Famous Quotes & Sayings

Randall Jarrell

Modern" poetry is, essentially, an extension of romanticism; it is what romantic poetry wishes or finds it necessary to become. It is the end product of romanticism, all past and no future; it is impossible to go further by any extrapolation of the process by which we have arrived, and certainly it is impossible to remain where we are who could endure a century of transition ?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Power resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whence, then, this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be not the slave of your own past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

We can see well into the past; we can guess shrewdly into the future, but that which is rolled up and muffled in impenetrable folds is today.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whatever is old corrupts, and the past turns to snakes.

Sebastian Vettel

I don't care too much what happened in the past. I prefer to focus on what is coming next and I am really looking forward to it.

Scarlett Johansson

There's no such thing as an aura of mystery anymore. It doesn't exist. That's a thing of the past.

Shunryu Suzuki

And we should forget, day by day, what we have done; this is true non-attachment. And we should do something new. To do something new, of course we must know our past, and this is alright. But we should not keep holding onto anything we have done; we should only reflect on it. And we must have some idea of what we should do in the future. But the future is the future, the past is the past; now we should work on something new.

Shunryu Suzuki

Time goes from present to past.

Shimon Peres

Some experts advise what to do in accordance with the past, but the past flew away, and we have to reorient ourselves in the face of new dangers.

Shimon Peres

Today, Israel is stronger than ever. Israel has defensive tools of its own - those developed in the past and those developed today and those that will be developed tomorrow.

Shelley Duvall

But most of what I've learned about acting - and a lot of what I've learned about life in the past seven years - was taught to me by Robert Altman

Shelby Steele

Too often the result of affirmative action has been an artificial diversity that gives the appearance of parity between blacks and whites that has not yet been achieved in reality...Preferences tend to attack one form of discrimination with another...Affirmative action encourages a victim-focused identity, and sends the message that there is more power in our past suffering than in our present achievements.

Seth

As far as you are concerned the present is your point of action, focus and power, and from that point of volition you form both your future and past. Realizing this, you will understand that you are not at the mercy of a past over which you have no control.

Seth

The past existed in multitudinous ways. You only experienced one probable past. By changing this past in your mind, now, in your present, you can change not only its nature but its effect, and not only upon yourself but upon others.

L. Ron Hubbard

You are treating yourself in present time much as you were treated by others in the past. And you punish yourself far more than anyone would ever punish you.

Leymah Gbowee

We have lived through fear all our lives, and when you have gone through a whole lot of fear, sometimes all you can do is resist the fear, and resistance comes in the form of courage.

Lewis Mumford

Each person is a temporary focus of forces, vitalities, and values that carry back to an immemorial past and that reach forward into an unthinkable future.

Lewis Mumford

Faith in the creative process, in the dynamics of emergence, in the values and purposes that transcend past achievements and past forms, is the precondition of all further growth.

Lewis Mumford

Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.

Lewis Thomas

The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable, reliable agency. We need all the fallibility we can get. Most of all, we need to preserve the absolute unpredictability and total improbability of our connected minds. That way we can keep open all the options, as we have in the past.

Leslie Caron

I think it's the end of progress if you stand still and think of what you've done in the past. I keep on.

Leslie Fiedler

Jane Austen is at the end of the line that begins with Samuel Richardson, which takes wonder and magic out of the novel, treats not the past but the present.

Leslie Jamison

The global phenomenon of poverty tourism - or 'poorism' - has become increasingly popular during the past few years. Tourists pay to be guided through the favelas of Brazil and the shantytowns of South Africa. The recently opened Los Angeles Gang Tour carries visitors through battle-scarred territories of urban violence and deprivation.

Leonard Peltier

In the past, when we were initially organizing to bring about changes, our elders had little or no political experience. However, today, most of those American Indian Movement organ-izers are the elders. They are quite adept at bringing attention to the public about any attacks upon our people.

Neil LaBute

Just in the past few years - since I've been making movies, which isn't a very long time - you now have a culture that is fascinated and informed about the box office in a way that sometimes filmmakers weren't even.

Neil Postman

The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it. People gather bundles of sticks to build bridges they never cross. People in distress will sometimes prefer a problem that is familiar to a solution that is not.

Viktor E. Frankl

Usually, to be sure, man considers only the stubble field of transitoriness and overlooks the full granaries of the past, wherein he had salvaged once and for all his deeds, his joys and also his sufferings. Nothing can be undone, and nothing can be done away with. I should say having been is the surest kind of being.

Viktor E. Frankl

It isn't the past which holds us back, it's the future; and how we undermine it, today.

Viktor E. Frankl

What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? "No, thank you," he will think. "Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these things are things that cannot inspire envy."

Vanessa Paradis

I do sometimes strongly hope that in a past life, my most recent life before this, I was absolutely horrible, evil, hideous. Because otherwise - well, hell, to even things up next time around, I'm going to have to pay for this one, am I not?