Echoes

Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature.

Human nature being what it is, events which happened in the past will at some time or other and in much the same ways be repeated in the future.

History is largely a record of human behavior, and human behavior has not greatly changed.

That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before.

We face the future with our past and our present as guarantors of our promises; and we are content to stand or to fall by the record which we have made and are making.

History is indeed the witness of times, the light of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity; by what other voice, if not that of the orator, is immortality commended?

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.

Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past.

The present of things past is memory; the present of things present is sight; and the present of things future is expectation.

It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

There is nothing new under the sun.

He who remembers the evils he has undergone, and those that have threatened him, and the slight causes that have changed him from one state to another, prepares himself in that way for future changes and for recognizing his condition. The life of Caesar has no more to show us than our own; an emperor's or an ordinary man's, it is still a life subject to all human accidents.

From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.

Though business conditions may change, corporations and securities may change, and financial institutions and regulations may change, human nature remains the same. Thus the important and difficult part of sound investment, which hinges upon the investor's own temperament and attitude, is not much affected by the passing years.

I don't know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across there and I don't care. I don't know much about history, and I wouldn't give a nickel for all the history in the world. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.

I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.

You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: what is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.

You've got to have models in your head. And you've got to array your experience — both vicarious and direct — on this latticework of models.

I assert once again as a truth to which history as a whole bears witness that men may second their fortune, but cannot oppose it; that they may weave its warp, but cannot break it. Yet they should never give up, because there is always hope, though they know not the end and more towards it along roads which cross one another and as yet are unexplored; and since there is hope, they should not despair, no matter what fortune brings or in what travail they find themselves.

It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

We tell our young managers: 'Don't be afraid to make a mistake. But make sure you don't make the same mistake twice'.

Eaten bread is soon forgotten. Dangers which are warded off by effective precautions and foresight are never even remembered.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. 'Tis much better to do a little with certainty, & leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.