Quotations about:
    past


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Forecast: To observe that which has passed, and guess it will happen again; to anticipate the future by guessing at the past; to predict that an event will happen, if it does, by basing calculations on events that have already happened, if they did.

Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
The Roycroft Dictionary (1914)
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Added on 18-Apr-12 | Last updated 14-Sep-20
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The best Qualification of a Prophet is to have a good Memory.

George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English politician and essayist
“Experience,” Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750)
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Added on 17-Apr-12 | Last updated 30-Jan-20
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Be not the slave of your own past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1838-06-19)
 
Added on 13-Dec-11 | Last updated 27-Mar-23
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It is not said that evil arts were ever practised in Gondor, or that the Nameless One was ever named in honour there; and the old wisdom and beauty brought out of the West remained long in the realm of the sons of Elendil the Fair, and they linger there still. Yet even so it was Gondor that brought about its own decay, falling by degrees into dotage, and thinking that the Enemy was asleep, who was only banished not destroyed. Death was ever present, because the Númenoreans still, as they had in their Old Kingdom, and so lost it, hungered after endless life unchanging. Kings made tombs more splendid than houses of the living and counted old names in the rolls of their descent dearer than the names of sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry; in secret chambers withered men compounded strong elixirs, or in high cold towers asked questions of the stars. And the last king of the line of Anárion had no heir.

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 2: The Two Towers, Book 4, ch. 5 “The Window on the West” [Faramir] (1954)
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Added on 20-Sep-11 | Last updated 9-Mar-23
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The present, as historians well know, re-creates the past. This is partly because, once we know how things have come out, we tend to rewrite the past in terms of historical inevitability.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917-2007) American historian, author, social critic
“The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus (Spring 1971)
 
Added on 18-Feb-11 | Last updated 18-Dec-19
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Ask counsel of both times — of the ancienter time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
“Of Great Place,” Essays, No. 11 (1625)
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Added on 17-Sep-10 | Last updated 25-Mar-22
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So, as you go into battle, remember your ancestors and remember your descendants.

[Et majores vestros et posteros cogitate]

Tacitus (c.56-c.120) Roman historian, orator, politician [Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus]
Agricola, ch. 32 [tr. Acheson, ch. 4, para. 22 (1938)]
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Alt. trans: "Think of your ancestors and your posterity" or "Think of your forefathers and posterity."
 
Added on 23-Apr-10 | Last updated 4-May-15
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Even while I protest the assembly-line production of our food, our songs, our language, and eventually our souls, I know that it was a rare home that baked good bread in the old days. Mother’s cooking was with rare exceptions poor, that good unpasteurized milk touched only by flies and bits of manure crawled with bacteria, the healthy old-time life was riddled with aches, sudden death from unknown causes, and that sweet local speech I mourn was the child of illiteracy and ignorance. It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better.

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
Travels With Charley: In Search of America, Part 2 (1962)
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Added on 21-Aug-09 | Last updated 4-Sep-19
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That sign of old age, extolling the past at the expense of the present.

Sydney Smith (1771-1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit
Lady Holland’s Memoir, Vol. 1, ch. 11 (1855)
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Added on 6-Mar-09 | Last updated 10-Jul-14
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Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 52, epigraph (1897)
 
Added on 4-Feb-09 | Last updated 26-Jan-19
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ULYSSES: Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honor bright. To have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion like a rusty mail
In monumental mock’ry.

Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Troilus and Cressida, Act 3, sc. 3, l. 153ff (3.3.153-158) (1602)
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Added on 3-Feb-09 | Last updated 8-Feb-24
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To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament for the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
“Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents” (23 Apr 1770)
 
Added on 6-May-08 | Last updated 7-Jul-16
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Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.

Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) English writer and politician
History of England, Vol. I, ch. 1 (1849-1861)
 
Added on 10-Apr-08 | Last updated 16-Jan-20
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Our ignorance of history makes us calumniate our own time. We have always been like this. Some calm years have deceived us. That is all. I too believed in the softening of manners. We must erase this error and esteem ourselves no more than people esteemed themselves in the time of Pericles or Shakespeare, atrocious epochs in which fine things were done.

[On a toujours été comme ça. Quelques années de calme nous ont trompés. Voilà tout. Moi aussi, je croyais à l’adoucissement des mœurs. Il faut rayer cette erreur et ne pas s’estimer plus qu’on ne s’estimait du temps de Péricles ou de Shakespeare, époques atroces où on a fait de belles choses.]

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) French writer, novelist
Letter to George Sand (8 Sep 1871) [tr. Tarver]
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Original French.

Alternate translation: "Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times."
 
Added on 20-Dec-07 | Last updated 23-Jun-21
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ARCHBISHOP:O thoughts of men accursed!
Past and to come seems best; things present, worst.

Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry IV, Part 2, Act 1, sc. 3, l. 112ff (1.3.112-113) (c. 1598)
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Added on 14-Oct-05 | Last updated 29-Jan-24
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Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill your glass again, with a merry face and contented heart. Our life on it, but your Christmas shall be merry, and your new year a happy one!

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) English writer and social critic
Sketches by Boz, “Characters,” ch. 2 “A Christmas Dinner” (1833-36)
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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 27-Dec-22
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The world goes up and the world goes down,
The sunshine follows the rain,
And yesterday’s sneer and yesterday’s frown
Can never come over again.

Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) English clergyman, historian, essayist, novelist (pseud. "Parson Lot")
“Dolcino to Margaret” (1851)
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 4-Sep-16
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The graveyards are full of people the world could not do without.

Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
“The Philistine” (May 1907)
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Sometimes misquoted as:
  • "The graveyards are full of indispensable men"
  • "The cemeteries are full of indispensable men."
  • "The cemeteries are filled with people who thought the world could not get along without them."
Also attributed to Charles DeGaulle, Georges Clemenceau, and many others. More discussion: The Graveyards Are Full of Indispensable Men – Quote Investigator.
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 14-Apr-21
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Th’ past always looks better thin it was. It’s only pleasant because it isn’t here.

[The past always looks better than it was. It’s only pleasant because it isn’t here.]

Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American humorist and journalist
A Family Union, “Mr. Dooley”
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 4-Mar-16
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DUKE: To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
Is the next way to draw new mischief on.

Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Othello, Act 1, sc. 3, l. 234ff (1.3.234-235) (1603)
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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 7-Feb-24
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PAULINA: What’s gone and what’s past help
Should be past grief.

Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Winter’s Tale, Act 3, sc. 2, l. 246ff (3.2.246-247) (1611)
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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 9-Feb-24
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The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Notebook, 1898 [ed. Paine (1935)]
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 26-Jan-19
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There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.

Ahmad Sohreb
Mirza Aḥmad Sohráb (1890-1958) Persian-American author, Baháʼí dissident
A Persian Rosary of Nineteen Pearls (1929)

I am unable to find an extant copy of Sohrab's book; despite his involvement with some of the early principals of the Baháʼí faith, he was eventually expelled from the group, and his writings, already marginally published, are now difficult to find. Even the publication dates of various editions of this work are unclear. But there are references to this quote being sourced there (1, 2, 3, 4).

This book should not be confused with the Persian Rosary (1257), a compendium of ethics by Persian poet Eddin Sadi.

Often misattributed to St. Augustine of Hippo, or referred to as being from an "ancient Persian Mass." There is no indication, though, that Sohrab borrowed the phrase from Oscar Wilde's similar statement.

 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 26-Oct-23
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We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American poet
Kavanagh: A Tale, ch. 1 (1849)
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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 16-Apr-21
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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 16-Apr-21
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Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.

Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Alexander [Ἀλέξανδρος], Frag. 44 (TGF) [Chorus?] (415 BC) [tr. Morgan]
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Alternate translations:

Shed not fresh tears for ills of ancient date.
[Fragment: Barnes 47, Musgrave 20]

You must not mourn for old things with fresh tears.
[tr. Yalouris]

 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 2-Aug-22
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If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened — that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death? The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. “Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
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Sometimes paraphrased, "He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past."
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 28-Oct-19
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