Herman Melville Quotes

The Past is the textbook of tyrants; the Future the Bible of the Free. Those who are solely governed by the Past stand like Lot's wife, crystallized in the act of looking backward, and forever incapable of looking before.

The Past is the textbook of tyrants; the Future is the Bible of the Free.

That's why we have memory. And the opposite of memory— hope. So things that are gone can still matter. So we can built off our pasts and make future.

I don’t know what’s ahead,” I say. “I don’t know nothing about nothing but whatever it is, it’s gotta be better than what’s behind. It’s gotta be.

The past is made out of facts...I guess the future is just hope.

The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future.

While we can remember the past, we cannot write the future. Only our children, the future of our community, can do that.

And I can't wait to see where the road leads from here.

So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.

For all my years in public life, I have believed that America must sail toward the shores of liberty and justice for all. There is no end to that journey, only the next great voyage. We know the future will outlast all of us, but I believe that all of us will live on in the future we make.

It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.

It is not enough to look backwards with pride, justified as that pride may be. We must look forward with hope and confidence, too.

There’s a big difference between history and the future.

The future lies ahead.

The social revolution of the nineteenth century can not draw its poetry from the past, it can draw that only from the future. It cannot start upon its work before it has stricken off all superstition concerning the past

The social revolution of the nineteenth century can not draw its poetry from the past, it can draw that only from the future.

The Civil War is a story about how some people clung to the past, while others sought the future.

The past is yesterday. I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

Looking towards the future excites me with the possibilities we have to improve, and I'm excited about what the future might bring.

In difficult times, it's important to speak up. We cannot change the past, but we can impact the future.

I do not want to live more from the past. I have my present and a great future that is on the other side.

Greatness will come by looking forward - untethered from the politics of the past and anchored by our shared values - and by changing our nation's future.

I maintain hope that this country can be what it's supposed to be.

Let's forget a little about the 19th century and start looking at the 21st century.

If there is anything that is important to America, it is that you are not a prisoner of the past.