Past quotes

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General_Aphorisms

Past History

"The Past Is History. The Future Is a Mystery. Today Is a Gift. That’s Why It’s Called the Present."
  • Source: Traditional. Not clearly identified. Sometimes attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, Barbara De Angelis, Joan Rivers, Bill Keane, Emily Dickinson, Liz Curtis Higgs, Babatunde Olatunji, Susan Barkdoll, Nicholas L. Santowassa, Abigail Van Buren, or Alice Morse Earle.
Keywords: Past_quotes History_quotes Future_quotes Mystery_quotes Call_quotes Present_quotes Today_quotes Gift_quotes

Marcus_Aurelius

Present Time

“Every man's life lies all within the present, which is but a point of time; for the past is spent, and the future is uncertain.”
Keywords: Man_quotes Life_quotes Present_quotes Point_quotes Time_quotes Past_quotes Spent_quotes Future_quotes Uncertain_quotes

Arthur_C_Clarke

Clarke's Second Law

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
  • Source: Arthur C. Clarke in his book ‘Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible’, published 1962 by HMH Publishing, Revised edition, within chapter 2 ‘Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination’.
Keywords: Way_quotes Discover_quotes Limit_quotes Possible_quotes Venture_quotes Little_quotes Past_quotes Impossible_quotes Law_quotes

Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi

Culture Shields

“One of the major functions of every culture has been to shield its members from chaos, to reassure them of their importance and ultimate success…. An unrealistic trust in the shields, in the cultural myths, can lead to equally extreme disillusion when they fail... The shields that have worked in the past — the order that religion, patriotism, ethnic traditions, and habits instilled by social classes used to provide — are no longer effective for increasing numbers of people who feel exposed to the harsh winds of chaos.”
  • Source: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience“, chapter “The Shields of Culture”, page 11. Original content published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics in 1990. Kindle edition published by Harper Collins in 2008. ISBN: 978-0061876721.
Keywords: Major_quotes Function_quotes Culture_quotes Shield_quotes Member_quotes Chaos_quotes Reassure_quotes Important_quotes Ultimate_quotes Success_quotes Unrealistic_quotes Trust_quotes Myth_quotes Lead_quotes Disillusion_quotes Fail_quotes Work_quotes Past_quotes Order_quotes Religion_quotes Patriotism_quotes Ethnic_quotes Habit_quotes Instill_quotes Social_quotes Class_quotes Provide_quotes Effective_quotes Increase_quotes Number_quotes People_quotes Feel_quotes Expose_quotes Harsh_quotes Wind_quotes

Henry_Ford

Failure

“An absence of fear of the future and of veneration for the past. One who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail. What is past is useful only as it suggests ways and means for progress.”
  • Source: Henry Ford. A book. Entitled My Life and Work. Written by Henry Ford in collaboration with Samuel Crowther. Published 1922, Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Introduction.
    • Also quoted in Samuel Crowther, "Henry Ford's Problem," The Magazine of Business, vol. 52 (1927), p. 182.
Keywords: Absence_quotes Fear_quotes Future_quotes Veneration_quotes Past_quotes Failure_quotes Limitation_quotes Activity_quotes Opportunity_quotes Intelligence_quotes Disgrace_quotes Shame_quotes Suggestion_quotes Progress_quotes

Stephen_Hawking

Indefinite Past

“In classical physics, the past is assumed to exist as a definite series of events, but according to quantum physics, the past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities. Even the universe as a whole has no single past or history.”
  • Source: Hawking & Mlodinow, Scientific American, October 2010.
Keywords: Classical_quotes Physics_quotes Past_quotes Series_quotes Quantum_quotes Future_quotes Indefinite_quotes Existence_quotes Spectrum_quotes Possibility_quotes Probability_quotes Universe_quotes History_quotes Multiverse_quotes Assume_quotes Event_quotes

Robert_Heinlein

History

“A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.”
  • Source: Written by Robert A. Heinlein in the book “Time Enough for Love”, published in 1973 by Putnam's Sons, ISBN: 0-399-11151-4. ISBN: 9781101503072 (ebook). Page 250 (Kindle edition).
Keywords: Generation_quotes Ignore_quotes History_quotes Past_quotes Future_quotes

Grace_Hopper

Past and Future

“I've always been more interested in the future than in the past.”
  • Source: As quoted in The Reader's Digest, October 1994, p. 185.
Keywords: Time_quotes History_quotes Past_quotes Future_quotes

Daniel_Kahneman

Unpredictable Future

“The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained.”
Keywords: Idea_quotes Future_quotes Prediction_quotes Undermine_quotes Day_quotes Easy_quotes Past_quotes Explanation_quotes

Pierre-Simon_Laplace

System of Nature

“The present state of the system of nature is evidently a consequence of what it was in the preceding moment, and if we conceive of an intelligence that at a given instant comprehends all the relations of the entities of this universe, it could state the respective position, motions, and general affects of all these entities at any time in the past or future. Physical astronomy, the branch of knowledge that does the greatest honor to the human mind, gives us an idea, albeit imperfect, of what such an intelligence would be. The simplicity of the law by which the celestial bodies move, and the relations of their masses and distances, permit analysis to follow their motions up to a certain point; and in order to determine the state of the system of these great bodies in past or future centuries, it suffices for the mathematician that their position and their velocity be given by observation for any moment in time. Man owes that advantage to the power of the instrument he employs, and to the small number of relations that it embraces in its calculations. But ignorance of the different causes involved in the production of events, as well as their complexity, taken together with the imperfection of analysis, prevents our reaching the same certainty about the vast majority of phenomena. Thus there are things that are uncertain for us, things more or less probable, and we seek to compensate for the impossibility of knowing them by determining their different degrees of likelihood. So it was that we owe to the weakness of the human mind one of the most delicate and ingenious of mathematical theories, the science of chance or probability.”
  • Source: Pierre-Simon Laplace, 'Recherches, 1º, sur l'Intégration des Équations Différentielles aux Différences Finies, et sur leur Usage dans la Théorie des Hasards' (1773, published 1776). In Oeuvres complètes de Laplace, 14 Vols. (1843-1912), Vol. 8, 144-5, trans. Charles Coulston Gillispie, Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749-1827: A Life in Exact Science (1997), 26.
Keywords: State_quotes Present_quotes System_quotes Nature_quotes Consequence_quotes Moment_quotes Precede_quotes Conceive_quotes Intelligence_quotes Instant_quotes Comprehension_quotes Relationship_quotes Universe_quotes Position_quotes Motion_quotes Causality_quotes Time_quotes Past_quotes Future_quotes Astronomy_quotes Knowledge_quotes Humanity_quotes Mind_quotes Idea_quotes Imperfect_quotes Law_quotes Celestial_quotes Body_quotes Mass_quotes Distance_quotes Analysis_quotes Determine_quotes Century_quotes Mathematics_quotes Velocity_quotes Observation_quotes Advantage_quotes Power_quotes Instrument_quotes Calculation_quotes Ignorance_quotes Cause_quotes Production_quotes Event_quotes Complexity_quotes Certainty_quotes Majority_quotes Phenomena_quotes Probability_quotes Impossibility_quotes Likelihood_quotes Weakness_quotes Theory_quotes Chance_quotes

William_H_McCrea

Not Everything Predictable

“Our experience shows that not everything that is observable and measurable is predictable, no matter how complete our past observations may have been.”
  • Source: Sir William Hunter McCrea, In Presidential Address (8 Feb 1963), Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society (Mar 1963), 4, 197.
Keywords: Experience_quotes Observation_quotes Measurement_quotes Prediction_quotes Completion_quotes Past_quotes

David_E_Nye

History Not Rhetorical

“Yet it does not follow that historical arguments should be regarded as rhetorical exercises. To say that the past is not perfectly knowable does not make it infinitely malleable.”
  • Source: A book. Written by David E. Nye. Entitled 'Narratives and Spaces'. Published in 1997 by Univerity of Exeter Press, Exeter, UK. Hardback ISBN 0-85989-555-6. Paperback ISBN 0-85989-556-4. Introduction, page 7.
Keywords: History_quotes Argument_quotes Regard_quotes Exercise_quotes Past_quotes Perfect_quotes Knowledge_quotes Infinite_quotes Malleable_quotes

Michael_Polanyi

Vast Knowledge First and Second Hand

“Nobody knows more than a tiny fragment of science well enough to judge its validity and value at first hand. For the rest he has to rely on views accepted at second hand on the authority of a community of people accredited as scientists. But this accrediting depends in its turn on a complex organization. For each member of the community can judge at first hand only a small number of his fellow members, and yet eventually each is accredited by all. What happens is that each recognizes as scientists a number of others by whom he is recognized as such in return, and these relations form chains which transmit these mutual recognitions at second hand through the whole community. This is how each member becomes directly or indirectly accredited by all. The system extends into the past. Its members recognize the same set of persons as their masters and derive from this allegiance a common tradition, of which each carries on a particular strand.”
  • Source: Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (1958), 163.
Keywords: Vast_quotes Knowledge_quotes Tiny_quotes Fragment_quotes Accredit_quotes Dependence_quotes Turn_quotes Complexity_quotes Organization_quotes Member_quotes Community_quotes Science_quotes Judgment_quotes Validity_quotes Value_quotes First-Hand_quotes Reliance_quotes View_quotes Acceptance_quotes Second-Hand_quotes Authority_quotes People_quotes Scientist_quotes Number_quotes Small_quotes Fellow_quotes Eventual_quotes Recognition_quotes Return_quotes Relationship_quotes Chain_quotes Transmit_quotes Mutual_quotes Direct_quotes Indirect_quotes System_quotes Extend_quotes Past_quotes Master_quotes Derive_quotes Allegiance_quotes Common_quotes Tradition_quotes Carry_quotes Particular_quotes Strand_quotes

Willard_Van_Orman_Quine

Science as a Tool

“As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries - not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.”
  • Source: From A Logical Point of View (1953), p. 44.
Keywords: Empirical_quotes Thinking_quotes Conceptual_quotes Scheme_quotes Science_quotes Tool_quotes Prediction_quotes Future_quotes Experience_quotes Light_quotes Past_quotes Physical_quotes Object_quotes Import_quotes Situation_quotes Convenience_quotes Intermediary_quotes Definition_quotes Term_quotes Irreducible_quotes Posit_quotes Compare_quotes Epistemology_quotes God_quotes Myth_quotes Part_quotes Physics_quotes Belief_quotes Error_quotes Point_quotes Degree_quotes Kind_quotes Entity_quotes Culture_quotes Superior_quotes Proof_quotes Effectiveness_quotes Device_quotes Management_quotes Structure_quotes Flux_quotes Homer(topic)_quotes Efficacious_quotes

Frederick_Winslow_Taylor

Great Men Needed

“In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first. This in no sense, however, implies that great men are not needed. On the contrary, the first object of any good system must be that of developing first-class men; and under systematic management the best man rises to the top more certainly and more rapidly than ever before.”
  • Source: F.W. Taylor, 1911. Principles of Scientific Management. New York and London, Harper & brothers. p. 7: Introduction.
Keywords: Merit_quotes Worker_quotes Employment_quotes System_quotes First_Class_quotes Scientific_Management_quotes Future_quotes Management_quotes Past_quotes Man_quotes First_quotes Sense_quotes Great_quotes Men_quotes Need_quotes Contrary_quotes Object_quotes Science_quotes Good_quotes Develop_quotes Best_quotes Rise_quotes Top_quotes Certain_quotes Rapid_quotes

Shannon_Vallor

AI Holds Us

“AI holds us frozen in place, fascinated by endless permutations of a reflected past that only the magic of marketing can disguise as the future.”
  • Source: From the book “The AI Mirror” by Shannon Vallor. Published 2024 by Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0197759066. Introduction, page 6.
Keywords: AI_quotes Artificial_quotes Intelligence_quotes Hold_quotes Frozen_quotes Place_quotes Fascinate_quotes Endless_quotes Permutation_quotes Reflect_quotes Past_quotes Magic_quotes Marketing_quotes Disguise_quotes Future_quotes

John_Archibald_Wheeler

Bringing the Past

“We are participators in bringing into being not only the near and here but the far away and long ago. We are in this sense, participators in bringing about something of the universe in the distant past...”
Keywords: Participant_quotes Bring_quotes Being_quotes Near_quotes Here_quotes Far_quotes Long_quotes Ago_quotes Universe_quotes Distant_quotes Past_quotes

Steven_Wright

Past Factory

“The Present is a Past factory.”
  • Source: Wright, Steven (2023). A book entitled "Harold". Published 2023 by Simon and Schuster, New York, NY. Page 117. ISBN 13: 978-166802271-9.
    • Weight, Steven (2024). A video clip entitled "I'm Like A Receptionist For My Mind - Steven Wright, After A Few Cups Of Coffee". Posted on [youtube.com] channel "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert". Posting date circa 2024-01. Video time 7:07.
Keywords: Present_quotes Past_quotes Factory_quotes
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