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New times demand new measures and new men;
The world advances, and in time outgrows
The laws which in our father's times were best;
And doubtless, after us, some purer scheme
Will be shaped out by wiser men than we,
Made wiser by the steady growth of truth.

— James Russell Lowell Poems (1844)

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More quotes by James Russell Lowell

Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart.

Poems (1844)

It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested.

Abraham Lincoln (1864)

Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.

Poems: Second Series (1848)

What a sense of security in an old book which Time has criticised for us!

My Study Windows (1871)

One day with life and heart
Is more than time enough to find a world.

Poems: Second Series (1848)

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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: James Russell Lowell (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.