Nostalgia Quotes

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  Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

  Albert Camus

  Essence, Innocence, Rebellion

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.105, Vintage

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• History is the art of making an argument about the past by telling a story accountable to evidence. In the writing of history, a story without an argument fades into antiquarianism; an argument without a story risks pedantry. Writing history requires empathy, inquiry, and debate. It requires forswearing condescension, cant, and nostalgia. The past isn’t quaint. Much of it, in fact, is bleak.

  Jill Lepore

  Art, Writing, Past

  Jill Lepore (2012). “The Story of America: Essays on Origins”, p.15, Princeton University Press

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  A photograph can be an instant of life captured for eternity that will never cease looking back at you.

  Brigitte Bardot

  Photography, Brother, Photographer

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  We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.

  Carson McCullers

  Travel, Jukebox, Road Trip

  Carson McCullers (2017). “Carson McCullers: Stories, Plays & Other Writings”, p.408, Library of America

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  Nostalgia, the vice of the aged. We watch so many old movies our memories come in monochrome.

  Angela Carter

  Memories, Vices, Watches

  Angela Carter (2012). “Wise Children”, p.10, Random House

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  We are homesick most for the places we have never known.

  Carson McCullers

  Jukebox, Homesick, Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

  Carson McCullers (2017). “Carson McCullers: Stories, Plays & Other Writings”, p.408, Library of America

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• Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.

  Doug Larson

  Time, Rough Edges, Homecoming

  18 Copy quote

• When you finally go back to your old home, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood.

  Sam Ewing

  Home, Childhood, Fatherhood

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• Remembrance of things past.

  William Shakespeare

  Past, Remembrance, Things Past

  Sonnet 30

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• Nostalgia is a form of depression both for a society and an individual.

  Abbie Hoffman

  Individual, Form

  Abbie Hoffman (1982). “Square Dancing in the Ice Age”, p.21, South End Press

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• Few tears will be shed over the demise of the East German army, but what about East Germany’s eighty symphony orchestras, bound to lose some subsidies? Or the whole East German system, which covered everyone in a security blanket from day care to health care, from housing to education? Some people are beginning to express, if ever so slightly, nostalgia for that Berlin Wall.

  Bob Simon

  Wall, Army, Day Care

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• The out-of-date returns in due course as the picturesque.

  Agatha Christie

  Return, Courses, Dues

  Agatha Christie (1982). “At Bertram's Hotel”, Pocket

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• We seem to be going through a period of nostalgia, and everyone seems to think yesterday was better than today. I don't think it was, and I would advise you not to wait ten years before admitting today was great. If you're hung up on nostalgia, pretend today is yesterday and just go out and have one hell of a time.

  Art Buchwald

  Past, Thinking, Years

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• Nostalgia! I feel it even for someone who meant nothing to me, out of anxiety for the flight of time and a sickness bred of the mystery of life. If one of the faces I pass daily on the streets disappears, I feel sad; yet they meant nothing to me, other than being a symbol of all life.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Life, Time, Sadness

  Fernando Pessoa (2010). “The Book of Disquiet”, p.6, Profile Books

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• How is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world I never knew?

  Che Guevara

  World, Feels

  "The Motorcycle Diaries", www.imdb.com. 2004.

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• Philosophy is really nostalgia, the desire to be at home.

  Novalis

  Philosophy, Home, Desire

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• The 'good old times' - all times when old are good.

  Lord Byron

  Literature, Old Time, All Time

  "The Age of Bronze" st. 1 (1823)

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• When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.

  William Butler Yeats

  Beautiful, Dream, Retirement

  The Countess Kathleen (1892) "When You Are Old"

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• Disneyland would be a world of Americans, past and present, seen through the eyes of my imagination--a place of warmth and nostalgia, of illusion and color and delight.

  Walt Disney

  Eye, Past, Color

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• Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.

  Brené Brown

  Life, Memories, Thinking

  Brené Brown (2013). “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead”, p.20, Penguin UK

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• Nostalgia is a way of remembering people and places and things, and wishing things hadn't changed. It has a sweetness to it. Sadness is just--well--being sad.

  Linda Lael Miller

  Sadness, People, Being Sad

  Linda Lael Miller (2011). “Creed's Honor”, p.199, HQN Books

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• Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.

  Albert Camus

  History, Encounters, Want

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.248, Vintage

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• A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Pain, Rain, Sadness

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1988). “Selected Poems”, p.302, Penguin

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• There is a lovely warmness about feelings of nostalgia as though in one's head one is putting on a pair of comfy old slippers and curling up in front of a fire.

  Bill Geist

  Fire, Feelings, Lovely

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• Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.

  Marcel Proust

  Memories, Past, Remembrance

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