In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that people tend to romanticize the past, believing it was better than the present, even though they did not appreciate it at the time.
Brooks Atkinson's quote reflects on the human tendency to look back at previous eras with nostalgia, often overlooking the difficulties and challenges faced during those times. He argues that each generation experiences crises that feel unbearable in the moment, yet in retrospect, those same periods are often viewed as 'the good old days.' This highlights the paradox of how time can reshape our perceptions of the past and make us value what we once took for granted.
In practice
During a speech about changes in society, one might quote this to illustrate how perceptions of past eras can be misleading.
This nation was built by men who took risks-pioneers who were not afraid of the wilderness, businessmen who were not afraid of failure, scientists who were not afraid of the truth, thinkers who were not afraid of progress, dreamers who were not afraid of action.
People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for what they know.
I think it's funny. There was a time when men were afraid that somebody would reveal some secret of theirs that was unknown to their fellows. Nowadays, they're afraid that somebody will name what everybody knows. Have you practical people ever thought that that's all it would take to blast your whole, big, complex structure, with all your laws and guns - just somebody naming the exact nature of what you're doing?
Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God.
Woodcutter. Cut my shadow from me. Free me from the torment of being without fruit. Why was I born among mirrors? Day goes round and round me. The night copies me in all its stars. I want to live without my reflection. And then let me dream that ants and thistledown are my leaves and my parrots.
Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a be general natural law.
The most awful tyranny is that of the proximate Utopia where the last sins are currently being eliminated and where, tomorrow, there will be no more sins because all the sinners will have been wiped out.
But I deny that the Constitution recognizes property in man.
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