A Quote by John Quincy Adams
It is by a thorough knowledge of the whole subject that [people] are enabled to judge correctly of the past and to give a proper direction to the future.
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We need a proper understanding of the past to correctly judge the present if we ever are to foretell the future.
An accurate knowledge of the past of a country is necessary for everyone who would understand its present, and who desires to judge of its future.
PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance... The Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one - the knowledge and the dream.
A handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method.
A thorough-paced antiquary not only remembers what all other people have thought proper to forget, but he also forgets what all other people think is proper to remember.
People think of time as a continuum composed of points which is stretched out at a line, and even if you add a direction to it and say one direction on the line is past and the other direction is future, or better, one direction is "earlier than" and the other direction is "later than", you're still thinking of it as like a geometrical line which is stretched out rather than as a dynamic process of becoming.
Communication media enabled collective action on new scales, at new rates, among new groups of people, multiplied the power available to civilizations and enabled new forms of social interaction. The alphabet enabled empire and monotheism, the printing press enabled science and revolution, the telephone enabled bureaucracy and globalization, the internet enabled virtual communities and electronic markets, the mobile telephone enabled smart mobs and tribes of info-nomads.
The soul of the world is in the whole world, and is everywhere so adapted to matter that, at each place, it produces the proper subject and causes the proper actions.
It is my firm belief that I have a link with the past and a responsibility to the future. I cannot give up. I cannot despair. There's a whole future, generations to come. I have to keep trying.
Armed with the knowledge of our past, we can with confidence charter a course for our future. Culture is an indispensable weapon in the freedom struggle. We must take hold of it and forge the future with the past.
Past, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy.... Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one-the knowledge and the dream.
When I teach a class I often give the assignment: Photograph someone you love. I ask people to do this so they have a subject about whom they have feelings, a subject that is more than a model, or an object, or a shape, or an idea. In this way, they can judge the result not only by its technical success, but also by how well it describes their feelings.
These days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is of the past, wisdom is of the future.
We need to be open minded to understand that there are lots of different levels of things going on and we shouldn't be so quick to judge - and certainly not to judge a whole race, a whole religion or a whole people - and a lot of that is going on.
The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future.
... Philosophy proper is a subject, on the one hand so hopelessly obscure, on the other so astonishingly elementary, that there knowledge hardly counts.
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