Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?
In rising financial markets, the world is forever new. The bull or optimist has no eyes for past or present, but only for the future, where streams of revenue play in his imagination.
One gains a double benefit in writing about the past, conjuring up how things might have been, and at the same time acquiring a different perspective on the present.
I was in relationship with a guy who was much older than me - either he was past his prime and I was coming into mine. There was nothing I could do to keep his attention.
There are no pat answers - we're pushing through some new frontiers, and lessons of the past don't always apply.
Being asked to play one of the butlers is like being picked to play for England. All you have to do is think of the great butlers from the past - Terry-Thomas in 'How To Murder Your Wife,' John Gielgud in 'Arthur' and Denholm Elliott in 'Trading Places.'
Saddam Hussein has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do.
Everyone has a past.
The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have been wrong must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong.
If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.
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.
I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That's where the fun is.
Rome - the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.
What a man has made himself he will be; his state is the result of his past life, and his heaven or hell is in himself.
Past conference topics have included strengthening the role of fathers in children's lives, the impact of the media culture on children, the delicate balance between work and family, and family involvement in education.
As a social primate species, we modulate our morals with signals from family, friends and social groups with whom we identify because in our evolutionary past, those attributes helped individuals to survive and reproduce.
The future of Conservatism lies in our beliefs and values, not by throwing them away. We need to shed associations that bind us to past failures, but hold faith with those things that make us Conservatives.
What happens when good people are put into an evil place? Do they triumph or does the situation dominate their past history and morality?
I grew up in Queens, and on Sunday evenings, my parents would drive my brother and me past the factory. We could smell the week's supply of bread baking. I always connected the 59th Street Bridge with that scent. Who woulda thunk, years later, I'd be there, directing and producing a hit TV show?
Man wants to be reconciled to God; wants to know that the past is forgiven.
Not until somebody turns round and says, 'Art, how do you fancy playing Charles Dickens? How do you fancy playing Prince Charles in this biopic?' Until those movements come, then no, we haven't got past anything.
Look to the past and remember no empire rises that sooner or later won't fall.
When you're placed in a world where survival is the main focus, a lot of that other stuff, like wrongdoings in the past, become obsolete. You have to focus on the here and now.
Living the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles, causing you to bump into people not going your way.
I have two main reasons for retiring. The first is I can no longer play at a level I was accustomed to in the past. That has been very, very frustrating to me throughout this past year. The second one is realizing my health, along with my family, is the most important thing in the world.
In the past it seemed like I was making fun of rap a little bit. But it was more me making fun of myself, since I'm not technically a rapper, whatever that means.
Because they're my stories, they're my version of events of the past three years. But I really hope people can hear their own stories within the songs and they can become our version of events.
I made a big mistake with him the first day I shot. We're shooting the scene where I come back from the party, the dance, in the sleigh with Julie Christie and we turn the corner and go past the camera and the camera follows us just a little bit and we disappear.
Over the past decade, prescribing information has grown more and more complex, more and more dense and more difficult to negotiate.
I don't really drink very much, although I have abused alcohol in the past.
I've been working so hard for the past eight years and I'm tired - but I'm also deliciously tired because what a wonderful life I've lived.
In period films, it always helps to have someone built to carry a sword, and Channing Tatum clearly hasn't missed a workout for the past two years, so he fits the bill in that regard.
I will not speak with disrespect of the Republican Party. I always speak with respect of the past.
Today, public understanding of our past and our system of government is pitifully low.
What has too often happened in the past is that people have threatened punishment but have failed to carry it out. It's imperative in any initiative that is undertaken that punishment be real and that there be truth in sentencing, and that the truly dangerous offenders - the recidivists and the career criminals - be put away and kept away.
People's attitudes have been changing over the past 15 years, but China is still the world's biggest consumer of dogs.
