Past Quotes

Among the many vital jobs to be done, the nation must not only radically readjust its attitude toward the Negro in the compelling present, but must incorporate in its planning some compensatory consideration for the handicaps he has inherited from the past.

Humanity is waiting for something other than blind imitation of the past. If we want truly to advance a step further, if we want to turn over a new leaf and really set a new man afoot, we must begin to turn mankind away from the long and desolate night of violence.

If we open a quarrel between past and present we shall find that we have lost the future.

I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial... I thought I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail.

A nation that forgets its past has no future.

History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.

There must be what Mr. Gladstone many years ago called a blessed act of oblivion. We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward across the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past.

The future is unknowable, but the past should give us hope.

We have surmounted all the perils and endured all the agonies of the past. We shall provide against and thus prevail over the dangers and problems of the future, withhold no sacrifice, grudge no toil, seek no sordid gain, fear no foe. All will be well. We have, I believe, within us the life-strength and guiding light by which the tormented world around us may find the harbour of safety, after a storm-beaten voyage.

Projects undreamed of by past generations will absorb our immediate descendants, comforts, activities, amenities, pleasures will crowd upon them, but their hearts will ache and their lives will be barren, if they have not a vision above material things.

The uncertainty and importance of the present reduce the past and future to comparative insignificance, and clear the mind of minor worries. And when all is over, memories remain which few men do not hold precious.

Persevere towards those objectives which are lighted for us by all the wisdom and inspiration of the past.

The greatest tie of all is language.... Words are the only things that last for ever. The most tremendous monuments or prodigies of engineering crumble under the hand of Time. The Pyramids moulder, the bridges rust, the canals fill up, grass covers the railway track; but words spoken two or three thousand years ago remain with us now, not as mere relics of the past, but with all their pristine vital force.

The past is a great place and I don't want to erase it or to regret it, but I don't want to be its prisoner either.

No one should care if the Rolling Stones have broken up, should they? I mean, when the Beatles broke up, I couldn't give a shit. Thought it was a very good idea. Why should I live in the past just for their petty... satisfaction?

We're not uncomfortable with it, and we've already been through enough of the music business where I'm not really worried that commercial success is going to in some way - we're already past saving, you know what I mean? It's too late for us.

It's easy to get buried in the past when you try to make a good thing last.

I try not to look back. I'm looking forward. I'm worried more about what I'm going to do next week than I am what I did last week. There are too many things to do. Looking back is for everybody else.

Lust for the future, treasure the past.

Oh, yesterdays are over my shoulder, so I can't look back for too long. There's just too much to see waiting in front of me, and I know that I just can't go wrong.