Predecessor Quotes

I led her into the newsroom, removed the sheet, and pointed to the statue of the Bombinating Beast. She gestured to me that I should be the one to take it. I gestured back that she was the chaperone and the leader of this caper. She gestured to me that I shouldn't argue with her. I gestured to her that I was the one who had gotten us into the house in the first place. She gestured to me that my predecessor knew that the apprentice should never argue with the chaperone or complain and that I might model my own behavior after his. I gestured to her asking what the 'S' stood for in her name, and she replied with a very rude gesture, and I grabbed the statue and tucked it into my vest. ~ Lemony Snicket

VI was predecessor to hundreds of word processing systems. By now, Unix folks see it as a bit stodgy - it hasn't the versatility of Gnu-Emacs, nor the friendliness of more modern editors. Despite that, VI shows up on every Unix system. ~ Clifford Stoll

The seasons split at the seams: spring, summer, fall and winter. I've always pictured them as giant sacks filled with air and color and smell. When it's time for one season to be over, the next seasons splits open and pours over the world, drowning its tired and waning predecessor with its strength. ~ Tarryn Fisher

I think with great affection and deep gratitude of my venerable predecessor, Benedict XVI, who during these years of his pontificate has enriched and strengthened the Church with his teaching, his goodness, his guidance, his faith, his humility, and his gentleness, which will remain a spiritual heritage for all. ~ Pope Francis

Did the latter[The Messenger] have a predecessor, who envisaged
revelation as taking place by direct contact with a divine being rather than by
a book being sent down (whether as a whole or in instalments), who claimed
to have enjoyed such contact himself and who objected to the pagan angels -
not because they violated the dividing line between God and created beings
but rather because they were female? We do not hear of such a predecessor
elsewhere in the Quran, but we do learn that the Messenger had competitors in
his own time, at least in Yathrib (2:79, where they share his concept of revelation
as a book), so there is nothing implausible about the proposition that there
were preachers before him too, including some whose preaching anticipated
features of his own. ~ Patricia Crone

When I was a child and heard about angels, I was both frightened and fascinated by the thought of these enormous, invisible presences in our midst. I conceived of them not as white-robed androgynes with yellow locks and thick gold wings, which was how my friend Matty Wilson had described them to me
Matty was the predecessor of all sorts of arcane knowledge
but as big, dark, blundering men, massive in their weightlessness, given to pranks and ponderous play, who might knock you over, or break you in half, without meaning to. When a child from Miss Molyneaux's infant school in Carrickdrum fell under the hoofs of a dray-horse one day and was trampled to death, I, a watchful six year old, knew who was to blame; I pictured his guardian angel standing over the child's crushed form with his big hands helplessly extended, not sure whether to be contrite or to laugh. ~ John Banville

Now that Janet and Frances were older, Grandpa would let them visit him in his study, where the parrot lived. Grandpa came from a long line of parrot-keeping men, and Polly's predecessor, a white cockatoo, had fought with Wellington's armies in the Napoleonic Wars. Janet's father's earliest memories were of the astonishing oaths known to this bird, who was then a hundred and two years old and spoke in ripe gamey accents long since gone from the world of men. Grandpa believed that there must be a fair number of such long-lived birds in Scotland - even perhaps in England - and it would have been a fine thing to have them all gathered in a great dining hall, invoking ghostly midshipmen and dragoons, violent drinkers and merry rhymesters, perhaps even occasionally a lady of refinement. This, he said, would afford a historical experience of rare value; indeed, ancient parrots should be fêted and cultivated as true archivists. ~ Elspeth Barker

I'm confident that, were I mayor, I would do some things differently than he has. But I think there's a world of difference between him and his immediate predecessor. ~ David Dinkins

Putin has reversed all the liberalizing reforms carried out by his predecessor. ~ Alexei Navalny

Historical chronology, human or geological, depends ... upon comparable impersonal principles. If one scribes with a stylus on a plate of wet clay two marks, the second crossing the first, another person on examining these marks can tell unambiguously which was made first and which second, because the latter event irreversibly disturbs its predecessor. In virtue of the fact that most of the rocks of the earth contain imprints of a succession of such irreversible events, an unambiguous working out of the chronological sequence of these events becomes possible. ~ M. King Hubbert

2001's production notes contain a number of startlingly prescient glimpses of the world we live in today. As of mid-1965, approximately the same time that the US Department of Defense was conceiving of the internet's direct predecessor, ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), Kubrick's intrepid band of futurists had seemingly already visualized important aspects of the new technology's implications. One document sent from Tony Masters to Roger Caras on June 29 listed matter-of-factly - under a letterhead replete with the roaring MGM lion - nine props that he asked Caras to help him with. Number one was "2001 newspaper to be read on some kind of television screen. Should be designed television screen shape; i.e., wider than it is high. ~ Michael Benson

A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover.[1] The technical term for this physical arrangement is codex (in the plural, codices). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its immediate predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf, and each side of a leaf is a page. ~ Lynda

We vetoed five income tax increases during my time as governor. We cut business taxes $2.3 billion, and we cut regulation by one-third of what my predecessor put in place. ~ Chris Christie

To Yelena, our newest food taster. May you last longer than your predecessor. ~ Maria V. Snyder

The castle's predecessor, the Roman villa, had been unfortified, depending on Roman law and the Roman legions for its ramparts. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

Reading off a page is like looking down at a landscape from a balloon – your eye "sees" the story as well as reads it, its layout, its paragraphs and structure, and "remembers" what it just read because it's still there, on the page, simultaneously. If you want to, you can reread any line instantly; or linger; or speed up; or optically "flinch." Reading a series of tweets is more like looking through a narrow window from a train speeding through a landscape full of tunnels and bands of light and dark. Each tweet erases its predecessor. ~ David Mitchell

for your lords are readier to feed idle people than to take care of the sick; and often the heir is not able to keep together so great a family as his predecessor did. ~ Thomas More

The term "godawful" should be used sparingly in connection with motion pictures. With Angels & Demons , however, it seems oddly appropriate. Not only does this prequel-turned-sequel to The Da Vinci Code make its predecessor seem like a masterwork of pacing and plotting, but it may represent a nadir for director Ron Howard and is probably the worst instance of acting from star Tom Hanks since back in the days when he was struggling out from under the shadow of Bosom Buddies . ~ James Berardinelli

Galileo essentially started out from where Archimedes left off, proceeding in the same direction as defined by his Greek predecessor. This is true not only of Galileo but also of the other great figures of the so-called "scientific revolution," such as Leibniz, Huygens, Fermat, Descartes, and Newton. All of them were Archimedes' children. With Newton, the science of the scientific revolution reached its perfection in a perfectly Archimedean form. Based on pure, elegant first principles and applying pure geometry, Newton deduced the rules governing the universe. All of later science is a consequence of the desire to generalize Newtonian, that is, Archimedean methods. ~ Reviel Netz

The truth is, it is the younger inexperience gangsters who often cut down the older original gangsters. The best way for this young thug to prove himself to others, is to simply cut down an established gangster.
Thus, this cruel cycle of senseless violence repeats itself, with the younger being more vicious and rootless than his predecessor. It's the dog, who kills the lion, and once he has killed the lion, he's no longer a dog; he's now a lion himself. ~ Drexel Deal

To equal a predecessor, one must have twice they worth. ~ Baltasar Gracian

Most of the 50 or so invitations you receive each week come from people inviting the President's Chief of Staff, not you. If you doubt that, ask your predecessor how many he received last week. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

It's rare that the sequel to a good movie lives up to expectations. Such is the case with Die Hard 2 , the somewhat-muddled but still entertaining return of Bruce Willis' John McClane. Fortunately, the original Die Hard was good enough that there's room for the second installment to be enjoyable while still not matching the pace or possessing the flair of its predecessor. ~ James Berardinelli

Barbara and I had arrived early, so I got to admire everyone's entrance. We were seated at tables around a dance floor that had been set up on the lawn behind the house. Barbara and I shared a table with Deborah Kerr and her husband. Deborah, a lovely English redhead, had been brought to Hollywood to play opposite Clark Gable in The Hucksters. Louis B. Mayer needed a cool, refined beauty to replace the enormously popular redhead, Greer Garson, who had married a wealthy oil magnate and retired from the screen in the mid-fifties. Deborah, like her predecessor, had an ultra-ladylike air about her that was misleading. In fact, she was quick, sharp, and very funny. She and Barbara got along like old school chums. Jimmy Stewart was also there with his wife. It was the first time I'd seen him since we'd worked for Hitchcock. It was a treat talking to him, and I felt closer to him than I ever did on the set of Rope. He was so genuinely happy for my success in Strangers on a Train that I was quite moved. Clark Gable arrived late, and it was a star entrance to remember. He stopped for a moment at the top of the steps that led down to the garden. He was alone, tanned, and wearing a white suit. He radiated charisma. He really was the King. The party was elegant. Hot Polynesian hors d'oeuvres were passed around during drinks. Dinner was very French, with consommé madrilène as a first course followed by cold poached salmon and asparagus hollandaise. During dessert, a lemon soufflé, and cof ~ Farley Granger

Maybe he was a good man once, this old one, my predecessor, but they had worn him down, in thirty years, like a big knife made thin and fragile, needlelike, from constant honings. All that good steel just rubbed away no one knew where. ~ James Jones

However much one generation learns from another, it can never learn from its predecessor the genuinely human factor. In this respect every generation begins afresh. Thus no generation has learned from another how to love, no generation can begin other than at the beginning. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

It is clear that my predecessor as First Minister is frightening the life out of the Tories and the Labour Party. Long may it continue. ~ Nicola Sturgeon

I wish to reiterate all the reasons which [my predecessor] has presented in favor of the policy of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of our peace with other nations and the best means of securing respect for the assertion of our rights of the defense of our interests, and the exercise of our influence in international matters. ~ William Howard Taft

4. Radicalism of forms. If a new model once created meets with much success on account of its greater efficiency than its predecessor, it lends certain neighbouring forms a formal radicalism, which attempts to borrow from the appearance of the new form: for example, bronze tools that had reached the furthest development of their utility had a disastrous influence on stone tools, warping them toward an elegance that could only be attained in bronze. Today aviation has imposed its aerodynamic forms even on baby strollers and irons. This radicalism of forms is a result of the fact that people become bored when they do not find some unexpected element in the familiar. This radicalism might seem illogical, as the advocates of standardization believe, but we must not forget that discovery is only made possible by this need of humanity. ~ Tom McDonough

The simple facts of Mao's career seem incredible: in a vast land of 400 million people, at age 28, with a dozen others, to found a party and in the next fifty years to win power, organize, and remold the people and reshape the land–history records no greater achievement. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, all the kings of Europe, Napoleon, Bismarck, Lenin–no predecessor can equal Mao Tse-tung's scope of accomplishment, for no other country was ever so ancient and so big as China. Indeed Mao's achievement is almost beyond our comprehension. ~ John King Fairbank

In his musicals with Garland, Rooney was the sparkplug for prodigious entrepreneurship - that era's predecessor of the garage band, but with Gershwin tunes and an all-star cast. ~ Richard Corliss

Our ancestors have invented, we can at least innovate. ~ Amit Kalantri

Among the various supplications with which we successfully appeal to the Virgin Mother of God, the Holy Rosary without doubt occupies a special and distinct place. This prayer, which some call the Psalter of the Virgin or Breviary of the Gospel and of Christian life, was described and recommended by Our Predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII ~ Pope Pius XI

Facts are facts: No president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Great Depression inherited a worse economy, bigger job losses or deeper problems from his predecessor. But President Obama is moving America forward, not back. ~ Martin O'Malley

Been trading up recently? You have, haven't you? You'll be squawking that you're too rational, too busy and too socially concerned for any of that. But go through the fridge - come to think of it, what about the fridge itself? I bet it's bigger than its predecessor. ~ Peter York

There is a distorted perception of what goes on in Brussels. No one reports on the Commission taking a hundred initiatives from its predecessor off the table in order to shift competencies back to member state governments. ~ Jean-Claude Juncker

I was missing lectures leading up to an essay test, so I went downstairs & got my textbook & pretended to study, with Animal Planet playing in the background. Everyone we learned about was either white or some sort of predecessor of the white, Christian world--as if the Stone Age, Bronze Age & Iron Age were just Greek & Roman stepping stones. As if everyone outside of Europe was still grunting & digging for grubs. As if China, centuries before Jesus started squalling in his crib, hadn't already kicked Europe's ass in technology & art. ~ L. Tam Holland

Sillage
Whenever I walk in the woods,
I feel some unaccountable sense
of having trodden this new path before.
My feet sink deeply into the invisible steps
of some bold predecessor
who begs not to be forgotten,
some hunter following the tracks of prey,
some courageous child at play
dragging a stick into the earth
to find his way back home.
However pristine new trails seem,
some forebear at some time,
has left a tangible trail of memory behind,
a sillage to guide me through the unknown. ~ Beryl Dov

I don't think Dave ever thought of himself as an efficiency expert, but every job he ever held, he simplified. His successor always had less work to do than his predecessor. That his successor usually reorganized the job again to take three times as much work, and as many subordinates, says little about Dave's oddity, other than by contrast. Some people are ants by nature, they have to work. Even when it's useless. Few people have a talent for "constructive laziness." And so ends the tale about the man who was too lazy to fail. Let's leave him there, in his hammock under the shade trees. So far as I know, he is still there. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

In 1962, President Kennedy expanded an earlier trade embargo put in place by a predecessor, President Eisenhower, to a total economic blockade, which pushed the Cubans further in Moscow's direction. ~ Tariq Ali

(Alice Balint)called maternal love removed from reality, 'archaic love', and regarded it as the predecessor of civilized maternal love. This archaic love is based on the feeling that the child's body was part of the mother's body; it is hers and she can do with it as she pleases. ~ Terez Virag

Every predecessor has used mercenaries, often drawn from the country that they're attacking, like England ran India with Indian mercenaries. You take them from one place and send them to kill people in the other place. That's the standard way to run imperial wars. ~ Noam Chomsky

The new prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, while a vast improvement on his predecessor is not doing much, if anything, to slow that process done. ~ Justine Larbalestier

There was just such a man when I was young - an Austrian who invented a new way of life and convinced himself that he was the chap to make it work. He tried to impose his reformation by the sword, and plunged the civilized world into misery and chaos. But the thing which this fellow had overlooked, my friend, was that he had a predecessor in the reformation business, called Jesus Christ. Perhaps we may assume that Jesus knew as much as the Austrian did about saving people. But the odd thing is that Jesus did not turn the disciples into strom troopers, burn down the Temple at Jerusalem, and fix the blame on Pontius Pilate. On the contrary, he made it clear that the business of the philosopher was to make ideas available, and not to impose them on people. ~ T.H. White

My predecessor, P. W. Botha, had an inner circle, and I did not like it. I preferred decisions to evolve out of cabinet discussions. That way, we achieved real co-ownership of our policies. ~ F. W. De Klerk

I managed the Dodgers for 20 years. It's hard to believe that there are only four guys in the history of baseball who managed the same team for 20 years or more. One was owner of the team, Connie Mack. Another was part owner of the team, John McGraw. Then there was my predecessor, Walter Alston, and me. It's amazing. In the 20 years I managed the Dodgers, 210 managers were fired. ~ Tommy Lasorda

First there was the sky, high, pure and of a darker blue than he had ever seen. And then there was the sea, a lighter, immensely luminous blue that reflected blue into the air, the shadows and the sails; a sea that stretched away immeasurably when the surge raised the frigate high, showing an orderly array of great crests, each three furlongs from its predecessor, and all sweeping eastwards in an even, majestic procession. ~ Patrick O'Brian

You wish to rule the Dreaming City; you must excel in all its ways. Play with me, a single game of Lo Shen. If you best me, I will go into seclusion as you ask, and you will ascend to the Tower without the slightest argument, and without battle. No one will contest you, and you will rule as well as you are able. If you lose, however, you must disband your army, and take the vows of one of our Towers, enter it as a novice, and pledge yourself to our City for the rest of your days. In the Anointed City, this is the way disputes are settled. If you would rule us, you must behave as one of us. Show me that you are the rightful Papess. Show me that you exceed us in all things."
Ragnhild seemed to laugh, but no sound issued from her rosy mouth. Her eyes glittered like snowflakes catching the sun. "You cannot be serious. A single game to decide five hundred years of history?"
"Were it not that once my predecessor harmed you, I would simply kill you where you stand. ~ Catherynne M Valente

Nixon sent some no-account underling to tell us that he had done more for the American Indian than any predecessor and that he saw no reason for our coming to Washington, that he had more important things to do than to talk with us - presumably surreptitiously taping his visitors and planning Watergate. We wondered what all these good things were that he had done for us. ~ Mary Crow Dog

The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is almost always an improvement on its immediate predecessor, and experience teaches that the most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps toward reform. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

While Johns (Martin Luther King's predecessor as pastor in Montgomery) agreed with Dexter's general disdain for emotionalism, he was very fond of traditional spirituals, believing they represented a part of their history they ought to embrace and celebrate. ~ Troy Jackson

Abraham Lincoln, a predecessor of Barack Obama in both the White House and the Illinois state legislature, had eighteen months of formal education and became a soldier, surveyor, postmaster, rail-splitter, tavern keeper, and self-taught prairie lawyer. Obama went to Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School, and became a "community organizer." I'm not sure that's progress--and it's certainly not "sustainable. ~ Mark Steyn

Pleasure principle, a psychoanalytical term coined by Gustav Theodor Fechner, a predecessor of Sigmund Freud ~ Anonymous

Neville Chamberlain's politics of appeasement were, as far as we can judge, inspired by good motives; he was probably less motivated by considerations of personal power than were many other British prime ministers, and he sought to preserve peace and to assure the happiness of all concerned. Yet his policies helped to make the Second World War inevitable, and to bring untold miseries to millions of men. Sir Winston Churchill's motives, on the other hand, were much less universal in scope and much more narrowly directed toward personal and national power, yet the foreign policies that sprang from these inferior motives were certainly superior in moral and political quality to those pursued by his predecessor. Judged by his motives, Robespierre was one of the most virtuous men who ever lived. Yet it was the utopian radicalism of that very virtue that made him kill those less virtuous than himself, brought him to the scaffold, and destroyed the revolution of which he was a leader. ~ Hans J. Morgenthau

Almost from the moment votes are counted, lame-duck chief executives invariably recede into superfluity, but Lincoln's hapless predecessor, James Buchanan, made procrastination into an art form. He could not have excused himself from responsibility at a more portentous moment, or left his successor with graver problems to address once he was constitutionally entitled to do so. ~ Harold Holzer

Remember that accumulated knowledge, like accumulated capital, increases at compound interest: but it differs from the accumulation of capital in this; that the increase of knowledge produces a more rapid rate of progress, whilst the accumulation of capital leads to a lower rate of interest. Capital thus checks its own accumulation: knowledge thus accelerates its own advance. Each generation, therefore, to deserve comparison with its predecessor, is bound to add much more largely to the common stock than that which it immediately succeeds. ~ Charles Babbage

I had toward the poetic art a peculiar relation which was only practical after I had cherished in my mind for a long time a subject which possessed me, a model which inspired me, a predecessor who attracted me, until at length, after I had molded it ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I used to say I never talk about my successor, neither about my predecessor. ~ Boutros Boutros-Ghali

predecessor of Isaac Newton at Cambridge University, maintained that irrational numbers have no meaning independent of geometric lengths. ~ Morris Kline

I shall tread in the footsteps of my illustrious predecessor. ~ Martin Van Buren

Some say that because the United States was wrong before, it cannot possibly be right now, or has not the right to be right. (The British Empire sent a fleet to Africa and the Caribbean to maintain the slave trade while the very same empire later sent another fleet to enforce abolition. I would not have opposed the second policy because of my objections to the first; rather it seems to me that the second policy was morally necessitated by its predecessor.) ~ Christopher Hitchens

There's a preponderance of scientists and engineers among China's rulers. New President Xi Jinping was trained as a chemical engineer. His predecessor, Hu Jintao, earned a degree in hydraulic engineering. His predecessor, Jiang Zemin, held a degree in electrical engineering. ~ Ramez Naam

Whatever one generation learns from another, it can never learn from a predecessor the genuinely human factor. In this respect every generation begins afresh, has no task other than that of any previous generation, and comes no further, provided the latter didn't shirk its task and deceive itself. This authentically human factor is passion, in which the one generation also fully understands the other and understands itself. Thus no generation has learned from another how to love, no generation can begin other than at the beginning, the task of no later generation is shorter than its predecessor's, and if someone, unlike the previous generation, is unwilling to stay with love but wants to go further, then that is simply idle and foolish talk. ~ Søren Kierkegaard

Our desire to segregate the mind's cogitations from the body's exertions reflects the grip that Cartesian dualism still holds on us. When we think about thinking, we're quick to locate our mind, and hence our self, in the gray matter inside our skull and to see the rest of the body as a mechanical life-support system that keeps the neural circuits charged. More than a fancy of philosophers like Descartes and his predecessor Plato, this dualistic view of mind and body as operating in isolation from each other appears to be a side effect of consciousness itself. Even though the bulk of the mind's work goes on behind the scenes, in the shadows of the unconscious, we're aware only of the small but brightly lit window that the conscious mind opens for us. And our conscious mind tells us, insistently, that it's separate from the body. ~ Nicholas Carr

A Labor prime minister, Julia Gillard, who does believe in climate change, nevertheless advised her predecessor, Kevin Rudd, to abandon his emissions trading scheme. ~ Richard Flanagan

Would it be an indiscretion to ask to see those precious pills?" continued Beauchamp, hoping to take him at a disadvantage.
"No, Monsieur," returned the count; and he drew from his pocket a marvelous bonbonniere, formed out of a single emerald, and closed by a golden lid, which unscrewed and gave passage to a small of greenish color, and about the size of a pea."
... "this is a magnificent emerald, and the largest I have ever seen," said Chateu-Renaud ...
"I had three similar ones," returned Monte Cristo; "I gave one to the Grand Signior, who mounted it in his saber; another to our holy father the pope, who had it set in his tiara, opposite to nearly as large, though not so fine a one, given by Emperor Napolen to his predecessor Pius VII. I kept the third for myself, and I had it hollowed out, which reduced its value, but rendered it more commodious for the purpose I intended it for."
Every one looked at Monte Cristo with astonishment ... ~ Alexandre Dumas

High culture is nothing but a child of that European perversion called history, the obsession we have with going forward, with considering the sequence of generations a relay race in which everyone surpasses his predecessor ... ~ Milan Kundera

Bush himself came into office with no curiosity about the world, only a suspicion that his predecessor had entangled America in far too many obscure places of no importance to national interests. Wolfowitz ~ George Packer

Whatever part I'm playing, I always carry with me something that's been used by an illustrious predecessor. I'm a great believer in a touching of hands. I have daggers belonging to Henry Irving and Sarah Siddons. ~ Donald Sinden

President Ford was taken for a ride by his predecessor, whom he unpardonably pardoned; Jimmy Carter was also taken for a ride, but by his successor, Ronald Reagan, over the return of the Iran hostages. ~ Nigel Hamilton

Being a native of Spain, the country to which I owe much of my education and cultural background, I was deeply influenced by my great predecessor Santiago Ramon y Cajal. ~ Severo Ochoa

When an important writer recommends a work to you -- whether by openly naming the title; or by shy=covert use of it (which perhaps is the greater praise) then go right ahead and follow his [sic!, etc] momentous hint ! A man with expertise and taste has done trusty spade-work for you : {pre=reading} and winnowing 1000 volumes of antiquated chaff for you. Not to make grateful use of such a hint would mean my thoughtless=arrogant shoving aside all the precious, irreplaceable hours that a venerable predecessor spent reading for me. ~ Arno Schmidt

Notwithstanding a mendacious press; notwithstanding a subsidized gang of hirelings who have not ceased to traduce me, I have discharged all my official duties and fulfilled my pledges. And I say here tonight that if my predecessor had lived, the vials of wrath would have poured out upon him. ~ Andrew Johnson

Today I stand before the world organization which has succeeded to the mantle discarded by its discredited predecessor. ~ Haile Selassie

Towering genius disdains a beaten path ... It sees no distinction in adding story to story ... It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it ... ~ Abraham Lincoln

Now, some have said I blame too many problems on my predecessor, but let's not forget that's a practice that was initiated by George W. Bush. ~ Barack Obama

It is easy to surpass a predecessor, but difficult to avoid being surpassed by a successor. ~ Eiji Yoshikawa

Going back to the moon is not visionary in restoring space leadership for America. Like its Apollo predecessor, it will prove to be a dead end littered with broken spacecraft, broken dreams and broken policies. ~ Buzz Aldrin

Many of our brothers and sisters are 'baptized, but insufficiently evangelized.' In a number of cases, nations once rich in faith and in vocations are losing their identity under the influence of a secularized culture. The need for a new evangelization, so deeply felt by my venerable Predecessor, must be valiantly reaffirmed, in the certainty that God's word is effective. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

In the farsighted words of Thomas Jefferson, writing to his predecessor, John Adams, 'The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. ~ Richard Dawkins

Some authors have argued that a direct historical line can be drawn to Nazism from the French Revolution of 1789, the Jacobin 'Reign of Terror' in 1793-4, and the implicit idea of a popular dictatorship in Rousseau's theory of the 'General Will,' decided initially by the people but brooking no opposition once resolved upon. The French Revolution was indeed remarkable for its rehersal of many of the major ideologies that bestrode the historical stage of Europe in the following two centuries, from communism and anarchism to liberalism and conservatism. But National Socialism was not among them. The Nazis, indeed thought of themselves as undoing all the work of the French Revolution and rolling back the clock, in a political sense at least, much further to the early Middle Ages. Their concept of the people was racial rather than civic. All the ideologies to which the French Revolution had given birth were to be destroyed. The Nazi Revolution was to be the world-historical negation of its French predecessor, not its historical fufillment. ~ Richard J. Evans

You might have been able to fool people the first time, or something, but you really can't make a successful sequel today unless people really, really liked the predecessor. ~ Neal H. Moritz

Only by following out the injunction of our great predecessor [William Harvey] to search out and study the secrets of Nature by way of experiment, can we hope to attain to a comprehension of 'the wisdom of the body and the understanding of the heart,' and thereby to the mastery of disease and pain, which will enable us to relieve the burden of mankind. ~ Ernest Starling