Past quotes

Past

10.5K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

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Past quotes (page 52 of 526)

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Gene Wolfe Author
Past

"All time exists. That is the truth.... If the future did not exist now, how could we journey toward it? If the past does not exist still, how could we leave it behind?"

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George Harrison Musician, Singer-songwriter
Past

"They used us as an excuse to go mad and then blamed it on us. Gandhi says create and preserve the image of your choice. The image of my choice is not Beatle George - those who want that can go and see Wings. Why live in the past? Be here now."

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Past

"If the process don't transfer, they cannot even be called thinking. They can be called learning, memory, or habit, but not thinking. The purpose of a course on thinking is to enhance student's abilities to face new challenges and to attack novel problems confidently, rationally and productively."

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Leo Tolstoy Novelist, Philosopher
Past

"Smiling with pleasure, they went through their memories, not sad, old people's memories, but poetic, youthful ones, those impressions from the very distant past where dream merges with reality, and they laughed softly, rejoicing at something."

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Henri Nouwen Theologian, Author
Past

"The real enemies of our life are the 'oughts' and the 'ifs.' They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future. But real life takes place in the here and now."

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George Orwell Writer, Journalist
Past

"In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science.' The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc."

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George Orwell Writer, Journalist
Past

"It was true that there was no such person as Comrade Oglivy, but a few lines of print and a couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into existence... Comrade Oglivy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar."

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George Orwell Writer, Journalist
Past

"The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible."

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Past

"I often lay on that bench looking up into the tree, past the trunk and up into the branches. It was particularly fine at night with the stars above the tree."

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Noam Chomsky Linguist, Philosopher, Activist
Past

"Now take a look at the way the Drug War is conducted over the past 40 years. It goes back farther, but start from 40 years ago: There's very little spent on prevention and treatment. There's a lot on policing, a ton of stuff on border control and a lot on out-of-country operations. And the effect on the availability of drugs is almost undetectable; drug prices don't change on measures of availability. So there are two possibilities: Either those conducting the Drug War are lunatics, or they have another purpose."

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Fuller Albright Endocrinologist
Past

"For the past 10 years I have had the interesting experience of observing the development of Parkinson's syndrome on myself. As a matter of fact, this condition does not come under my special medical interests or I would have had it solved long ago. … The condition has its compensations: one is not yanked from interesting work to go to the jungles of Burma ... one avoids all kinds of deadly committee meetings, etc."

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Khalil Gibran Poet, Writer
Past

"Every beauty and greatness in this world is created by a single thought or emotion inside a man. Every thing we see today, made by past generations, was, before its appearance, a thought in the mind of a man or an impulse in the heart of a woman."

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Mark Twain Writer, Humorist
Past

"In religion, India is the only millionaire... the One land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the rest of the globe combined."

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