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How shall the Shown pretend to ken aught of the Showman or the Show?
Why meanly bargain to believe, which only means thou ne'er canst know?
How may the passing Now contain the standing Now — Eternity? —
An endless is without a was, the be and never the to-be?

— Richard Francis Burton The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

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More quotes by Richard Francis Burton

Reason is Life's sole arbiter, the magic Laby'rinth's single clue:
Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne'er be true.

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Travellers like poets are mostly an angry race.

Of the gladest moments in human life, methinks is the departure upon a distant journey to unknown lands.

Conquer thyself, till thou hast done this, thou art but a slave; for it is almost as well to be subjected to another's appetite as to thine own.

Support a compatriot against a native, however the former may blunder or plunder.

Exploration of the Highlands of Brazil (1869)

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A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love (1973)

From now on, everything in life will appear blurry to me. What’s the point of wiping my glasses when my vision has already left me?"

Sanu Sharma

You can never plan the future by the past.

Edmund Burke A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.

Abraham Cowley Poems (1656)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Richard Francis Burton (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.