Retrospect quotes:

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Righteousness is easy in retrospect. -- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Travel is glamorous only in retrospect. -- Paul Theroux
Revolutions are something you see only in retrospect. -- Alan Greenspan
It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect. -- Robert Louis Stevenson
No endeavor that is worthwhile is simple in prospect; if it is right, it will be simple in retrospect. -- Edward Teller
I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn. -- Robert Frost
When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things - not the great occasions - that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness. -- Bob Hope
Obviously, I try to make the films work for an audience. That's the main point of making a film, and in retrospect, one can see that certain films, let's say Leaving Las Vegas, demonstrated its own success. -- Mike Figgis
The last of Summer is Delight - Deterred by Retrospect. 'Tis Ecstasy's revealed Review - Enchantment's Syndicate. To meet it - nameless as it is - Without celestial Mail - Audacious as without a Knock To walk within the Veil. -- Emily Dickinson
Evil is obvious only in retrospect. -- Gloria Steinem
Travel is only glamorous in retrospect. -- Paul Theroux
Everything looks more beautiful in retrospect. -- Michelle Monaghan
I really tend to write in retrospect. -- Randy Houser
That's the past. I don't agree with retrospect. -- Steve Carlton
Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences. -- J. K. Rowling
One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful. -- Sigmund Freud
In retrospect, all these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called, licking the earth. -- Malcolm Muggeridge
In retrospect, each of the steps toward this abyss seemed irrevocable, and yet they had all been so small! -- James Blish
Everything is funnier in retrospect, funnier and prettier and cooler. You can laugh at anything from far enough away. -- Chuck Palahniuk
Christian history looks glorious in retrospect; but it is made up of constant hard choices and unattractive tasks, accepted under the pressure of the Will of God. -- Evelyn Underhill
So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person's genius is confined to a very few hours. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I might say that in retrospect, looking at where the community college system is today, I think we may have gone too far. The community college system is so big, so broad, so consuming of tax money. -- Daniel J. Evans
Our ideas are the offspring of our senses; we are not more able to create the form of a being we have not seen, without retrospect to one we know, than we are able to create a new sense. He whose fancy has conceived an idea of the most beautiful form must have composed it from actual existence. -- Henry Fuseli
The prosecution of [Warren] Hastings, though he should escape at last, must have good effect. It will alarm the servants of the Company in India, that they may not always plunder with impunity, but that there may be a retrospect; and it will show them that even bribes of diamonds to the Crown may not secure them from prosecution. -- Horace Walpole
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody understands at the time--and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened. -- Hunter S. Thompson
The mark of a good action is that it appears inevitable in retrospect. -- Robert Louis Stevenson
In retrospect I realize that the threat was about ego rather than the validity of the music. -- David Baker
Sure, I've been a victim, but in retrospect, most of it has been of my own making. I allowed it to happen. -- Wayne Newton
The Eagles ended on a rather abrupt note, although in retrospect I realize now that it had been ending for quite some time. -- Don Henley
Vietnam was a palpable failure. And of course, in retrospect, it was even more clearly a disaster and a failure than maybe people understood at the time. -- Robert Dallek
It may be that the most striking thing about members of my literary generation in retrospect will be that we were allowed to say absolutely anything without fear of punishment. -- Kurt Vonnegut
There are plenty of dead scientists I admire, but I can't think of any living ones. This is probably because it is only in retrospect that one can see who made the important contributions. -- Stephen Hawking
My main objective with every album is to capture a moment in time, which usually makes the whole process very relaxing. I only discover in retrospect when looking back at the songs how my life is going! -- Alanis Morissette
In retrospect, the Millennium marked only a moment in time. It was the events of September 11 that marked a turning point in history, where we confront the dangers of the future and assess the choices facing humankind. -- Tony Blair
Even with all the advantages of retrospect, and a lot of witnesses dead and gone, you can't make your life look as if you intended it or you were consistent. All you can show is how you dealt with various hands. -- Christopher Hitchens
I have never heard anyone say This is it. I know right now is the high point of my life. It will never get any better. Only in retrospect do we recognize the best times and of course then it is too late. -- Jonathan Carroll
I enjoyed mathematics from a very young age. At the beginning of college, I had this illusion, which was kind of silly in retrospect, that if I just understood math and physics and philosophy, I could figure out everything else from first principles. -- Erez Lieberman Aiden
The doctors realized in retrospect that even though most of these dead had also suffered from burns and blast effects, they had absorbed enough radiation to kill them. The rays simply destroyed body cells - caused their nuclei to degenerate and broke their walls. -- John Hersey
My first job was in a nursing home - a terrible place in retrospect. It was in an old house, and the residents were so lonely. People rarely visited them. I only stayed there a couple of months, but it made a strong impression on me. -- Kim Edwards
My mother would never let me in the kitchen. I always wanted to cook, but I was never allowed to. Her view of the world was, 'Cooking is my job, and studying is your job.' I think, in retrospect, she didn't like the chaos. She was very orderly. It had to be her way. -- Ina Garten
If any country was a mine-shaft canary for the reintroduction of cholera, it was Haiti - and we knew it. And in retrospect, more should have been done to prepare for cholera... which can spread like wildfire in Haiti... This was a big rebuke to all of us working in public health and health care in Haiti. -- Paul Farmer
I always had a sense that I would fall in love with Tokyo. In retrospect I guess it's not that surprising. I was of the generation that had grown up in the '80s when Japan was ascendant (born aloft by a bubble whose burst crippled its economy for decades), and I'd fed on a steady diet of anime and samurai films. -- Junot Diaz
Technically, my first acting job was in one of my videos for a song called 'Retrospect For Life,' which Lauryn Hill directed and featured an actress by the name of N'bushe Wright, who played my girlfriend who was about to be pregnant. I remember being so nervous about it, but now I feel like I can conquer the world with it. -- Common
Experience is retrospect knowledge. -- Hosea Ballou
Perspective will come in retrospect. -- Melody Beattie
Self-righteousness in retrospect is easy--also cheap, -- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
People always understand everything in retrospect. -- Agnes Denes
Often a retrospect delights the mind. -- Dante Alighieri
Often continuity is visible only in retrospect. -- Mary Catherine Bateson
And there's always retrospect to light a clearer path. -- Emily Saliers
There are many things we only see clearly in retrospect. -- Haruki Murakami
In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all revolutions seem impossible. -- Michael McFaul
Of no day can the retrospect cause pain to a good man. -- Martial
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. -- Anais Nin
I am not good at noticing when I'm happy, except in retrospect. -- Tana French
Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance. -- Kate Atkinson
I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect. -- Sophocles
Even a saint may take pleasure, in retrospect, in having been once desired -- Ellis Peters
History is just the present in retrospect. Times change but people do not. -- Jeanne C. Stein
Innovations seem inevitable in retrospect, but at the time it's an uphill battle. -- Jessica Livingston
A bottle of good wine, like a good act, shines ever in the retrospect. -- Robert Louis Stevenson
Adolescence is a kind of emotional seasickness. Both are funny, but only in retrospect. -- Arthur Koestler
It's always hard for an author to determine his own intentions, especially in retrospect. -- Paul Kingsnorth
Destiny is not something that happens all at once-it's something that happens only in retrospect. -- John Green
It is only in retrospect that the high points of our lives rise up, flaunting banners. -- Caroline Pratt
In retrospect, of course I regret calling them (Charlton fans) morons. Imbeciles would have been more appropriate. -- Simon Jordan
People steal into one's consciousness and occupy what seems, in retrospect, to have been their place all along. -- Paula Fox
I think in retrospect that all those 'alternative'modes of living were little more than exercises in arrested development. -- Will Self
Some of the sweetest hours in life, in retrospect will be found to have been spent with books. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
In retrospect, everything is finite, but prospectively, there are infinite possibilities. I guess that's what makes life hopeful. -- Demetri Martin
...stupidity is one of the two things we see most clearly in retrospect. The other is missed chances. -- Stephen King
Life is not only meant to be appreciated in retrospect ... There is something each day to embrace and cherish. -- Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Do we always grind through the present, doomed to throw a gold haze of fond retrospect over the past? -- Sylvia Plath
In retrospect, our triumphs could as easily have happened to someone else; but our defeats are uniquely our own. -- Mignon McLaughlin
Everything, in retrospect, is obvious. But if everything were obvious, authors of histories of financial folly would be rich . . . -- Michael Lewis
The thing is I never want to be an observer, it's only in retrospect that I wish I had observed. -- Mary Tyler Moore
In retrospect there were failures enough to go around. There were failures before the storm and failures after the storm. -- Jeff Sessions
I'm not saying that McDonald's gift certificates caused the obesity epidemic, but in retrospect, the timing is kind of suspicious. -- Jim Gaffigan
And then adds with a laugh, 'but in retrospect I think he may have been more sophisticated than we were.' -- Dave Van Ronk
A lively retrospect summons back to us once more our youth, with vivid reflex of its early joys and unstained pleasures. -- Alfred de Musset
You can't explain success in retrospect. The moment you leap into the void, that moment is impossible to negate, after success. -- Guillermo del Toro
That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can't control life, at least you can control your version. -- Chuck Palahniuk
How ungenerously in later life we disclaim the virtuous moods of our youth, living in retrospect long, summer days of unreflecting dissipation. -- Evelyn Waugh
In retrospect I would say from Donald Duck I have learned more about life than from all the schools I ever attended. -- Gottfried Helnwein
In retrospect, the most unnerving aspect of being openly gay was that it turned out to be as disappointingly normal as being straight. -- Lance Loud
Humor is a kind of emotional chaos told about calmly and quietly in retrospect.There is always a laugh in the utterly familiar. -- Max Eastman
I am grateful for all those dark years, even though in retrospect they seem like a long, bitter prayer that was answered finally. -- Marilynne Robinson
In retrospect, it seems like everything in my life led to me becoming a writer. I just didn't realise it at the time. -- Kate Morton
The past in retrospect holds manifold disenchantments, failures and even tragedies; and yet the worse may be forgotten and the best held fast. -- William Robertson Nicoll
Pasadena' erred on the side being too dark. That was probably the one thing about it, in retrospect, why it didn't get picked up. -- Mark Valley
When I first heard about Y Combinator, it was one of those ideas that just seemed forehead-slappingly obvious. Good ideas often do, in retrospect. -- Mark Fletcher
One often sees a call only in retrospect. This too is God's design. God often reinforces our faith after we trust him, not before. -- Ravi Zacharias
In retrospect Hank I don't know why I spent four years writing this book when I could have just made a hit sing-a-ma-jig album. -- John Green
I can see that in retrospect but I guess I've always had such an identity crisis when it comes to other people's understanding of me. -- Jamie Lidell
Each person's life is dominated by a central event, which shapes and distorts everything that comes after it and, in retrospect, everything that came before. -- Suketu Mehta
The current financial crisis in the US is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of the Second World War. -- Alan Greenspan
Those of us who have come to years of discretion and more, must often take to retrospect, and seek to appraise the outcome of our lives. -- Learned Hand
Eventually we will find (mostly in retrospect, of course) that we can be very grateful to those people who have made life most difficult for us. -- Ayya Khema
Honestly, in retrospect, I would wish for future generations to have the ability to have a coming out process that was less alcohol-soaked than mine was. -- Christopher Rice
There is always a reason. When I look back on things that really upset me at the moment, I can always see why it happened in retrospect. -- Melissa Rauch
Childhood is only the beautiful and happy time in contemplation and retrospect: to the child it is full of deep sorrows, the meaning of which is unknown. -- George Eliot
I knew I was going to be composing. It all makes sense in retrospect. But you don't know while you're in the process of improvising your life. -- William Bolcom
Frustration and I have become good friends. And like any friend who's a bad influence, frustration sometimes makes me do things that are, in retrospect, stupid. - Sirensong -- Jenna Black
Generational change within a genre is hard to parse while it's happening. Only in retrospect can the passing of the baton from ancestors to progeny be clearly discerned. -- Paul Di Filippo
A lot of things in history are timing, and it's very peculiar because in retrospect things [and] people can look more brilliant or necessary than they actually were. -- Robert Greene
The importance of selecting music and sequencing songs - making one song merge into another song. In retrospect, those are the most important lessons I got from DJs. -- Hans-Peter LindstrÃ¸m
The flame of urgent coupling burned hottest against the woman, no matter how romantic and high and heartsick the anguish of the man might be pitched in retrospect. -- Charles Frazier
In retrospect, I think it's a plus, because now we've been able to go back and spend extra time on each of those episodes and make them better. -- David E. Kelley
It is a characteristic of old age to find the progress of time accelerated. The less one accomplishes in a given time, the shorter does the retrospect appear. -- Wilhelm von Humboldt
In retrospect, I enjoyed the time planning the program before I start. Like I say, there is more fun in the program preparation than in the program itself. -- Jinvirle
The Clinton administration cared a lot about the middle class and the poor. But it also cared a lot - too much, in retrospect - about the rich. -- Timothy Noah
Having an adventure shows that someone is incompetent, that something has gone wrong. An adventure is interesting enough - in retrospect. Especially to the person who didn't have it. -- Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Are there really good wars and bad wars? We thought so during World War II, and in retrospect, we were right. But in Vietnam, and Iraq we were wrong. -- Madeleine M. Kunin
In retrospect, perhaps the biggest reason my mother was cared for but not helped for twenty years was the simplest: Her functioning was not that necessary to the world. -- Gloria Steinem
When I started writing fiction it always seemed in retrospect (I didn't realise at the time) that it was always caused by environments rather than by incidents and characters. -- Jonathan Meades
I try not to go back in retrospect and say oh, I shouldn't have done this or shouldn't have done that. You make your decisions and you live by them. -- Tim Burton
The clothes chosen for me as a child had a strong element of the Pre-Raphaelite, muted greens and ivories, dusty rose, what seems in retrospect an eccentric amount of black. -- Joan Didion
I've had a number of near misses during my travels that in retrospect seem of greater concern than they did at the time. I guess that is what happens with age. -- John Prendergast
I have written in my life many critical poems, but viewed in retrospect, they were merely a human harmless reflection, and not a true likeness of the real society of today. -- Kristian Goldmund Aumann
In retrospect, I can see I couldn't talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense! -- David Byrne

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