A look at the past reminds us of how great is the distance, and how short, over which we have come. The past makes us ask what we have done with us. It makes us ask whether our very achievements are not ironical counterpoint and contrast to our fundamental failures.


A Time to Hear and Answer: Essays for the Bicentennial Season (ed. University of Alabama Press, 1977)

Robert Penn Warren Quotes

A look at the past reminds us of how great is the distance, and how short, over which we have come. The past makes us ask what we have done with us....

A look at the past reminds us of how great is the distance, and how short, over which we have come. The past makes us ask what we have done with us....

A look at the past reminds us of how great is the distance, and how short, over which we have come. The past makes us ask what we have done with us....

A look at the past reminds us of how great is the distance, and how short, over which we have come. The past makes us ask what we have done with us....