The present is anage of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world isgrowing old.We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement.

-Hazlitt,William
  Spirit of the Age,'Mr Coleridge'.

At the time it is all a confusion; in retrospect†all a blur.

-Schlesinger, Arthur M(eier),Jr
  On national political conventions. AThousand Days.

The Pastöthe dark unfathom'd retrospect! The teeming gulföthe sleepers and the shadows! The past! the infinite greatness of the past! For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?

-Whitman,Walt(er)
Passage to India, opening verse.