Past Quotes

Confucius, the confucian analects - things that are done, it is needless to speak...
For there is no greater pain, than to remember in present grief, past happinesses.
Dante, The Divine Comedy
He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past.
George Orwell
Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Charles Dickens
William ralph inge - events in the past may be roughly divided into...
Far better to think historically, to remember the lessons of the past. Thus, far better to conceive of power as consisting in part of the knowledge of when not to use all the power you have. Far better to be one who knows that if you reserve the power not to use all your power, you will lead others far more successfully and well.
A. Bartlett Giamatti, President of Yale University
Penicillin was indeed the product of accidental discovery, but the discovery was made, and the knowledge developed, because certain scientists had definite goals in mind. Chance, Pastuer wrote, favors only the prepared mind. The mind must be prepared not only by scientific training and technological know - How, but also by the awareness of social needs.
Saturday Review
A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.
Robert Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazurus Long
The past is certain, the future obscure.
Thales
I have had enough experience in all my years, and have read enough of the past, to know that advice to grandchildren is usually wasted.
Harry S Truman
The greatest lesson we can learn from the past... is that freedom is at the core of every successful nation in the world.
Frederick Chiluba
Geschichte ist... ein Dialog zwischen Gegenwart und Vergangenheit. re - Transl.: History is... a dialogue between the present and the past.
Edward Hallet Carr, Was ist Geschichte?, S. 54
Our task is not to fix the blame for the past, but to fix the course for the future.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.
Kahlil Gibran, Essay on Robert Frost, quoted in N. Y.. Times: Obit - Editorial, April 1982
To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy