Quotes & Sayings About Past Achievements

Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. — Ethel Barrymore

Let us march past the flag of the past, saluting our achievements', pondering over our mistakes and thinking of the lessons for the way forward as we march forward to a great tomorrow — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Certainly, I've never wanted to live on past achievements. — Buzz Aldrin

It's always difficult for anyone trying to compete against their past achievements. — Michael Jackson

...Past joys and achievements give us the outlines of how to get to a state of happiness again. That memory is a treasure that can never be taken away. At least we know where we were, what we have lost, what we miss and what more to add to our experiences. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

A personal mission statement is based on Habit Two of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People called "Begin with the End in Mind." In one's life, the most effective way to begin with the end in mind is to develop a mission statement, one that focuses on what you want to be in terms of character and what you want to do in reference to contributions and achievements. It is based upon self-chosen values and principles. Victor Hugo once said, "There is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come." A mission statement is that idea. You may call it a credo or a philosophy; or you may call it a purpose statement. It's not important what it is called. What is important is that vision, purpose, and values are more powerful, more significant, and more influential than the baggage of the past or the accumulated noise of the present. — Stephen R. Covey

However much history may be invoked in support of these policies (affirmative action), no policy can apply to history but can only apply to the present or the future. The past may be many things, but it is clearly irrevocable. Its sins can no more be purged than its achievements can be expunged. Those who suffered in centuries past are as much beyond our help as those who sinned are beyond our retribution. — Thomas Sowell

We have either to progress or to degenerate. Our ancestors did great things in the past, but we have to grow into a fuller life and march beyond even their great achievements. — Swami Vivekananda

A look at the past reminds us of how great is the distance, and how short, over which we have come. The past makes us ask what we have done with us. It makes us ask whether our very achievements are not ironical counterpoint and contrast to our fundamental failures. — Robert Penn Warren

The achievements of past struggles and the aspirations of an entire nation are [being] undone and erased ... No Agent Orange or steel pellet bombs, no napalm, no toxic chemicals: a new phase of economic and social (rather than' physical) destruction has unfolded. The seemingly neutral and scientific tools of macro-economic policy constitute a non-violent instrument of recolonization and impoverishment. — Michel Chossudovsky

But Goethe tells us in his greatest poem that Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to the passing moment: "Stay, thou art so fair." And our liberty, too, is endangered if we pause for the passing moment, if we rest on our achievements, if we resist the pace of progress. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past are certain to miss the future. — John F. Kennedy

The chief difference [between totalitarian and free countries] is that only the totalitarians appear clearly to know how they want to achieve that result, while the free world has only its past achievements to show, being by its very nature unable to offer any detailed "plan" for further growth. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

The present is an age of talkers, and not doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and doat on past achievements. — William Hazlitt

I'm glad I'm still in motion. I don't think of my past achievements. The most important thing is what I'm going to do tomorrow. I'm happy I did what I did. Thanks be to God. — Manu Dibango

Knowledge can be heady stuff, but it easily leads to an excess of zeal!
to illusions of grandeur and a desire to impress others and achieve eminence ... Our search for knowledge should be ceaseless, which means that it is open-ended, never resting on laurels, degrees, or past achievements. — Hugh Nibley

Whole idea of progress - that presence is based on the past, that future generations are going to improve our achievements, and that man will be always moving forward - obviously negate the idea of some absolute measure. Everything became relative, just like in Hume's subjectivism. Man's current criterion was left for future generations to improve it. After a while, people realized that this is philosophy of continuous change, continuous moving. Then, a soul became upset. It felt there is no peace, there is no safety. — Seraphim Rose

Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. — Christian D. Larson

The mental game of business is understanding this Paradox: the better you think you are doing, the greater should be your cause for concern: the more self-satisfied you are with your accomplishments, your past achievements, your 'right moves', the less you should be. — Mark McCormack

One of my greatest failures:
I was trying to cut a piece of moment so that I could erase it.
One of my greatest achievements:
I have learnt to ignore my futureless past. — Munia Khan

Faith in the creative process, in the dynamics of emergence, in the values and purposes that transcend past achievements and past forms, is the precondition of all further growth. — Lewis Mumford

Your only competitors are your past achievements. — James Cameron

Therefore, we call on women to arise and stand firm, the era of relegating us to the background where we remain unnoticed and unimportant is over. The era of boasting of who our fathers, brothers and husbands are is past. Now, it is our time to succeed so our men will in turn be proud of us and boast of our achievements as well. — Jaachynma N.E. Agu

The Labour party on the whole has not been a very effective opposition since the election, partly because it spent months and months electing its new leader. I think the Labour party should, for one thing, stress much more that for most people in the past 13 years, the period was not one of collapse into chaos but actually one where the situation improved, and particularly in areas such as schools, hospitals and a variety of other cultural achievements - so the idea that somehow or other it all needs to be taken down and ground into the dust is not valid. I think we need to defend what most people think basically needs defending and that is the provision of some form of welfare from the cradle to the grave. — Eric Hobsbawm

'Normal science' means research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice. — Thomas Kuhn

Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. Make all your friends feel there is something special in them. Look at the sunny side of everything. Think only the best, be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give everyone a smile. Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others. Be too big for worry and too noble for anger. — Norman Vincent Peale

In our frenzied attempts to catch up with life, we run right past it. Once we have run past it, what we are in reality attempting to catch is ourselves. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Don't limit yourself by what you've achieved. All your past achievements are only stepping stones for the greatness to come. — LaShawnda Jones

In recent years, we've become enamored with our own past success. Lulled into complacency by the glitter of our own achievements. We've become accustomed to the title of Military Superpower, forgetting the qualities that got us there. We've become accustomed to our economic dominance in the world, forgetting that it wasn't reckless deals and get rich quick schemes that got us where we are, but hard work and smart ideas, quality products and wise investments. — Barack Obama

Promise yourself you will talk health, happiness, and prosperity as often as possible. Promise to think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best in yourself and others. Promise to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to greater achievements in the future. — John Wooden

Allow your past achievements to provide fuel for your current goals. — Josh Hinds

Why cry about missed opportunities when you have the ability to smile at opportunities lived? The past has created who you are NOW, where we learn and grow from the past, never resting upon previous achievements or allowing past failure to paralyze us in our current endeavor. All that was has created us to be the best we currently are for our greatest hour is about to arise! — Greg Plitt

Our students wanted to know everything: but only the newest theory seemed to them worth bothering with. Knowing nothing of the intellectual achievements of the past, they kept fresh and intact their enthusiasm for 'the latest thing'. Fashion dominated their interest: they valued ideas not for themselves but for the prestige that they could wring from them. — Claude Levi-Strauss

In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science'. The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. — George Orwell

To Muslims, I repeat that Islam is a great and noble religion but that all Muslims and Muslim majority societies did not in the past and do not now live up to this nobleness: critical reflection is required about faithfulness to our principles, our outlook on others, on cultures, freedom, the situation of women, and so on. Our contradictions and ambiguities are countless. To Westerners, I similarly repeat that the undeniable achievements of freedom and democracy should not make us forget murderous "civilizing missions," colonization, the destructive economic order, racism, discrimination, acquiescent relations with the worst dictatorships, and other failings. Our contradictions and ambiguities are countless. I am equally demanding and rigorous with both universes. — Tariq Ramadan

While the impostor draws his identity from past achievements and the adulation of others, the true self claims identity in its belovedness. We encounter God in the ordinariness of life: not in the search for spiritual highs and extraordinary, mystical experiences but in our simple presence in life. — Brennan Manning

Enthusiastic partisans of the idea of progress are in danger of failing to recognize ... the immense riches accumulated by the human race. By underrating the achievements of the past, they devalue all those which still remain to be accomplished. — Claude Levi-Strauss

Japan is a wonderful country, a strange mixture of ancient mystique and cyberpunk saturation. It's a monolith of society's achievements, yet maintains a foothold in the past, creating an amazing backdrop for tourings and natives alive. Japan captures the imagination like no other. You never feel quite so far from home as you do in Japan, yet there are no other people on the planet that make you feel as comfortable. — Corey Taylor

The great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past. Only the adventurous can understand the greatness of the past. — Alfred North Whitehead

This was London, in all its filth and glory. Nostalgic for the past, while yearning to cast off the chains of bygone ages and step forward into the bright utopia of the future. Proud of its achievements, yet despising its own flaws. A monster in both size and nature, that would consume the unwary and spit them out again, in forms unrecognizable and undreamt.
London, the monster city. — Marie Brennan

Every morning, you have a choice either to make your day relaxed or stressful.
To be thankful for what you have or to complain about what you don't have.
To count your achievements and celebrate them, or to dwell on the mistakes of your past and feel bad.
To take action to make things better, or
to continue on in mediocrity. — Maddy Malhotra

We will not let the price of peace be greater than the price of war, we will firmly safeguard the achievements of the past 13 years under former President Karzai. — Ashraf Ghani

Too often the result of affirmative action has been an artificial diversity that gives the appearance of parity between blacks and whites that has not yet been achieved in reality ... Preferences tend to attack one form of discrimination with another ... Affirmative action encourages a victim-focused identity, and sends the message that there is more power in our past suffering than in our present achievements. — Shelby Steele

Mind is nothing but dreams and dreams - dreams of the past, dreams of the future, dreams of how things should be, dreams of great ambitions, achievements. Dreams and desires, that is the stuff mind is made of. But it surrounds you like a China Wall. And because of it the fish remains unaware of the ocean. — Rajneesh