"When Europeans came upon real ruined cities they refused to believe that they had been built by Africans. Here the past has been distorted and denied."
Read quote
3 likes
Past quotes
Past
10.5K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Past
Browse quotes that often appear alongside past — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Past quotes (page 135 of 526)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"We have chaos reigning in the Middle East. There is a great deal of instability. In the past, people would have turned to their church, and some still do. Counterintuitively, people are now turning into themselves to find their roots. The way you do that is through your family tree. "Where did I come from?" There is an urge to preserve the names of the people who produced you."
Read quote
3 likes
"She didn't want to be reminded of her past or how different her present was from the future she'd taken for granted."
Read quote
3 likes
"I learned two basic lessons on Everest. First, just because something has worked in the past does not mean it will work today. Second, different challenges require different mindsets."
Read quote
3 likes
"Each person is a temporary focus of forces, vitalities, and values that carry back to an immemorial past and that reach forward into an unthinkable future."
Read quote
3 likes
"Faith in the creative process, in the dynamics of emergence, in the values and purposes that transcend past achievements and past forms, is the precondition of all further growth."
Read quote
3 likes
"My soul is not a palace of the past."
Read quote
3 likes
"Old events have modern meanings; only that survives of past history which finds kindred in all hearts and lives."
Read quote
3 likes
"Things always seem fairer when we look back at them, and it is out of that inaccessible tower of the past that Longing leans and beckons."
Read quote
3 likes
"Ye come and go incessant; we remain Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past; Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, Of faith so nobly realized as this."
Read quote
3 likes
"In the parliament of the present every man represents a constituency of the past."
Read quote
3 likes
"The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change; Then let it come: I have no dread of what Is called for by the instinct of mankind. Nor think I that God's world would fall apart Because we tear a parchment more or less. Truth is eternal, but her effluence, With endless change, is fitted to the hour; Her mirror is turned forward, to reflect The promise of the future, not the past. I do not fear to follow out the truth."
Read quote
3 likes
"Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God so wills it; No matter how barren the past may have been, 'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell... The breeze comes whispering in our ear, That dandelions are blossoming near... Every thing is upward striving; 'T is as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, - 'T is the natural way of living."
Read quote
3 likes
"The true historical genius, to our thinking, is that which can see the nobler meaning of events that are near him, as the true poet is he who detects the divine in the casual; and we somewhat suspect the depth of his insight into the past who cannot recognize the godlike of to-day under that disguise in which it always visits us."
Read quote
3 likes
"I would hate to think that some people have found themselves in a musical cul-de-sac and have ceased to explore new music, or at least music that is new to them, because they are so glued to the past."
Read quote
3 likes
"I know that collector types can be a pain in the neck and seem perpetually frozen in time - or at least in their parents' basement - but someone has to look out for the past, lest it slip away forever."
Read quote
3 likes
"I think it's important to have some documentation of the past."
Read quote
3 likes
"I'm not in a position where I get to pick and choose roles. I usually go on auditions in long lines and embarrass myself in front of casting directors, and with a lump in my throat and my ears burning, I walk past reception and smirking actors as I go to the parking garage and go back on the highway."
Read quote
3 likes
"The only thing worse than the Pastor Terry Jones scheduled Koran burning is the fact that he canceled the proposed event."
Read quote
3 likes
"I don't know if music has ever achieved anything past appealing to the people that it appeals to. If a song could stop a war, then Bob Marley and Bob Dylan songs would have stopped one or two."
Read quote
3 likes