Past Quotes - Page 178

Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes what we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.

Who recollects distinctly his past adventures, knows his destiny to come.

History, as the study of the past, makes the coherence of what happened comprehensible by reducing events to a dramatic pattern and seeming them in a simple form.

We can learn from past failures and mistakes, but we shouldn't get stuck there. We can keep future goals in mind, but we shouldn't get stuck there, either. The only way to reach our potential is to focus on what we must do now - this moment, this day - to perform effectively and win.

On this side of the Atlantic, the arrival of a new Woody Allen movie is always greeted with tremors of bliss by filmgoers past the age of 60, with mild curiosity by those in their 50s, with trepidation by those in their 40s, with fear and loathing by those in their 30s, and with complete indifference by anyone younger. An icon to baby boomers, who will never concede that when something is over, it is really over (Clapton, McCartney, Santana, the 1960s), Allen has not made a truly memorable film since Bullets On Broadway back in 1994.

His work "The Pasture" features cast bronze cows in Toronto's financial district I wanted to remind stockbrokers what real stock is.

The past could be jettisoned . . . but seeds got carried.

Genealogists live in the past lane.

One of the most freeing discoveries these past few years in my relationship with God is discovering that God is not a belief system or a fixed set of theological propositions.

Surely, it is only when the mind is creatively empty that it is capable of finding out whether there is an ultimate reality or not. But, the mind is never creatively empty; it is always acquiring, always gathering, living on the past or in the future, or trying to be focused in the immediate present: it is never in that state of creativeness in which a new thing can take place. As the mind is a result of time, it cannot possibly understand that which is timeless, eternal.

Man always thinks about the past before he dies, as if he were frantically searching for proof that he truly lived.

I also take pleasure in the so-called negative power in Grotjahn's work. That is, I love his paintings for what they are not. Unlike much art of the past decade, Grotjahn isn't simply working from a prescribed checklist of academically acceptable, curator-approved 'isms' and twists.

Surely knowledge of the natural world, knowledge of the human condition, knowledge of the nature and dynamics of society, knowledge of the past so that one may use it in experiencing the present and aspiring to the future--all of these, it would seem reasonable to suppose, are essential to an educated man. To these must be added another--knowledge of the products of our artistic heritage that mark the history of our esthetic wonder and delight.

It can be shown that maximum diversification is achieved by holding each stock in proportion to its value to the entire market (italics added)... Hindsight plays tricks on our minds... often distorts the past and encourages us to play hunches and outguess other investors, who in turn are playing the same game. For most of us, trying to beat the market leads to disastrous results... our actions lead to much lower returns than can be achieved by just staying in the market.

I continue to be a pastor who speaks to the people of God about the things of God.

My philosophy on life is that we're here to love and to learn. And I've learned a lot, so I can't say "I wish this didn't happen or I didn't make that movie." And I take responsibility for being open [about relationships] in the past. I have to, and now I'm doing what I can to make it different.

I'm not sitting somewhere dwelling on the past. I'm not fretting or obsessing about something in the future.

And I did wonder - because it's now three years ago since I left prison - whether there would come a time when I would forget it, or it would be in the past as anything else might be - no, it's there every day of my life.

HAIL HERMES! Mr. Lantiere has created something very special for all of us who love the history of mystery. The Magicician's Wand book opens doors to the past where we have an opportunity to explore the deeper meanings, myths and symbols of our art.

We're here, there, not here, not there, swirling like specks of dust, claiming for ourselves the rights of the universe. Being important, being nothing, being caught in lives of our own making that we never wanted. Breaking out, trying again, wondering why the past comes with us, wondering how to talk about the past at all.

Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of form...The history of the present must teach us the history of the past.

It is horrible to see everything that one detested in the past coming back wearing the colors of the future.

Again I entered my smithy to work and forge something from the noble material of time past.

Today, every principle of identity is affected by fashion, precisely because of its potential to revert all forms to non-origin and recurrence. Fashion is always retro, but always on the basis of the abolition of the passé (the past): the spectral death and resurrection of forms. Its proper actuality (its 'up-to-dateness', its 'relevance') is not a reference to the present, but an immediate and total recycling.

When you are forty, half of you belongs to the past... And when you are seventy, nearly all of you.