Past Quotes - Page 21

• The truth is that the past exists no more than the future, even though it feels as though it does.

  Terry Eagleton

  Doe, Truth Is, Feels

  "Why Marx Was Right". Book by Terry Eagleton, 2011.

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• Marriage is the lightning rod that absorbs anxiety and stress from all other sources, past and present. When marriage has a firm foundation of solid friendship and mutual respect, it can tolerate a fair amount of raw emotion. A good fight can clear the air, and it's nice to know we can survive conflict and even learn from it. Many couples, however, get trapped in endless rounds of fighting and blaming that they don't know how to get out of. When fights go unchecked and unrepaired, they can eventually erode love and respect, which are the bedrock of any successful relationship.

  Harriet Lerner

  Couple, Nice, Stress

  FaceBook post by Harriet Lerner from Nov 14, 2013

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• At one time, many philosophers held that faultless "laws of thought" were somehow inherent, a priori, in the very nature of mind. This belief was twice shaken in the past century; first when Russell and his successors showed how the logic men employ can be defective, and later when Freud and Piaget started to reveal the tortuous ways in which our minds actually develop.

  Jean Piaget

  Men, Law, Mind

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• We ought to know about our culinary past. Food and identity is terribly important ... I don't mean we should go out and eat historic dishes, but we should know what makes us different ... self-confident nations have that sense of where they come from.

  Tom Jaine

  Mean, Self, Important

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• If being an anti-art artist is difficult, being an anti-art art historian is a hard position indeed. His doctrinal revolutionism brings forth nothing new in art but reenacts upheavals on the symbolic plane of language. It provides the consoling belief that overthrows are occurring as in the past, that barriers to creation are being surmounted, and that art is pursuing a radical purpose, even if it is only the purpose of doing away with itself.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Art, Purpose, Upheaval

  "Art on the Edge". Book by Harold Rosenberg. Chapter: "What's New: Ritual Revolution", p. 260, 1975.

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• We have unmistakable proof that throughout all past time, there has been a ceaseless devouring of the weak by the strong.

  Herbert Spencer

  Strong, Weak, Proof

  Herbert Spencer (1864). “The Principles of Biology”, p.340

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• When people can't abide things as they are, when they can't abide the present, they do one of two things ... either they ... either they turn to a contemplation of the past ... or they set about to ... alter the future. And when you want to change something ... YOU BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

  Edward Albee

  Change, Two, People

  EDWARD ALBEE (1962). “WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?”

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• The Present only has a being in Nature; things Past have a being in the Memory only, but things to come have no being at all; the Future but a fiction of the mind.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Memories, Future, Mind

  Thomas Hobbes (2016). “The Essential Leviathan: A Modernized Edition”, p.15, Hackett Publishing

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• I was still blind, but twinkling stars did dance
  Throughout my being's limitless expanse,
  Nothing had yet drawn close, only at distant stages
  I found myself, a mere suggestion sensed in past and future ages.

  Novalis

  Stars, Age, Suggestions

  "Romantic Vision, Ethical Context: Novalis and Artistic Autonomy". Book by Géza von Molnár, p. 2, 1987.

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• The normal present connects the past and the future through limitation. Contiguity results, crystallization by means of solidification. There also exists, however, a spiritual present that identifies past and future through dissolution, and this mixture is the element, the atmosphere of the poet.

  Novalis

  Spiritual, Mean, Atmosphere

  "Blüthenstaub". Book by Novalis, 1798.

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• If we have learned anything in the past ten years, it is that these lovely things about America were never lovely. We have been expansionist and aggressive and mean to other people from the beginning. And we've been aggressive and mean to people in this country, and we've allocated the wealth of this country in a very unjust way. We've never had justice in our courts for the poor people, for black people, for radicals. Now how can we boast that America is a very special place? It's not that special. It really isn't.

  Howard Zinn

  Country, Mean, Years

  "The Problem is Civil Obedience". www.thirdworldtraveler.com. 1970.

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• There is the past and its continuing horrors: violence, war, prejudices against those who are different, outrageous monopolization of the good earth's wealth by a few, political power in the hands of liars and murderers, the building of prisons instead of schools, the poisoning of the press and the entire culture by money. It is easy to become discouraged observing this, especially since this is what the press and television insist that we look at, and nothing more.

  Howard Zinn

  War, Liars, School

  Howard Zinn (2015). “A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present”, p.687, Routledge

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• 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.

  Edmund White

  Book, Sick, Healthy

  "A Boy's Own Story". Book by Edmund White, 1982.

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• The internationalization of art becomes a factor contributing to the estrangement of art from the artist. The sum of works of all times and places stands against him as an entity with objectives and values of its own. In turn, since becoming aware of the organized body of artworks as the obstacle to his own aesthetic self-affirmation, the artist is pushed toward anti-intellectualism and willful dismissal of the art of the past.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Art, Self, Body

  Harold Rosenberg (1983). “Art on the Edge: Creators and Situations”, p.137, University of Chicago Press

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• Order is the law of nature, the universal trend, the cosmic direction. If time is an arrow, that arrow points toward order. The future is pattern, organization, union, intensification; the past, randomness, confusion, disintegration, dissipation.

  Alan Lightman

  Order, Law, Organization

  Alan Lightman (2011). “Einstein's Dreams”, p.44, Vintage

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• Fashion postulates an achrony, a time which does not exist; here the past is shameful and the present is constantly "eaten up" by the Fashion being heralded.

  Roland Barthes

  Fashion, Doe, Shameful

  Roland Barthes (1983). “Systeme de la Mode”, p.128, Univ of California Press

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• In the past we believed both sexes were born with original sin. Today, we have come to unconsciously believe in the original sin of boys, but the original innocence of girls.

  Warren Farrell

  Girl, Sex, Believe

  "Father and Child Reunion". Book by Warren Farrell, 2001.

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• Our focus on discrimination against women during the past 30 years has blinded us to opportunities for women.

  Warren Farrell

  Opportunity, Years, Focus

  Warren Farrell (2005). “Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap--and what Women Can Do about it”, p.24, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn

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• You should never fall in love with your own press clippings, because it is very much the nature of the beast that the same journalists who build you up between Monday and Friday tear you down for weekend fun...My family's habit of living in the past seems to me pathological, even dangerous. If all greatness lies in the past, what is the point of the future?

  Stephen L. Carter

  Friday, Falling In Love, Monday

  "The Emperor of Ocean Park". Book by Stephen L. Carter, 2002.

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• The middle years, caught between children and parents, free of neither: the past stretches back too densely, it is too thickly populated, the future has not yet thinned out.

  Margaret Drabble

  Children, Years, Parent

  Margaret Drabble (2013). “The Middle Ground”, p.81, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Our assent to the hypothesis implies that it is held to be true of all particular instances. That these cases belong to past or to future times, that they have or have not already occurred, makes no difference in the applicability of the rule to them. Because the rule prevails, it includes all cases.

  William Whewell

  Differences, Cases, Hypothesis

  William Whewell (1968). “Theory of Scientific Method”, p.151, Hackett Publishing

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• Reason lives on the systematization of the past, but Faith is the promise of the future.

  Christopher Dawson

  Faith, Promise, Reason

  "Progress and Religion". Book by Christopher Dawson, Ch. X, 1929.

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• True humility is a Christian grace and one of the fruits of the Spirit, originating in a deep consciousness of sin past and present, and leading us to discover our nothingness in the view of God, our insufficiency for any thing that is good, and prompting us, as we feel our infirmities, to strive after higher and yet higher attainments.

  James McCosh

  Christian, Humility, Views

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Dictionary by Gilbert, Josiah Hotchkiss, p. 329, 1895.

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• I've had a lot of people in my past who were friends with me just to get publicity. When I was young, my mom or sister used to have to point out if someone was using me to make a name for themselves – you know, linking arms with me on the red carpet and trying to get in every picture. But now I can see for myself when someone is just hungry for attention.

  Paris Hilton

  Mom, Names, People

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• In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past.

  Mitt Romney

  Party, Moving, Years

  "Romney Reaches to the Christian Right" by Perry Bacon, Jr., www.washingtonpost.com. May 6, 2007.

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