Predecessors Quotes - Page 2

• I had toward the poetic art a peculiar relation which was only practical after I had cherished in my mind for a long time a subject which possessed me, a model which inspired me, a predecessor who attracted me, until at length, after I had molded it

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Long, Mind

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• The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all. It is true the population has increased.

  Samuel Beckett

  Our Generation, Somewhere Else, Laughing

  Samuel Beckett (1970). “The collected works of Samuel Beckett”

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• Reagan took an approach to the Cold War dramatically different from any other US President. To wit, he thought we should win. This was a fresh concept. At the time, it was widely ridiculed as a dangerous alteration of US policy. Only after it worked was Reagan's dangerous foreign policy recast as merely a continuation of the policies of his predecessors.

  Ann Coulter

  War, Winning, President

  Ann Coulter (2003). “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism”, p.202, Crown Forum

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• I wish to reiterate all the reasons which [my predecessor] has presented in favor of the policy of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of our peace with other nations and the best means of securing respect for the assertion of our rights of the defense of our interests, and the exercise of our influence in international matters.

  William Howard Taft

  Peace, Strong, Mean

  William Howard Taft (1910). “Presidential Addresses and State Papers, from March 4, 1909 to March 4, 1910”

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• Our predecessors understood that the ties that bind America are far stronger than disagreements over any particular policy and far more durable and profound than any party affiliation.

  Madeleine Albright

  Party, America, Ties

  Remarks and Question and Answer Session at the Chamber of Commerce Dinner, 1997-2001.state.gov. June 8, 1997.

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• Going back to the moon is not visionary in restoring space leadership for America. Like its Apollo predecessor, it will prove to be a dead end littered with broken spacecraft, broken dreams and broken policies.

  Buzz Aldrin

  Dream, Moon, America

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• Young Americans today are no more learned or skilful than their predecessors, no more knowledgeable, fluent, up-to-date, or inquisitive, except in the materials of youth culture.

  Mark Bauerlein

  Culture, Today, Youth

  Mark Bauerlein (2008). “The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future(Or, Don 't Trust Anyone Under 30)”, p.9, Penguin

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• The novelist's ambition is not to do something better than his predecessors but to see what they did not see, say what they did not say.

  Milan Kundera

  Writing, Ambition, Creative

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• My first attempts to transmit typhus to laboratory animals, including the smaller species of monkeys, had failed, as had those of my predecessors, for reasons which I can easily supply today

  Jules Henry

  Animal, Monkeys, Today

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• Among the various supplications with which we successfully appeal to the Virgin Mother of God, the Holy Rosary without doubt occupies a special and distinct place. This prayer, which some call the Psalter of the Virgin or Breviary of the Gospel and of Christian life, was described and recommended by Our Predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII

  Pope Pius XI

  Christian, Mother, Prayer

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• As each generation comes into the world devoid of knowledge, its first duty is to obtain possession of the stores already amassed. It must overtake its predecessors before it can pass by them.

  Horace Mann

  Knowledge, Generations, World

  Horace Mann (1859). “Lectures on Various Subjects”

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• Left-wing zealots have often been prepared to ride roughshod over due process and basic considerations of fairness when they think they can get away with it. For them the ends always seems to justify the means. That is precisely how their predecessors came to create the gulag.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Mean, Thinking, Wings

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• I've never been a fan of presidents who place blame on their predecessors or who accept credit for events that couldn't have been engineered so soon in their tenure.

  Kathleen Parker

  President, Events, Fans

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• Today I stand before the world organization which has succeeded to the mantle discarded by its discredited predecessor.

  Haile Selassie

  Organization, World, Today

  Address to the United Nations General Assembly, delivered 6 October 1963

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• The Saints are Louisiana's team and have been since the late '60s when my predecessor Pete Rozelle welcomed them to the league as New Orleans' team and Louisiana's team. Our focus continues to be on having the Saints in Louisiana.

  Paul Tagliabue

  Team, New Orleans, League

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• Seeing there are many who think they hold the opinions of Christ, and yet some of these think differently from their predecessors, yet as the teaching of the Church, transmitted in orderly succession from the apostles, and remaining in the Churches to the present day, is still preserved, that alone is to be accepted as truth which differs in no respect from ecclesiastical and apostolica tradition.

  Origen

  Teaching, Thinking, Church

  Origen (2012). “The Sacred Writings of Origen (Annotated Edition)”, p.54, Jazzybee Verlag

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• President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did. Listen to me, now. No president - no president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years.

  William J. Clinton

  Years, President, Four

  William J. "Bill" Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention, www.nytimes.com. September 5, 2012.

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• It is folly to believe that Congress and the president, on their own, will make the necessary and difficult decisions to address the impending financial debacle. After all, they and their predecessors engineered the approaching tsunami. As the situation becomes direr, the federal government's actions will grow more oppressive.

  Mark Levin

  Believe, Government, Congress And The President

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• it is easy to surpass a predecessor, but difficult to avoid being surpassed by a successor.

  Eiji Yoshikawa

  Easy, Difficult, Successors

  Eiji Yoshikawa, Charles S. Terry (1989). “Way of Life and Death”, Pocket

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• To Yelena, our newest food taster. May you last longer than your predecessor.

  Maria V. Snyder

  May, Lasts

  Maria V. Snyder (2012). “Poison Study”, p.20, Harlequin

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• Maybe she still was a pretty-head, making up irrational stories about the empty forest. The longer she stayed alone out here, the more Tally understood why the Rusties and their predecessors had believed in invisible beings, praying to placate spirits as they trashed the natural world around them.

  Scott Westerfeld

  Stories, World, Forests

  Scott Westerfeld (2008). “Pretties”, p.253, Simon and Schuster

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• Scientists may be in the business of laughing at their predecessors, but owing to an array of human mental dispositions, few realize that someone will laugh at their beliefs in the (disappointingly near) future.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Laughing, Owing, May

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2016). “Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile”, p.827, Random House

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• Desire, loneliness, wind in the flowering almond— surely these are the great, the inexhaustible subjects to which my predecessors apprenticed themselves. I hear them echo in my own heart, disguised as convention.

  Louise Glück

  Loneliness, Heart, Echoes

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• Progress is the injustice each generation commits with regard to its predecessors.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Progress, Generations, Injustice

  Emile M. Cioran (1976). “The Trouble with Being Born”, Viking Books

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• For Obama to save himself, he should be thinking about the example of an unlikely Republican predecessor: Richard Nixon.

  John Podhoretz

  Thinking, Example, Republican

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