Long Ago Quotes

• Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

  Warren Buffett

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett". Book by Andrew Kilpatrick, 1994.

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• Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that "Price is what you pay; value is what you get." Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.

  Warren Buffett

  Investing, Buffets, Taught

  Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman's Letter, 2008.

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• I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.

  Jane Austen

  Love, Romantic, Looks

  Jane Austen (2007). “The Complete Novels of Jane Austen”, p.467, Wordsworth Editions

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• The highest result of education is tolerance. Long ago men fought and died for their faith; but it took ages to teach them the other kind of courage, - the courage to recognize the faiths of their brethren and their rights of conscience.

  Helen Keller

  Education, Life Lesson, Acceptance

  Helen Keller (2012). “The World I Live In and Optimism: A Collection of Essays”, p.99, Courier Corporation

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• Lessons taught but never learned, all around us anger burns. Guide the future by the past. Long ago the mould was cast.

  Neil Peart

  Future, Past, Lessons

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• Inventions reached their limit long ago, and I see no hope for further development.

  Frontinus

  Follow Your Dreams, Development, Limits

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• It's a little silly to finally learn how to write at this age. But I long ago realized I was secretly sincere.

  Annie Dillard

  Silly, Writing, Age

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• Aside from battles, the history of nations seemed to consist of nothing but powerless old poops like myself, heavily medicated and vaguely beloved in the long ago, coming to kiss the boots of young psychopaths.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Kissing, Battle, Poop

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• I learned long ago to accept the fact that not everything I create will see the light of day.

  Joseph Barbera

  Light, Facts, Accepting

  Joseph Barbera (1994). “My Life in 'Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century”, Turner Pub

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• You think you're safe. Until you see a picture like that. And then you know you'll always be a slave to the present because the present is more powerful than the past, no matter how long ago the present happened.

  Ann-Marie MacDonald

  Powerful, Past, Thinking

  Ann-Marie MacDonald (2011). “Fall On Your Knees”, p.246, Simon and Schuster

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• I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing-to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics-Well, they can do whatever they wish.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Mind, Wish

  "Nemesis". Book by Isaac Asimov. Introduction, 1989.

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• It is the law of love that rules mankind. Had violence, i.e. hate, rules us we would have become extinct long ago. And yet, the tragedy of it is that the so-called civilised men and nations conduct themselves as if the basis of society was violence.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Love, Hate, Men

  Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Merton (2007). “Gandhi on Non-Violence”, p.59, New Directions Publishing

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• I have neither the learning nor the experience to know whether the doomsayers are right about the human causes of climate change. But I am willing to acknowledge that people who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that it is the consequence of our own behaviour. I assume that this is why the BBC's coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago.

  Jeremy Paxman

  Issues, People, Causes

  "Paxman accuses BBC of hypocrisy over environment" by Jason Deans, www.theguardian.com. January 31, 2007.

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• Man, some modern philosophers tell us, is alienated from his world: he is a stranger and afraid in a world he never made. Perhaps he is; yet so are animals, and even plants. They too were born, long ago, into a physico-chemical world, a world they never made.

  Karl Popper

  Men, Animal, World

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• I came across a photograph of him not long ago... his black face, the long snout sniffing at something in the air, his tail straight and pointing, his eyes flashing in some momentary excitement. Looking at a faded photograph taken more than forty years before, even as a grown man, I would admit I still missed him.

  Willie Morris

  Dog, Taken, Eye

  Willie Morris (2008). “My Dog Skip”, p.3, Vintage

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• Jessica walked away from Aaron and Ken, flashing them both a big smile. They were both very attractive - she had dated each of them a number of times. In fact, not too long ago she had contemplated falling in love with Ken for lack of anything better to do.

  Francine Pascal

  Falling In Love, Numbers, Bored

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• One writes such a story [The Lord of the Rings] not out of the leaves of trees still to be observed, nor by means of botany and soil-science; but it grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mold of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps. No doubt there is much personal selection, as with a gardener: what one throws on one's personal compost-heap; and my mold is evidently made largely of linguistic matter.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Writing, Mean, Dark

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• It was not so very long ago that people thought that semiconductors were part-time orchestra leaders and microchips were very small snack foods.

  Geraldine Ferraro

  Funny Inspirational, Memorable, Snacks

  Geraldine Ferraro, Linda Bird Francke (1985). “Ferraro: My Story”, p.191, Northwestern University Press

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• There is not a soul on Earth who can read the deluge of physics publications in its entirety. As a result, it is sad but true that physics has irretrievably fallen apart from a cohesive to a fragmented discipline. ... It was not that long ago that people were complaining about two cultures. If we only had it that good. today.

  Abraham Pais

  Science, Two, Discipline

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• I wanted no part of politics. And I wasn't in Berlin to compete against any one athlete. The purpose of the Olympics, anyway, was to do your best. As I'd learned long ago from Charles Riley, the only victory that counts is the one over yourself.

  Jesse Owens

  Running, Athlete, Over You

  Jesse Owens, Paul G. Neimark (1978). “Jesse, a spiritual autobiography”

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• You have been mine before - How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar, your neck turned so, Some veil did fall, - I knew it all of yore.

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  Soulmate, Fall, Veils

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Clive Wilmer (2014). “Selected Poems”, p.91, Routledge

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• We may, perhaps, imagine that the creation was finished long ago. But that would be quite wrong. It continues still more magnificently, and at the highest levels of the world.

  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

  Science, Would Be, World

  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (2015). “The Divine Milieu”, p.20, Lulu Press, Inc

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• When grown people speak of the innocence of children, they dont really know what they mean. Pressed, they will go a step further and say, Well, ignorance then. The child is neither. There is no crime which a boy of eleven had not envisaged long ago. His only innocence is, he may not be old enough to desire the fruits of it...his ignorance is, he does not know how to commit it...

  William Faulkner

  Children, Ignorance, Mean

  "The Reivers". Book by William Faulkner, 1962.

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• As agonizing a disease as cancer is, I do not think it can be said that our civilization is threatened by it. ... But a very plausible case can be made that our civilization is fundamentally threatened by the lack of adequate fertility control. Exponential increases of population will dominate any arithmetic increases, even those brought about by heroic technological initiatives, in the availability of food and resources, as Malthus long ago realized.

  Carl Sagan

  Cancer, Science, Thinking

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• Somewhere there was once a Flower, a Stone, a Crystal, a Queen, a King, a Palace, a Lover and his Beloved, and this was long ago, on an Island somewhere in the ocean 5,000 years ago. . . . Such is Love, the Mystic Flower of the Soul. This is the Center, the Self.

  Carl Jung

  Love, Queens, Kings

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