Not much longer shall we have time for reading lessons of the past. An inexorable present calls us to the defense of a great future.
Henry R. LuceRead
The world of the 20th century, if it is to come to life in any viability of health and vigor, must be to a significant degree an American century.
Interpretation
The 20th century's vitality relies heavily on American influence and culture.
Henry R. Luce suggests that for the 20th century to thrive and be meaningful, it must largely reflect American ideals, values, and contributions. This quote implies that the United States has a central role in shaping the future and vitality of global society during this era, highlighting the extent of its cultural, political, and economic impact.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of American contributions to global culture.
Not much longer shall we have time for reading lessons of the past. An inexorable present calls us to the defense of a great future.
I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world.
There are men who can write poetry, and there are men who can read balance sheets. The men who can read balance sheets cannot write.
Show me a man who claims he is objective and I'll show you a man with illusions.
Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.
In all their jollity in this world, the wicked are but as a book fairly bound, which when it is opened is full of nothing but tragedies. So when the book of their consciences shall be once opened, there is nothing to be read but lamentations and woes.
True conformity to the dictates of nature requires reverence for the past and solicitude for the future. 'Nature' is not simply the sensation of the passing moment; it is eternal, though we evanescent men experience only a fragment of it. We have no right to imperil the happiness of posterity by impudently tinkering with the heritage of humanity.
The failure of the Reformation to capture France had left for Frenchmen no half-way house between infallibility and infidelity; and while the intellect of Germany and England moved leisurely in the lines of religious evolution, the mind of France leaped from the hot faith which had massacred the Huguenots to the cold hostility with which La Mettrie, Helvetius, Holbach, and Diderot turned upon the religion of the fathers.
The first-beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye.
The unseen energy that was once in Shakespeare or Picasso or Galileo or any human form, is also available to all of us. That is because the spirit energy does not die, it simply changes form.
The books the Holy Spirit is writing are living, and every soul a volume in which the divine author makes a true revelation of his word, explaining it to every heart, unfolding it in every moment.
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