Retrospect Quotes

In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all revolutions seem impossible.

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.

No endeavor that is worthwhile is simple in prospect; if it is right, it will be simple in retrospect.

Everything that happens to us can be looked at as a gift. Although it's quite difficult when you're in the middle of a hard struggle with something, it's hard to see it as a gift, but in retrospect, we can almost always look back and say, "Oh, I see why I had to go through that."

Sure, I've been a victim, but in retrospect, most of it has been of my own making. I allowed it to happen.

Anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the businessman.

You can't explain success in retrospect. The moment you leap into the void, that moment is impossible to negate, after success.

History is lived forwards but it is written in retrospect. We know the end before we consider the beginning and we can never wholly recapture what it was to know the beginning only.

There are many things we only see clearly in retrospect.

Righteousness is easy in retrospect.

People always understand everything in retrospect.

Revolutions are something you see only in retrospect.

It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.

Evil is obvious only in retrospect.

In retrospect I would say from Donald Duck I have learned more about life than from all the schools I ever attended.

People steal into one's consciousness and occupy what seems, in retrospect, to have been their place all along.

Perspective will come in retrospect.

In retrospect there were failures enough to go around. There were failures before the storm and failures after the storm.

To the best of my recollection, I became a philosopher because my parents wanted me to become a lawyer. It seems to me, in retrospect, that there was much to be said for their suggestion. On the other hand, many philosophers are quite good company; the arguments they use are generally better than the ones that lawyers use; and we do get to go to as many faculty meetings as we like at no extra charge.

That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can't control life, at least you can control your version.

The Eagles ended on a rather abrupt note, although in retrospect I realize now that it had been ending for quite some time.

That's the past. I don't agree with retrospect.

The question is where are business ethics and morality if one of the parties wants to dishonor a binding contract, just because in retrospect it realizes it could perhaps have got a better price!

Experience is retrospect knowledge.

Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.

There's a kind of edge to what you're doing, the kind of leading edge of what you're doing. Inside that edge [are elements you] are familiar with, and are probably becoming slightly bored with, as well, over a period of time. "I've pulled that one out before. Oh, no, I can't I'm just fed up with that. Let's do something else."And you always think "Oh my God I've never done anything at all like that before." But, of course, in retrospect, and to an outsider, they'll say, "Oh, yeah that's typical Eno.

I really tend to write in retrospect.

Innovations seem inevitable in retrospect, but at the time it's an uphill battle.

Everything looks more beautiful in retrospect.

In retrospect, each of the steps toward this abyss seemed irrevocable, and yet they had all been so small!

It is often interesting, in retrospect, to consider the trifling causes that lead to great events. A chance encounter, a thoughtless remark - and the tortuous chain reaction of coincidence is set in motion, leading with devious inevitability to some resounding climax.

Life is not only meant to be appreciated in retrospect ... There is something each day to embrace and cherish.

And then adds with a laugh, 'but in retrospect I think he may have been more sophisticated than we were.'

Everything, in retrospect, is obvious. But if everything were obvious, authors of histories of financial folly would be rich . . .

In retrospect, I think maybe Audrey Hepburn was going to talk to me about doing something for UNICEF. I was so overwhelmed to just even be in her presence and I was very young, but it was really special and unforgettable.

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.

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.

In retrospect I wrote things about my life and my family's existence, I realized that it was a frighteningly harsh way to make a living. And I used to say that they were slowly dying trying to make a living.

In retrospect, our triumphs could as easily have happened to someone else; but our defeats are uniquely our own.

Looking back in retrospect, there were some great moments working with some great people, ... I don't know quite how to put it into words. I don't look at it quite the same way other people do.

Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance.

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.

History is just the present in retrospect. Times change but people do not.

In retrospect, everything is finite, but prospectively, there are infinite possibilities. I guess that's what makes life hopeful.

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.

Often a retrospect delights the mind.

As a child I was attracted to Tarzan and everything that had to do with jungles. It seemed to me -- and this is in retrospect -- that there was something primal, something right about it. Tarzan represented a pure being, somehow before the fall.

Humor is a kind of emotional chaos told about calmly and quietly in retrospect.There is always a laugh in the utterly familiar.

It's always hard for an author to determine his own intentions, especially in retrospect.

Maybe a deal was possible earlier. And maybe, in retrospect, looking back, you could say this was a moment you could have jumped on. If so, shame on us. I tend to think not.