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Past Quotes

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Past Quotes

“The Novelist As Teacher”: “I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past – with all its imperfections – was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them.”

Ifs Firsts Long Would Be Past Night Acting Teach Novel Teacher Reader Satisfied Novelists Imperfection Behalf Savagery Long Nights

Book:Things Fall Apart: Authoritative Text, Contexts and Criticism

Source: Things Fall Apart: Authoritative Text, Contexts and Criticism

“It’s unlikely to change – there’s nothing in King Salman’s past as governor of Riyadh for about forty years that suggests that he was particularly a reformer, not on the role of women, not on democratic development. There’s been a rumor in the last couple of days that he said to someone in an e-mail that he’s in favor of a constitutional monarchy, but I would be surprised if the level of repression started to go down … I think the kind of thing that we would view as significant reforms is unlikely.”

“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.”

Ifs Thinking Men Should Years Said Two Done Would Be Wanted Past Millions Months Deserve Convinced Convincing My Past Two Months Macho Why Me Hairspray

Author:John Travolta

“There flows throughout our whole history a stream of humanity, of generosity, of tolerance, so broad, so powerful, and so pure that it would be vain indeed to look for a similar one in the past of any other European country.”

Looks Country Whole Would Be Past Humanity Powerful Pure Flow Tolerance Generosity Vain Streams Broads European Countries

Author:Ignacy Jan Paderewski

“My hold on the past and the future is precarious and my possession of my own time is always postponed until a stage when I may fully understand it, yet this stage can never be reached, since it would be one more moment bounded by the horizon of its future, and requiring in its turn, further developments in order to be understood.”

May Moments Would Be Past Order Turns My Own Stage Development Understood Possession Horizon Precarious

Book:Phenomenology of Perception

Source: Phenomenology of Perception

“I have in the past declared that in order to achieve a real, just and durable peace, I would be willing to make painful compromises. But we cannot make any compromise on the security of our citizens and their right to live without the threat of terrorism and violence.”

Real Would Be Past Order Violence Achieve Security Willing Citizens Threat Painful Terrorism Compromise

Author:Ariel Sharon

“When it comes to fully understanding how to strategically move all the pieces on the marketing and distribution chess board on a worldwide basis, Jeff Blake is always thinking two moves ahead and that gives Sony a true competitive edge. He is the studio's secret weapon and while he would be the first to credit his fantastic sales and marketing team, there are few executives here that deserve more credit for our successes during the past several years than Jeff.”

“One faith, St. Paul writes (Eph. 4:5). Hold most firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church ... We must hold this for certain, namely: that the faith of the people at the present day is one with the faith of the people in past centuries. Were this not true, then we would be in a different church than they were in and, literally, the Church would not be One.”

People Writing Different Would Be Past Certain Church Century Unity Deny Catholicism Identical Present Day

Author:Thomas Aquinas

“Disneyland would be a world of Americans, past and present, seen through the eyes of my imagination--a place of warmth and nostalgia, of illusion and color and delight.”

World Would Be Eye Past Imagination Color Illusion Delight Nostalgia Warmth My Imagination Disneyland Through The Eyes Past And Present Animator

Author:Walt Disney

“An aged painter cannot help but accept the fact that his work belongs in the past. Younger painters have leaped into the phenomenon called contemporary, where it would be foolish of me to try to enter. But I can claim my own phenomenon.”

Trying I Can Facts Helping Would Be Past My Own Accepting Claims Foolish Contemporary Painter Phenomenon

Author:Joseph Plaskett

“I ask you to forgive me for not fulfilling some hopes of those people who believed that we would be able to jump from the totalitarian past into a bright, rich and civilized future in one go.”

People Would Be Able Past Asks Rich Forgiving Civilized Fulfilling Forgive Me

Author:Boris Yeltsin

“If we could travel into the past, it's mind-boggling what would be possible. For one thing, history would become an experimental science, which it certainly isn't today. The possible insights into our own past and nature and origins would be dazzling. For another, we would be facing the deep paradoxes of interfering with the scheme of causality that has led to our own time and ourselves. I have no idea whether it's possible, but it's certainly worth exploring.”

Ifs Mind Ideas Would Be Today Past One Thing Insight No Idea Paradox Schemes Interfere Exploring Dazzling Causality Experimental Science Mind Boggling

Author:Carl Sagan

“Life would be no better than candlelight tinsel and daylight rubbish if our spirits were not touched by what has been.”

Ifs Has Beens Would Be Past Spirit Touched Daylight Rubbish Candlelight Tinsel

Book:Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life

Source: Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life

“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.”

“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.”

Thinking World Would Be Past Impossible Acceptance Demand Blind Mythology Resolve Sheer Testament New Testament Blind Acceptance

Author:Rudolf Bultmann

“While I complain of being able to glimpse no more than the shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is taking shape at this very moment, since I have not reached the stage of development at which I would be capable of perceiving it. A few hundred years hence, in this same place, another traveller, as despairing as myself, will mourn the disappearance of what I might have seen, but failed to see.”

Years May Moments Reality Might Would Be Able Past Stage Development Shapes Capable Hundred Shadow Complaining Glimpse Mourn Traveller Disappearance Insensitive Stages Of Development

Book:Tristes Tropiques

Source: Tristes Tropiques

“How thrilling to discover one had depths, how consoling to find them less polluted than the shallows, how encouraging to identify the enemy not as a fissure in the will but as a dead fetus in the specimen jar of the unconscious. My attention was being paternally led away from the excruciating present to the happy, healthy future that would be enabled by an analysis of the sick past, as though the priest had nothing to do but study old books and make bright forecasts, the present not worthy of notice.”

Book Would Be Past Attention Enemy Study Healthy Sick Depth Worthy Analysis Unconscious Priests Thrilling Jars Forecasts Not Worthy Fetus Consoling Old Books

Author:Edmund White

“What would happen if history could be rewritten as casually as erasing a blackboard? Our past would be like the shifting sands at the seashore, constantly blown this way or that by the slightest breeze. History would be constantly changing every time someone spun the dial of a time machine and blundered his or her way into the past. History, as we know it, would be impossible. It would cease to exist.”

Ifs Knows Way Happens Would Be Past Impossible Machines Cease Sand Our Past Breeze Shifting Spun Time Machine Seashore Blackboard Shifting Sand

Book:Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension

Source: Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension

“It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemed to work in the past.”

Thinking Mean Problem Would Be Today Past Work Mankind Method Naive Solved Problems

Book:A Road to the Future: Address by Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ... at the Plenary Meeting of the Forty-third Session of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York, Wednesday, December 7, 1988

Source: A Road to the Future: Address by Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ... at the Plenary Meeting of the Forty-third Session of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York, Wednesday, December 7, 1988

“art is the most general condition of the Past in the present. ... Perhaps no work of art is art. It can only become art, when it is part of the past. In this normative sense, a 'contemporary' work of art would be a contradiction - except so far as we can, in the present, assimilate the present to the past.”

Art Would Be Past Conditions Art Is Contemporary Contradiction Works Of Art

Author:Susan Sontag

“I never thought I would be in a comedic role; my past is in drama.”

Would Be Past Roles Drama My Past Comedic

Author:Gillian Jacobs

“I would say a must-do in Canada would be to go skiing at Whistler in Vancouver. You could take a chair lift for like a half hour to the top of this mountain and you ski down, it takes like so long to get to the bottom. You go past the clouds. It's absolutely incredible.”

Long Would Be Past Hours Half Mountain Bottom Incredibles Clouds Lifts Canada Chairs Skis Half Hours Skiing Vancouver Whistler

Author:Sebastian Bach

“They whirled past the dark trees, as feathers would be swept before a hurricane. Houses, gates, churches, hay-stacks, objects of every kind they shot by, with a velocity and noise like roaring waters suddenly let loose. Still the noise of pursuit grew louder, and still my uncle could hear the young lady wildly screaming, "Faster! Faster!"”

Source: The posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club