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We may not have chosen the time, but the time has chosen us.

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Source, in full

On the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (March 2010), quoted by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her closing remarks. See: Christopher Beam (March 21, 2010): It’s Been Real: Scenes from the Capitol in the final showdown over health care reform. In: Slate magazine. Archived from the original on November 14, 2024. See also: Julia Scatliff O'Grady (March 21, 2010): Time Has Chosen Us. In: ticktalking.wordpress.com. Archived from the original on September 10, 2014.

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More quotes by John Lewis

I believe in nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living.

I have been in some kind of fight – for freedom, equality, basic human rights – for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now.

Next time we march we may have to keep going when we get to Montgomery. We may have to on to Washington.

As many universities plan for online or hybrid learning this fall, this needlessly punitive proposal puts international students at risk of illness or deportation if they continue their education in the United States.

I know your pain, your rage, your sense of despair and hopelessness. Justice has, indeed, been denied for far too long. Rioting, looting, and burning is not the way. Organize. Demonstrate. Sit-in. Stand-up. Vote. Be constructive, not destructive.

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

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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?"

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You can never plan the future by the past.

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