Past Quotes - Page 105

All tradition is merely the past.

There's got to be a point where we fix the system so that legal immigration is easier than illegal immigration and show respect for people, a kid who might have been here for 10 years, that might be a valedictorian of their high school to say, no, no, no you're not allowed to go to college. I just think there's a point past which we are over the line.

No past to make us sentimental, no future to embarrass us...a difficult moment when you are out of practice - a moment that makes you go cold, cold and wary.

There is a little bit of hubris to want to change the past. It implies that you know better - that things didn't happen the way that they were supposed to.

The U.S. government alleges that for the past 45 years, the companies that manufacture and sell tobacco have waged an intentional and coordinated campaign of deceit.

Nothing amuses me more than the easy manner with which everybody settles the abundance of those who have a great deal less than themselves.

...one of the best things about running is that no matter how fast you've run in the past, running fast in the future does not come easily or with any guarantees.

I questioned her further, and eventually got to talk to her doctor. And her doctor sort of shook his head and he said, I have examined her for throat cancer at least 15 times in the past few years.

Many more children observe attitudes, values and ways different from or in conflict with those of their families, social networks,and institutions. Yet today's young people are no more mature or capable of handling the increased conflicting and often stimulating information they receive than were young people of the past, who received the information and had more adult control of and advice about the information they did receive.

The future is a trickster rabbit, full of surprises. Only the past is predictable. -Bobby Goodspeed

If you act like the river, you ultimately flow past all the rocks along the way.

It takes leadership to improve safety. And I started off the movement in my time, but the person who has done more over the past 20 to 30 years and who has led it is Professor Sid Watkins.

Those no-sooner-have-I-touched-the-pillow people are past my comprehension. There is something bovine about them.

The reason women are always reluctant to reveal their age is because other people label them as 'past it'. In the 21st century, women over 60 are not past it - we are vital, active, sexual beings, living life to the full.

They won't listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don't want the truth; they want their traditions.

There flows throughout our whole history a stream of humanity, of generosity, of tolerance, so broad, so powerful, and so pure that it would be vain indeed to look for a similar one in the past of any other European country.

Human beings, whatever their backgrounds, are more open than we think, that their behavior cannot be confidently predicted from their past, that we are all creatures vulnerable to new thoughts, new attitudes. And while such vulnerability creates all sorts of possibilities, both good and bad, its very existence is exciting. It means that no human being should be written off, no change in thinking deemed impossible.

But I don't really write to honor the past. I write to investigate, to try to figure out what happened and why it happened, knowing I'll never really know. I think all the writers that I admire have this same desire, the desire to bring order out of chaos.

Our educational system is like an automobile which has strong rear lights, brightly illuminating the past. But looking forward things are barely discernible.

But the past is passed; why moralize upon it? Forget it. See, yon bright son has forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new leaves. Because they have no memory . . . because they are not human.

I keep recycling and repackaging music that I've done in the past, as though I can't write anymore. Like, okay, I'm done with that. But I need to kind of prod myself again into come on, Herbie, get off your duff and start writing some new music.

There is a strange idea aboard, held by all monetary cranks, that credit is something a banker gives to a man. Credit, on the contrary, is something a man already has. He has it, perhaps, because he already has marketable assets of a greater cash value than the loan for which he is asking. Or he has it because his character and past record have earned it. He brings it into the bank with him. That is why the banker makes him the loan.

I live in the present. I only remember the past, and anticipate the future.

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.

Now if you can recognize and memorize a grandmaster's game, and you have the respect to understand [Zimbabwean president Robert] Mugabe who has survived past anyone's expectations, and make the simple assumption it wasn't an accident, and you understand why he did what he did, now you're ready to predict ... The key to forecasting is to understand both the constraints nations are under and the manner in which the struggle for power shapes leaders.