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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• Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance.

  Kate Atkinson

  People, Events, Significance

  Kate Atkinson (2013). “Life After Life”, p.412, Random House

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• Revolutions are something you see only in retrospect.

  Alan Greenspan

  Revolution

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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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• Righteousness is easy in retrospect.

  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

  Integrity, Ethics, Easy

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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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• Perspective will come in retrospect.

  Melody Beattie

  Perspective

  Melody Beattie (2003). “The Language of Letting Go: A Meditation Book and Journal for Daily Reflections”, Hazelden Publishing

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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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• One of the experiences of prayer is that it seems that nothing happens. But when you start with it and look back over a long period of prayer, you suddenly realize that something has happened. What is most close, most intimate, most present, often cannot be experienced directly but only with a certain distance. When I think that I am only distracted, just wasting my time, something is happening too Immediate for knowing, understanding, and experiencing. Only in retrospect do I realize that something very important has taken place.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Distance, Taken

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2017). “You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Hachette UK

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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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• 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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• Often a retrospect delights the mind.

  Dante Alighieri

  Mind, Delight

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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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• Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.

  Paul Theroux

  Inspirational, Funny, Travel

  Observer, October 07, 1979.

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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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• Everything looks more beautiful in retrospect.

  Michelle Monaghan

  Beautiful, Looks

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• I might say that in retrospect, looking at where the community college system is today, I think we may have gone too far. The community college system is so big, so broad, so consuming of tax money.

  Daniel J. Evans

  College, Thinking, Community

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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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• 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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• I really tend to write in retrospect.

  Randy Houser

  Writing

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• Obviously, I try to make the films work for an audience. That's the main point of making a film, and in retrospect, one can see that certain films, let's say Leaving Las Vegas, demonstrated its own success.

  Mike Figgis

  Vegas, Leaving, Trying

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