- Nov 07, 2020
Past Quotes
Looking back to understand what comes next.
This collection of past quotes includes a mid-20th-century physicist's assessment of the atomic-age power balance between Europe and the Anglo-Saxon powers, alongside a separate scientific note on how measurement affects what can be known about earlier moments. Both sit alongside a simpler idea: building your future apart from your past. Related themes appear in our Truth quotes.
- Last Updated on May 30, 2021
- Enemies
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- Nov 07, 2020
There are always signs that a reign is ending, and they are usually spotted not in the king himself but in his court. In the inner circle, latent jealousies between advisers spill into open conflict, as they angrily debate who is to blame for the calamity, chewing over each other's past errors and pointing the finger at old and nascent enemies.
- Long
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- Nov 07, 2020
It is in the very nature of things human that every act that has once made its appearance and has been recorded in the history of mankind stays with mankind as a potentiality long after its actuality has become a thing of the past.
- Great
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- Nov 07, 2020
I've been in relationships in the past where communication wasn't great, and when it is, it makes it so much easier to talk to each other.
- Lose
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- Nov 07, 2020
Our long-range predictions - especially those which anticipate extreme-weather events - rely on an assumption that the future will be similar to the past. Lose that, and we lose the tools that have allowed us to prepare for such eventualities.
- Only
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- Nov 07, 2020
On average, the higher the novelty score a film had, the better it did at the box office. But only up to a point. Push past that novelty threshold, and there's a precipice; the revenue earned by a film fell off a cliff.
- Being
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- Nov 07, 2020
The people in the well-ordered ages of the past upheld the public law and abandoned private strategies; they focused their intentions and unified their conduct. Everything they did was for the sake of being employed by the ruler.
- Never
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- Nov 07, 2020
I looked for the same pitch my whole career, a breaking ball. All of the time. I never worried about the fastball. They couldn't throw it past me, none of them.
- Political
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- Nov 07, 2020
Terrorism, ladies and gentlemen, in my eyes I have a very, very, very simple explanation. Gangs of criminals, killers, used unfortunately by certain governments in the past for political purposes, who are on their own now as gangs.
- Factors
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- Nov 07, 2020
But the war on terror as I have repeatedly said in the past, and the Afghan people believe in it, in truth, is that the war on terror is not in the Afghan villages or homes. Its in the sanctuaries, it is in the training grounds, its in the motivation factors and the money that comes to it.
- History
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- Nov 07, 2020
In the academic world, biographies of these great figures of the past fell out of favor in the 1960s, when there was a turn toward social history, which meant the history of the voiceless and faceless. But the public at large never embraced the idea that these dead white guys should be abandoned.
- Never
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- Nov 07, 2020
Everything that happens today is like something in the past, but it's also unlike things in the past. We never know until an event happens if it's the similarities or differences that matter more.
- Distances
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- Nov 07, 2020
People always think they're in the middle of a revolution while they tend not to realize the enormity of a change that has happened in the past. The telegraph was a revolution, but who looks at it that way these days? The telegraph sped up the transportation of messages over long distances by a huge factor.
- Identity
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- Nov 07, 2020
An awareness of our past is essential to the establishment of our personality and our identity as Africans.
- Problems
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- Nov 07, 2020