Predecessors Quotes - Page 6

• To seek in the great accumulation of the already-said the text that resembles "in advance" a later text, to ransack history in order to rediscover the play of anticipations or echoes, to go right back to the first seeds or to go forward to the last traces, to reveal in a work its fidelity to tradition or its irreducible uniqueness, to raise or lower its stock of originality, to say that the Port -Royal grammarians invented nothing, or to discover that Cuvier had more predecessors than one thought, these are harmless enough amusements for historians who refuse to grow up.

  Michel Foucault

  Growing Up, Knowledge, Science

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• People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Mean, Talking, People

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.160, Ravenio Books

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• I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men... in receiving from the people the sacred trust confided to my illustrious predecessor.

  Martin Van Buren

  Patriotic, Men, People

  Martin Van Buren's Inaugural Address, March 4, 1837.

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• It is true that my predecessor did not object, as I do, to pictures of one's golf skill in action. But neither, on the other hand, did he ever bean a Secret Serviceman.

  John F. Kennedy

  Golf, Hands, Skills

  Address to the American Newspaper Publishers, delivered 27 April 1961, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York

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• In 2003, Congress should have resisted the rush to a war of choice with Iraq. I will do everything in my power to prevent us from repeating the mistakes of my predecessors.

  John Garamendi

  War, Mistake, Military

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• Towering genius disdains a beaten path ... It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts for distinction.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Genius, Path, Distinction

  Abraham Lincoln (2008). “Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln(1832-1865) (EasyRead Super Large 20pt Edition)”, p.14, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Remember that accumulated knowledge, like accumulated capital, increases at compound interest: but it differs from the accumulation of capital in this; that the increase of knowledge produces a more rapid rate of progress, whilst the accumulation of capital leads to a lower rate of interest. Capital thus checks it own accumulation: knowledge thus accelerates its own advance. Each generation, therefore, to deserve comparison with its predecessor, is bound to add much more largely to the common stock than that which it immediately succeeds.

  Charles Babbage

  Knowledge, Science, Progress

  "The Exposition of 1851; or, Views of the industry, the science, and the government of England".

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• In science the successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors; where one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply it. ... In art nothing worth doing can be done without genius; in science even a very moderate capacity can contribute to a supreme achievement.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Science, Men

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.41, Booklassic

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• Only by following out the injunction of our great predecessor [William Harvey] to search out and study the secrets of Nature by way of experiment, can we hope to attain to a comprehension of 'the wisdom of the body and the understanding of the heart,' and thereby to the mastery of disease and pain, which will enable us to relieve the burden of mankind.

  Ernest Starling

  Nature, Pain, Heart

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• Many of our brothers and sisters are 'baptized, but insufficiently evangelized.' In a number of cases, nations once rich in faith and in vocations are losing their identity under the influence of a secularized culture. The need for a new evangelization, so deeply felt by my venerable Predecessor, must be valiantly reaffirmed, in the certainty that God's word is effective.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Brother, Numbers, Identity

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• As long as you're in an environment where the worth of the project isn't based on the project but what its predecessors did, it's not truly inclusive.

  Ava DuVernay

  Long, Environment, Projects

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The instruments, glassware, and chemical reagents necessary for my project were the same as my 19th-century predecessors had.

  Rita Levi-Montalcini

  Chemicals, Century, Projects

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• The prosperity which now prevails is without parallel in our history. Fruitful seasons have done much to secure it, but they have not done all. The preservation of the public credit and the resumption of specie payments, so successfully attained by the Administration of my predecessors, have enabled our people to secure the blessings which the seasons brought.

  James A. Garfield

  Money, Blessing, People

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• The average GOP presidential vote in these last five elections was 44.5 percent. In the last three, it was 48.1 percent. Give Romney an extra point for voter disillusionment with Obama, and a half-point for being better financed than his predecessors. It still strikes me as a path to narrow defeat.

  William Kristol

  Average, Giving, Presidential

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• Don Baylor, New York Yankees DH, on Billy Martin and his predecessor Yogi Berra: Playing for Yogi is like playing for your father; playing for Billy is like playing for your father-in-law.

  Don Baylor

  Baseball, New York, Father

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• Many in Taiwan believe that Hu Jintao is much more sophisticated than his predecessors in understanding Taiwan. He represents a different generation of leaders, more pragmatic, less ideological.

  Ma Ying-jeou

  Believe, Leader, Understanding

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• The new painters do not propose, any more than did their predecessors, to be geometers. But it may be said that geometry is to the plastic arts what grammar is to the art of the writer. Today, scholars no longer limit themselves to the three dimensions of Euclid. The painters have been lead quite naturally, one might say by intuition, to preoccupy themselves with the new possibilities of spatial measurement which, in the language of the modern studios, are designated by the term fourth dimension.

  Guillaume Apollinaire

  Art, Intuition, Today

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• Facts are facts: No president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Great Depression inherited a worse economy, bigger job losses or deeper problems from his predecessor. But President Obama is moving America forward, not back.

  Martin O'Malley

  Jobs, Moving, Loss

  "DNC 2012: Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s Speech". www.washingtonpost.com. September 04, 2012.

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• Each novel is harder than its predecessor because I must work harder at not repeating myself. However, I enjoy the challenge. This is the greatest job in the world.

  Jonathan Kellerman

  Jobs, Hard Work, Challenges

  Interview with Carol Fitzgerald, Joe Hartlaub and Wiley Saichek, www.bookreporter.com. November 21, 2003.

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• You don't like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But don't break it. Don't break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building. That's not being faithful to what this country's about.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Winning, Two

  "Obama wants new approach after shutdown" by Tom Cohen, www.cnn.com. October 18, 2013.

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• It was something new that was happening everywhere. You couldn't miss it. If you needed to go to the grocery you would go to the predecessors of the big supermarkets of today.

  William Eggleston

  Missing, Today, Something New

  Interview with Harmony Korine, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 21, 2008.

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• Politically or ideologically oriented evaluations of Chief Justice Rehnquist should not overlook what a successful and popular chief justice he was within the Court as the justices' presiding officer, .. The contrast between Rehnquist's undeniably happy Court and that of his predecessor, Warren E. Burger, could not have been greater.

  David Garrow

  Successful, Justice, Evaluation

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• It's rare that the sequel to a good movie lives up to expectations. Such is the case with Die Hard 2, the somewhat-muddled but still entertaining return of Bruce Willis' John McClane. Fortunately, the original Die Hard was good enough that there's room for the second installment to be enjoyable while still not matching the pace or possessing the flair of its predecessor.

  James Berardinelli

  Expectations, Good Movie, Return

  "Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)". A movie review at www.reelviews.net,

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• Every generation is a secret society and has incommunicable enthusiasms, tastes, and interests which are a mystery both to its predecessors and to posterity.

  John Jay Chapman

  Secret, Generations, Enthusiasm

  John Jay Chapman (1970). “The Collected Works of John Jay Chapman: Criticism & memoirs”

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• The imitator treads a beaten walk, and with all his diligence can only find a few flowers or branches untouched by his predecessor, the refuse of contempt, or the omissions of negligence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Flower, Omission, Branches

  Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.182

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