Famous Quotes & Sayings

The only thing to prevent what's past is to put a stop to it before it happens.

Benjamin Franklin

Enjoy the present hour, be mindful of the past; And neither fear nor wish the Approaches of the last. Learn of the skillful: He that teaches himself, hath a fool for his master.

Ben Bernanke

The risk that the economy has entered a substantial downturn appears to have diminished over the past month or so.

Ben Bernanke

Economics is a highly sophisticated field of thought that is superb at explaining to policymakers precisely why the choices they made in the past were wrong. About the future, not so much.

Ben Affleck

A lot of my shows in the past have been more theatrical than others, but you really get the bug for it when you direct on stage.

Barbara Tuchman

The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard

Barbara Tuchman

The story and study of the past, both recent and distant, will not reveal the future, but it flashes beacon lights along the way and it is a useful nostrum against despair.

Arthur Goldberg

History teaches us that the past is full of luck and chance and circumstance, without any one of which, life could have been radically different.

Arthur Eddington

There is only one law of Nature-the second law of thermodynamics-which recognises a distinction between past and future more profound than the difference of plus and minus. It stands aloof from all the rest. ... It opens up a new province of knowledge, namely, the study of organisation; and it is in connection with organisation that a direction of time-flow and a distinction between doing and undoing appears for the first time.

Arthur Golden

Nothing is as bleak as the future, except the past.

Arthur C. Clarke

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke

Now times had changed, and the inherited wisdom of the past had become folly.

Arthur C. Clarke

We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return ...

Anton Chekhov

Posterity will say as usual: "In the past things were better, the present is worse than the past.

Anton Chekhov

The past,' he thought, 'is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another.' And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered.

Ban Ki-moon

We have seen in the past where leaders have not been open-minded or have not been flexible. That's why the people came out to the streets and shouted and chanted for more reforms and more freedoms.

Arundhati Roy

To annihilate indigenous populations eventually paves the way to our own annihilation. They are the only people who practice sustainable living. We think they are relics of the past, but they may be the gatekeepers to our future.

Arundhati Roy

Railing against the past will not heal us. History has happened. It's over and done with. All we can do is to change its course by encouraging what we love instead of destroying what we don't.

Ayumi Hamasaki

Slowly, I've come to realize That I cannot heal my past And that fearing the unavoidable future Is pointless

Diane Duane

A legend can just as well be founded in the future as in the past." "It's called a 'prophecy,'" Urruah said. "You may have heard of the concept.

Diana Ross

Instead of looking at the past, I put myself ahead twenty years and try to look at what I need to do now in order to get there then.

Diana Vreeland

How boring to copy the past -- with all the magnificence of today and tomorrow.

Diane Ackerman

Poetry is an act of distillation. It takes contingency samples, is selective. It telescopes time. It focuses what most often floods past us in a polite blur.

Desiree Rogers

It's the past, it's behind us, and that's the end of it.

Demian Bichir

A lot of the things that I've learned in the past have been from dear friends. Rodriguez's favorite line is "Fácil!" Easy! He makes things easy. He doesn't complicate his life. He's obsessed with perfection, but he makes it easy, and that's pretty much the way I work as an actor.

Demi Moore

I'm intensely private, and I've openly shown annoyance at the paparazzi. That's served in the past to create an image of me where I'm always frowning or looking angry.

Demi Lovato

All of my past challenges have helped me become who I am today.

We have copped a lot of ignorant abuse in the past, but it makes you wonder when a former state coroner openly attacks Aboriginal families who have been through hell.

Over the past two decades, we have clearly seen an erosion of ethical values.

Will Durant

The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding.

John Powell

If you knew me in the past, please do not think that I am the same person that you are meeting today. I have experienced more of life, I have encountered new depths in those I love, I have suffered and prayed and I am different.

Don Cheadle

If you look up and no one who's around you has been around you for the past 20 years, and they're all new people, I think that's a problem.

Dmitry Medvedev

Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past.