of our thinking is irrevocably formed by science. A blind acceptance of New Testament mythology would be simply arbitrariness; to make such acceptance a demand of faith would be to reduce faith to a work.”

ThinkingWorldWould BePastImpossibleAcceptanceDemandBlindMythologyResolveSheerTestamentNew TestamentBlind Acceptance
Author:Rudolf Bultmann
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“A nature wise With finding in itself the types of all, With watching from the dim verge of the time What things to be are visible in the gleams Thrown forward on them from the luminous past, Wise with the history of its own frail heart, With reverence and sorrow, and with love, Broad as the world, for freedom and for man.”

MenWorldHeartCharacterPastWiseTypeSorrowFindingsVisibleThrownBroadsReverenceLuminousVergeFrailGleam
Book:Miscellaneous poems. Memorial verses. Sonnets. I-XXVII. L'Envoi. Vision of Sir Launfal
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“The people of America are red, white, black, yellow, and all the shades in between. Their eyes are blue, black, and brown, and all the shades in between. Their hair is straight, curly, kinky, and most of it in between. They are tall and short, slim and fat, athletic and anaemic, and most of them in between. They are the different peoples of the world becoming more and more the "in between." They are a people creating a new bridge of mankind in between the past of narrow nationalistic chauvinism and the horizon of a new mankind--a people of the world. Their face is the face of the future.”

PeopleWorldDifferentEyeAmericaPastFacesBlackWhiteMankindHairBecomingCreatingRedBlueFatsBridgesBrownTallHorizonShadeYellowAthleticDifferent PeoplesBecoming MoreSlimKinkyChauvinismNationalistic
Book:Reveille for Radicals
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