Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

He who would foresee what is to happen should look to what has happened: for all that is has its counterpart in time past.

They who look but little into futurity, have, perhaps, the quickest sensation of the present.

The past is all we know of the future.

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.

Each of us is tied, in some fashion, to the past. We are all part of a continuum.

We cannot fling ourselves into the blank future; we can only call up images from the past. This being so, the important principle follows, that how many images we have largely depends on how much past we have.

Science is the observation of things possible, whether present or past; prescience is the knowledge of things which may come to pass, though but slowly.

Genius always looks forward, and not only sees what is, but what necessarily will be.

We are always looking into the future, but we see only the past.

Colin Singleton’s distance from his glasses made him realize the problem: myopia. He was nearsighted. The future lay before him, inevitable but invisible.

Social mores change with time, like fashion - who knows where it might all end up? I especially like the idea that waste, impoliteness and overpopulation become "abominations," although I'm not sure recycling one's aunt will ever truly catch on.

The custom and fashion of today will be the awkwardness and outrage of tomorrow - so arbitrary are these transient laws.

Forecasting is very difficult, especially when it involves the future.

While we may open the books of the past, we may but grant flying glances of the future, through the mist that veils it.

Memory has many conveniences, and, among others, that of foreseeing things as they have afterwards happened.

You look at these past predictions like there's only a market in the world for five computers [as allegedly said by IBM founder Thomas Watson] and you realize it's not a good idea to predict too far into the future.

It can be exalting to belong to a church that is five hundred years behind the times and sublimely indifferent to fashion; it is mortifying to belong to a church that is five minutes behind the times, huffing and puffing to catch up.

The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained.

All fear comes from trying to see the future, Biff. If you know what is coming, you aren't afraid.

The past is our treasure. Its works, whether we know them or not, flourish in our lives with whatever strength they had. From it we draw provision for our journey, the collected wisdom whose harvests are all ours to reap and carry with us, though we may never live again in the fields that grew them.

I've always been careful never to predict anything that had not already happened.

I find I have, and a heart doesn’t suit me, Windermere. Somehow it doesn’t go with modern dress. It makes one look old.

Reappraise the past, re-evaluate where we've been, clarify where we are, and predict or anticipate where we are headed. . . .

Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash--for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present.

There is such a thing as literary fashion, and prose and verse have been regulated by the same caprice that cuts our coats and cocks our hats.