"Remember the refrain: We always build on the past; the past always tries to stop us. Freedom is about stopping the past, but we have lost that ideal."

-- Lawrence Lessig

#Past Quotes #Trying Quotes #Stopping Quotes

“The great authors were great readers, and one way to understand them is to read the books they read.”
“The Holy Grail of universal coverage in the United States may remain out of reach unless, through rational collective action overriding some individual self-interest, we can reduce per capita costs.”

Source : "The Triple Aim: Care, Health, And Cost" by Donald Berwick, Thomas W. Nolan and John Whittington in "Health Affairs", Volume 27, No. 3 (pp. 759-769), May/June 2008.
“I'm just kind of taking a break now and enjoying the freedom of making my own choices. When you're on a television show for six years, they run your schedule.”
“If you stay away from parties, you're called a snob. If you go, you're an exhibitionist. If you don't talk, you're dumb. If you do talk, you're quarrelsome. Pardon me while I change my nail polish.”
“Authority and power are two different things: power is the force by means of which you can oblige others to obey you. Authority is the right to direct and command, to be listened to or obeyed by others. Authority requests power. Power without authority is tyranny.”

Source : Jacques Maritain (1951). “Man and the State”, p.126, CUA Press
“Look at it this way: There are many here among us for whom the life force is best represented by the livid twitching of one tortured nerve, or even a full-scale anxiety attack. I do not subscribe to this point of view 100 percent, but I understand it, have lived it. Thus the shriek, the caterwaul, the chainsaw gnarlgnashing, the yowl and the whizz that decapitates may be reheard by the adventurous or emotionally damaged as mellifluous bursts of unarguable affirmation.”
“I have never seen an adequate description anywhere of the amazement, the uncomprehending horror of the bulk of the American people which preceded the firing of that gun at Sumter. Politicians or far-sighted leaders on both sides knew what was coming. And it is they who have written histories of the war. But to the easy-going millions, busied with their farms or shops, the onrushing disaster was as inexplicable as an earthquake. Their protest arose from sea to sea like the clamor of a gigantic hive of frightened bees.”
“Strange world isn't it?”

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