PAST QUOTES III
quotations about the past
The past is funny ... it never seems to let things lie, finished. It never seems to stay in place as it should.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind.
KIRAN DESAI
The Inheritance of Loss
All the strange, checkered past seems to crowd upon my mind.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech, February 11, 1861
Life would be no better than candlelight tinsel and daylight rubbish if our spirits were not touched by what has been.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
Who recollects distinctly his past adventures, knows his destiny to come.
JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
With each passing moment I'm becoming part of the past. There is no future for me, just the past steadily accumulating.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.
JODI PICOULT
The Storyteller
Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.
DOUG LARSON
attributed, Quotable Quotes
It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
"Show Mr. and Mrs. F. to Number--"
Men's memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Blood Meridian
We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.
RICK WARREN
The Purpose Driven Life
I've had a lot of sleepless nights. Nights when I was so worried about something that had happened in the past that I let it dictate my future. We've all been there at some point. You're not alone. I'm talking about those times when we just can't shake the past. Whether it's something small, like making a terrible first impression, or saying something you wish you hadn't, to something big, like having to shutdown your business. Harping on negative experiences is painful and, when we hold on to that pain, we can't move on to something more positive. That's why it's important that you let it go and leave the past behind.
JOHN RAMPTON
"8 Steps to Move Away From the Past You Need to Leave Behind", Entrepreneur, March 11, 2016
The past is a towering mansion.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The past is a mist.
HAROLD PINTER
Moonlight
The reverberation often exceeds through silence the sound that sets it off; the reaction occasionally outdoes by way of repose the event that stimulated it; and the past not uncommonly takes a while to happen, and some long time to figure out.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
A good knowledge of things past is an armour against events to come.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The past was but the cemetery of our illusions: one simply stubbed one's toes on the gravestones.
ÉMILE ZOLA
The Masterpiece
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
The Great Gatsby
We sometimes condemn the present, by praising the past; and show our contempt of what is now, by our esteem for what is no more.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
A long future requires a long past.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage