Annie Proulx Quotes

History offers us vicarious experience. It allows the youngest student to possess the ground equally with his elders; without a knowledge of history to give him a context for present events, he is at the mercy of every social misdiagnosis handed to him.

No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

The most fertile source of insight is hindsight.

Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later.

I wish I'd known early what I had to learn late.

Thinking is not enough. There is no final enough of wisdom, experience - any... thing.

I don't think the show would be funny to you if you didn't already have a base of information.

There are some things I wish I never knew, but I am grateful for things that I have learned, too.

I wish I knew what I know now before.

Life must be understood backwards. But it must be lived forwards.

If you don't know your full-throttle history, the whole story of how you came to where you are, it's kind of hard to put things together.

We learn from history. That's what it's all about.

I can't change history but only learn from it.

As an individual, I've learnt a lot about life - some things that proved to be helpful and some things I wish I never knew.

There's a lot of clarity in hindsight.

I've seen a lot of things and I've experienced a lot of things.

You can't really know where you are going until you know where you have been.

History is clarified experience.

I think there's always a lesson you can learn from any situation.

The man who has not suffered - what does he know anyway?

You can't tell what a man is like or what he is thinking when you are looking at him. You must get around behind him and see what he has been looking at.

The mission statement of my company, Kathy Ireland Worldwide, is to find solutions for families, especially busy moms. I'm reaching out to busy moms because that's what I am. That's what I know, and I know this woman has been underserved.

There are many things we only see clearly in retrospect.

History is our guide, and without a knowledge of history, we are lost!

Observing someone without context amplifies the experience. The more we know, the less we are able to feel.