Creation

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy. - Margaret Thatcher

It is easier to start from scratch than to change what is in place.

Try, Try Again

If at first you don't succeed, before you try again, stop to figure out what you did wrong. - Leo Rosten


If you continue to think what you thought you will continue to get what you got.

Right Now

We think very little of time present; we anticipate the future, as being too slow, and with a view to hasten it onward, we recall the past to say it as too swiftly gone. We are so thoughtless, that we thus wander through the hours which are not here, regardless only of the moment that is actually our own. - Blaise Pascal


Plan for the future; learn from the past; live today accordingly.

Laughable

If you're going to be able to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now. - Marie Osmond


Perspective.

Sounds Good

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area - crime, education, housing, race relations - the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them. - Thomas Sowell

..... Only education can make what used to sound good, sound bad.

Speaking Of Me

When I pass, speak freely of my shortcomings and my flaws. Learn from them, for I'll have no ego to injure. - Aaron McGruder


Speak of my virtues as well, but in either case don't make things up!

Mining The Past

Those who mine history for sins are not searching for truth but for opportunities to denigrate their own society, or for grievances that can be cashed in today, at the expense of people who were not even born when the sins of the past were committed. - Thomas Sowell

  Another example of those who push others down to make themselves appear elevated.

Cause and Effect

It is common error to infer that things which are consecutive in order of time have necessarily the relation of cause and effect. - Jacob Bigelow

Cause and effect are related by time but being related by time does not infer cause and effect.

Tell Me About Your Future

You can't base your life on the past or present. You have to tell me about your future. - Chuck Palahniuk 

Goals can change, history can't.

Learning by Candlelight

Another practice of tyrants is to multiply taxes, after the manner of Dionysius at Syracuse, who contrived that within five years his subjects should bring into the treasury their whole property. The tyrant is also fond of making war in order that his subjects may have something to do and be always in want of a leader. - Aristotle


Perhaps Jefferson and Madison read Aristotle instead of watching TV or playing video games.

Being Remembered

Some people make headlines while others make history. - Philip Elmer-DeWitt


Some people are thought of by short-term memory some by long-term memory.

Swindle or Solution

A proposal that requires you to ignore both the past and the future is a swindle, not a solution. - John Hayward


Or history and prediction based on faith rather than fact.


(Other posts on Honesty)

Lessons of History

All the lessons of history in four sentences: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. The bee fertilizes the flower it robs. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. - Charles A. Beard


Charley: The bee is not a thief - it is a trader.


(Other posts on History)

Absurd Atrocities

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire


And don't believe they wouldn't! History is full of examples.


(Other posts on History)

Learn From Experience

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. - Douglas Adams


Example: History, if taught at all, is not taught well.


(Other posts on History)

Remembered

If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing. - Benjamin Franklin 


Ben, you will never be forgotten - you did both. Thanks.


(Other posts on Achievement) 

The Nature of Coin

All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation. - John Adams 


This seems to hold true even over 200 years later - fantastic insight!


(Other posts on Money) 

The Eagle, Ben Franklin, and the Turkey

Franklin’s Letter to His Daughter (excerpt)

“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

“With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country . . .

“I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”

The Origin of Nations

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy. - Margaret Thatcher

And both have been molded and, at times, corrupted by crackpot philosophies.

Religous History

Of course, nobody would deny the importance of human beings for theological thinking, but the time span of history that theologians think about is a few thousand years of human culture rather than the fifteen billion years of the history of the universe. - John Polkinghorne

Many theologians just deny the universe existed prior to their history. When someone is trying to "prove" their point see if their hypothesis explains all of the facts.