Past Quotes - Page 37

• In the parliament of the present every man represents a constituency of the past.

  James Russell Lowell

  Men, Parliament, Every Man

  JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1871). “THE POETICAL WORKS OF JOHN KEATS.”, p.26

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• The New World's sons from England's breast we drew
  Such milk as bids remember whence we came,
  Proud of her past wherefrom our future grew,
  This window we inscribe with Raleigh's fame.

  James Russell Lowell

  Son, World, Proud

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• Now I am past all comforts here, but prayer.

  William Shakespeare

  Prayer, Comfort

  William Shakespeare (1813). “The Plays of William Shakespeare”, p.581

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• It is true that the present is powerfully shaped by the past. But it is also true that ... insight at any age keeps us from singing the same sad songs again.

  Judith Viorst

  Song, Singing, Age

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• The clock struck half past two. In the little office at the back of Mr. McKechnie's bookshop, Gordon--Gordon Comstock, last member of the Comstock family, aged twenty-nine and rather moth-eaten already--lounged across the table, pushing a fourpenny packet of Player's Weights open and shut with his thumb.

  George Orwell

  Book, Player, Two

  George Orwell (1987). “The complete works of George Orwell”

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• We can only know where we're going if we know where we've been.

  Maya Angelou

  History, Knows, Ifs

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• Time past, even God is deprived of the power of recalling.

  Aristotle

  Times Past, Deprived

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• There is something about the present which we would not exchange, though we were offered a choice of all past ages to live in.

  Virginia Woolf

  Choices, Age

  Virginia Woolf, David Bradshaw (2009). “Selected Essays”, p.27, Oxford University Press

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• Sometimes we forget that if we do not encourage new work now, we will lose all touch with the work of the past we claim to love. If art is not living in a continuous present, it is living in a museum, only those working now can complete the circuit between the past, present and future energies we call art.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Art, Museums, Energy

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• Very often history is a means of denying the past.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Mean, History

  Jeanette Winterson (2007). “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit”, p.93, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Yes, the past is another country, but one that we can visit, and once there we can bring back the things we need.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Country, Needs

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• The history of the past is a mere puppet-show. A little man comes out and blows a little trumpet, and goes in again. You look for something new, and lo! another little man comes out, and blows another little trumpet, and goes in again. And it is all over.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Men, Blow, History

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1886). “The Prose Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Outre Mer and Driftwood”

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• The first problem for all of us, men and woman, is not to learn, but to unlearn. We are filled with the popular wisdom of several centuries just past, and we are terrified to give it up. Patriotism means obedience, age means wisdom, woman means submission, black means inferior: these are preconceptions imbedded so deeply in our thinking that we honestly may not know that they are there.

  Gloria Steinem

  Change, Learning, Mean

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• Proust's tea cake has nothing on one hour in a college dorm.

  Gloria Steinem

  College, Cake, Tea

  Gloria Steinem (2012). “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions”, p.198, Open Road Media

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• When I consider the wonderful activity of the mind, so great a memory of what is past, and such a capacity of penetrating into the future: when I behold such a number of arts and sciences, and such a multitude of discoveries hence arising,--I believe and am firmly persuaded that a nature which contains so many things within itself cannot be mortal.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Art, Memories, Believe

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• Pleasant is the recollection of dangers past.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Danger, Recollection, Pleasant

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• Twice does he live who can enjoy the remembrance of the past.

  Ovid

  Remembrance, Doe, Enjoy

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• Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and far from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Ionia.

  Samuel Johnson

  Philosophy, Thinking, Men

  'A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland' (1775) 'Inch Kenneth'

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• Each generation supposes that the world was simpler for the one before it.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Generations, World, Nostalgia

  Eleanor Roosevelt (1960). “You Learn by Living”, p.16, Westminster John Knox Press

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• Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of endurance.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Endurance, Cheerfulness, Calculations

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• At the bottom there is no perfect history; there is none such conceivable. All past centuries have rotted down, and gone confusedly dumb and quiet.

  Thomas Carlyle

  History, Perfect, Dumb

  Thomas Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell, Henry Duff Traill (2010). “The Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.7, Cambridge University Press

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• Without oblivion, there is no remembrance possible. When both oblivion and memory are wise, when the general soul of man is clear, melodious, true, there may come a modern Iliad as memorial of the Past.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Wise, Memories, Men

  Oliver Cromwell, Thomas Carlyle (1857). “Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches: With Elucidations”, p.6

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• The leafy blossoming present time springs from the whole past, remembered and unrememberable.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Spring, Remembrance, Blossoming

  Oliver Cromwell, Thomas Carlyle (1859). “Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches: Including the Supplement to the Past Edition : with Elucidations”, p.9

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• The difference between writing a story and simply relating past events is that a story, in order to be acceptable, must have shape and meaning. It is the old idea that art is the bringing of order out of chaos.

  Katherine Paterson

  Art, Writing, Order

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• the habit of shutting doors behind us is invaluable to happiness; we must learn to shut life's doors to cut out the futile wind of past mistakes.

  Marjorie Holmes

  Mistake, Cutting, Acceptance

  Marjorie Holmes (1995). “Marjorie Holmes: The Inspirational Writings: A Collection Consisting of Love and Laughter;...”, Bbs Publishing Corporation

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