No people can live in the past - not even in its own past. But if it no longer has a link with its history, it must of necessity perish. Persia, crowded with hardship and glory, ordeals and hopes. With the help of the Almighty, the lessons of the past constitute the best guide for the citizens of the future.
History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past, for the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that honourable office if she condescended to plead the cause of tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution.
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Presidents look back seeking both inspiration for the future and sanction for the moment
History is the best guide to the future.
The Bible is not an antiquated text. The scriptures are the text that will lead us into the future.
That's the best thing that classic can do, is it can return to us from our own past to give us lessons about the future, and it can give us a sense of both who we were and who we could become.
After all, the past is our only real guide to the future, and historical analogies are instruments for distilling and organizing the past and converting it to a map by which we can navigate.
If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future.
History is the depository of great actions, the witness of what is past, the example and instructor of the present, and monitor to the future.
From the experience of the past we derive instructive lessons for the future.
I found that whenever I encountered a situation, rather than just reacting to it, it was tremendously useful to think carefully about how I should react to it and other situations like it. Besides providing me with more thoughtful responses in each of these cases, approaching things this way provided me and others with guidance on how to deal with similar situations when they came up in the future.
You have reckoned that history ought to judge the past and to instruct the contemporary world as to the future. The present attempt does not yield to that high office. It will merely tell how it really was.
All we can do in this world is the thing that seems to us the best. We have no concern with the results, except as a guide for the future, and sometimes, years afterward, we see that what seemed like a bitter loss was, in reality, gain.
While knowledge may provide useful point of reference, it cannot become a force to guide the future.
Tell the world what scares you most. Save the world with some advice from the future.
The rest, called literature, is a dossier of human imbecility for the guidance of future professors.
The religion which is to guide and fulfill the present and coming ages, whatever else it be, must be intellectual. The scientific mind must have a faith which is science.
Our children long for realistic maps of the future that they can be proud of. Where are the cartographers of human purpose?
