What are previous?

Famous quotes containing the word previous:

    I believe that there was a great age, a great epoch when man did not make war: previous to 2000 B.C. Then the self had not really become aware of itself, it had not separated itself off, the spirit was not yet born, so there was no internal conflict, and hence no permanent external conflict.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    History is fond of her grandchildren, for it offers them the marrow of the bones, which the previous generation had hurt its hands in breaking.
    Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (1828–1889)

    Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.
    Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)