Acknowledging the Past Quotes

I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment.

I don't mind doing two or three Eagles songs and playing the drums. I'm not one of those artists who's going to sit here and deny the past.

Recognizing and confronting our history is important. Transcending our history is essential. We are not limited by what we have done, or what we have left undone. We are limited only by what we are willing to do.

To strip our past of glory is no great loss, but to deny it honor is devastating.

And be grateful. Our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real.

Only if we face up to our past can we regain our credibility. If we pretend that our trust is greater than it is, we will be like someone who tries to patch over a crack.

The past is what makes the present coherent, and the past will remain horrible for exactly as long as we refuse to assess it honestly.

I do love the past but wouldn't want to live in it.

I always lived in old buildings, and I thought about who lived here before. You'd have to be oblivious not to.

It was part of a financial situation. I could only afford records in thrift stores. Then you could find wonderful things, but now everything is a collectible. I like the recycling idea --using the stuff that people don't want anymore, and make new music out of it. There was an element of looking back and listening to your parents' records and doing something with that stuff. Sort of acknowledging the past while rejecting it at the same time.

All you have to do is relax and feel your history, because it will never go away and there is no future without it.

We do not just risk repeating history if we sweep it under the carpet, we also risk being myopic about our present.

I'm tipping the hat and looking back.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

Unless you come to terms with your past... it haunts you, and you never leave it.

The past should have a vote but not a veto.

Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

There were exceptions, a couple of families that just plain didn't want to even think about it, although forty years had passed but mostly the people were very interested in talking about it.

As a country, we like to ignore our past. We don't like to look at it.

We're remembering both the good and the bad in our history together in this world. This isn't an attempt to make people feel bad every morning and to force them to go stick their fingers in a wall socket. We chose these things we included as a way to point people toward the possibility of transformation even while remembering the great pain we have experienced as humanity.

We cannot overstate our debt to the Past, but the moment has the supreme claim.

Our forebears are deserving of tribute for one indisputable reason, if for no other: without them we should not be here. Let us recognize that we are not the ultimate triumph but rather we are beads on a string. Let us behave with decency to the beads that were strung before us and hope modestly that the beads that come after us will not hold us of no account simply because we are dead.

Theirs is the present who can praise the past.

I know my debt of gratitude to the women who went before, I know my responsibility to young women coming forward.

True reconciliation does not consist in merely forgetting the past.