"The past speaks to us in a thousand voices, warning and comforting, animating and stirring to action. What its great thinkers have thought and written on the deepest problems of life, shall we not hear and enjoy? The future calls upon us to prepare its way. Dare we fail to answer its solemn summons?"

"O, to bring back the great Homeric time, The simple manners and the deeds sublime: When the wise Wanderer, often foiled by Fate, Through the long furrow drave the ploughshare straight."

"Ils sont passés ces jours de fête."

"Oh le bon temps où étions si malheureux."

"Praise they that will times past, I joy to see My selfe now live: this age best pleaseth mee."

"O God! Put back Thy universe and give me yesterday."

"Some say that the age of chivalry is past, that the spirit of romance is dead. The age of chivalry is never past so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth."

"There’s a resistance to the idea that things can be learned from the past, but the past is a kind of closet full of human beings who have lots to say; the door should be opened once in a while."

"All the political, economic, administrative, and scientific issues of our times were unknown to the Prophet's companions. They did not sit on chairs in front of cameras, they had no media, no satellite TV. Does this prove that we are not allowed to use them? The fact that something did not exist in the past does not mean that it is forbidden."

"O there are Voices of the Past, Links of a broken chain, Wings that can bear me back to Times Which cannot come again; Yet God forbid that I should lose The echoes that remain!"

"What's past is prologue."

"The past Hours weak and gray With the spoil which their toil Raked together From the conquest but One could foil."

"One thing alone not even God can do, To make undone whatever hath been done."

"Oh seize the instant time; you never will With waters once passed by impel the mill."

"Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower."

"For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago."

"How can I tell that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?"

"This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past."

"One does not love the past in its living truth if he insists on preserving its hardened and mummified forms. The past is an appeal; it is an appeal toward the future which sometimes can save it only by destroying it. Even though this destruction may be a sacrifice, it would be a lie to deny it: since man wants there to be being, he can not renounce any form of being without regret. But a genuine ethics does not teach us either to sacrifice it or deny it: we must assume it."

"To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women in the future, a Nation must believe in three things. It must believe in the past. It must believe in the future. It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgment in creating their own future."

"th' approach of night The skies yet blushing with departing light, When falling dews with spangles deck'd. the glade, And the low sun had lengthen'd evry shade."

"Our lady of the twilight, She hath such gentle hands, So lovely are the gifts she brings From out the sunset-lands, So bountiful, so merciful, So sweet of soul is she. And over all the world she draws Her cloak of shanty."

"Night was drawing and closing her curtain up above the world, and down beneath it."

"Dim eclipse, disastrous twilight."

"The west is broken into bars Of orange, gold, and gray, Gone is the sun, come are the stars, And night infolds the day."

"From that high mount of God whence light and shade Spring both, the face of brightest heaven had changed To grateful twilight."

"Twilight's soft dews steal o'er the village-green, With magic tints to harmonize the scene Stilled is the hum that through the hamlet broke When round the nuns of their ancient oak The peasants flocked to hear the minstrel play, And games and carols closed the busy day."

"The gloaming comes, the day is spent, The sun goes out of sight, And painted is the Occident With purple sanguine bright."

"The lengthening shadows wait The first pale stars of twilight."

"The sun is set, and in his latest beams Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold, Slowly upon the amber air unrolled, The falling mantle of the Prophet seems."

"In the twilight of morning to climb to the top of the mountain, Thee to salute, kindly star, earliest herald of day, And to await, with impatience, the gaze of the ruler of heaven Youthful delight, oh, how oft lur'st thou me out in the night."

"How lovely are the portals of the night, When stars come out to watch the daylight die."

"Sweet shadows of twilight' how calm their repose, While the dewdrops fall soft in the breast of the rose! How blest to the toiler his hour of release When the vesper is heard with its whisper of peace!"

"The twilight is sad and cloudy, The wind blows wild and free, And like the wings of sear-birds Hash the white caps of the sea."

"Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by. And Night, the dark-blue hunter, followed fast."

"Twilight, ascending slowly from the east, Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day, Night followed, clad with stars."

"The weary sun hath made a golden set, And, by the bright track of his fiery car, Gives signal of a goodly day to-morrow."

"Now the soft hour Of walking comes, for him who lonely loves To seek the distant hills, and there converse With Nature, there to harmonize his heart, And in pathetic Song to breathe around The harmony to others."

"The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team Begins his golden progress in the east."

"But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill."

"Look, the gentle day Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey."

"Fair Venus shines Even in the eve of day, with sweetest beam Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood Of softened radiance from her dewy locks."

"Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table;"

"Beauteous Night lay dead Under the pall of twilight, and the love-star sickened and shrank."

"Alone, what did Bloom feel? The cold of interstellar space, thousands of degrees below freezing point or the absolute zero of Fahrenheit, Centigrade or Réaumur: the incipient intimations of proximate dawn."

"Parting day Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new colour as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, till 'tis gone and all is gray."

"The sunbeams dropped Their gold, and, passing in porch and niche, Softened to shadows, silvery, pale, and dun, As if the very Day paused and grew Eve."

"'Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down Over the waste of waters, like a veil, Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown Of one whose hate is mask'd but to assail."