Retrospect Quotes

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  One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.

  Sigmund Freud

  Inspirational, Positive, Happiness

  Sigmund Freud, Ernst L. Freud (1960). “Letters of Sigmund Freud”, p.258, Courier Corporation

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• Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.

  J. K. Rowling

  Strong Women, Destiny, Names

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• No endeavor that is worthwhile is simple in prospect; if it is right, it will be simple in retrospect.

  Edward Teller

  Simple, Perspective, Worthwhile

  Edward Teller (1981). “The Pursuit of Simplicity”, Pepperdine Press

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• There are many things we only see clearly in retrospect.

  Haruki Murakami

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “Kafka On The Shore”, p.43, Random House

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• Righteousness is easy in retrospect.

  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

  Integrity, Ethics, Easy

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• Everything is funnier in retrospect, funnier and prettier and cooler. You can laugh at anything from far enough away.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Life, Laughing, Inspire

  Chuck Palahniuk (2004). “Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories”, NY Books

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• Revolutions are something you see only in retrospect.

  Alan Greenspan

  Revolution

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• It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Life, Action, Mark

  Robert Louis Stevenson (2014). “Memories, Portraits, Essays and Records (Annotated Edition)”, p.506, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Until one looks back on one's own past one fails to realise what an extraordinary view of the world a child has.

  Agatha Christie

  Children, Past, Views

  Agatha Christie (1991). “Agatha Christie: An Autobiography”, Berkley Publishing Group

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• Evil is obvious only in retrospect.

  Gloria Steinem

  Government, Evil, Obvious

  Gloria Steinem (2012). “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions”, p.480, Open Road Media

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• I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect.

  Sophocles

  Reality, Suffering, Desire

  Sophocles (1958). “The Oedipus plays of Sophocles: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone”, Signet

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• Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.

  Paul Theroux

  Inspirational, Funny, Travel

  Observer, October 07, 1979.

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• When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things - not the great occasions - that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness.

  Bob Hope

  Inspirational, Happiness, Laughter

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• The Eagles ended on a rather abrupt note, although in retrospect I realize now that it had been ending for quite some time.

  Don Henley

  Eagles, Realizing, Notes

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• In retrospect, all these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called, licking the earth.

  Malcolm Muggeridge

  Selfish, Exercise, Earth

  Malcolm Muggeridge (1978). “A twentieth century testimony”, Thomas Nelson Publishers

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• I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn.

  Robert Frost

  Book, Reflection, Order

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• That's the past. I don't agree with retrospect.

  Steve Carlton

  Past, Agree

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• In retrospect, each of the steps toward this abyss seemed irrevocable, and yet they had all been so small!

  James Blish

  Steps, Abyss, Irrevocable

  "A Case of Conscience". Book by James Blish, Chapter 13 (p. 158), 1958.

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• Christian history looks glorious in retrospect; but it is made up of constant hard choices and unattractive tasks, accepted under the pressure of the Will of God.

  Evelyn Underhill

  Christian, Choices, Tasks

  Evelyn Underhill (1940). “Abba: Meditations Based on the Lord's Prayer”

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• So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person's genius is confined to a very few hours.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Time, Preparation, Routine

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• Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.

  Paul Theroux

  Travel, Memorable, Glamorous

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• Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.

  Douglas MacArthur

  Change, Military, Real

  Douglas MacArthur's address to the Annual Stockholders Sperry Rand Corporation in New York (July 30, 1957) as quoted in "General MacArthur Speeches and Reports 1908-1964" edited by Edward T. Imparato (p. 206), June 14, 2000.

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• History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody understands at the time--and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Thinking, Las Vegas, Long

  Hunter S. Thompson (2012). “Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream”, p.120, Pan Macmillan

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• Everything looks more beautiful in retrospect.

  Michelle Monaghan

  Beautiful, Looks

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• I always had a sense that I would fall in love with Tokyo. In retrospect I guess it's not that surprising. I was of the generation that had grown up in the '80s when Japan was ascendant (born aloft by a bubble whose burst crippled its economy for decades), and I'd fed on a steady diet of anime and samurai films.

  Junot Diaz

  Falling In Love, Anime, Japan

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