quotations about the present
The shadow by my finger cast
Divides the future from the past:
Before it, sleeps the unborn hour,
In darkness, and beyond thy power:
Behind its unreturning line,
The vanished hour, no longer thine:
One hour alone is in thy hands--
The NOW on which the shadow stands.
HENRY VAN DYKE
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"The Sun-Dial at Wells College"
I'm interested in the way in which the past affects the present and I think that if we understand a good deal more about history, we automatically understand a great more about contemporary life.
TONI MORRISON
interview, Time, January 21, 1998
When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable.
MARTIN AMIS
Other People
All the past is not worth one today.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"New Year"
There is no comfort looking forth nor back,
The present gives the lie to all her past.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Epochs: VI. Grief"
In an era of stress and anxiety, when the present seems unstable and the future unlikely, the natural response is to retreat and withdraw from reality, taking recourse either in fantasies of the future or in modified visions of a half-imagined past.
ALAN MOORE
Watchmen
The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind.
KIRAN DESAI
The Inheritance of Loss
When you are depressed, the past and future are absorbed entirely by the present moment, as in the world of a three-year-old. You cannot remember a time when you felt better, at least not clearly; and you certainly cannot imagine a future time when you will feel better.
ANDREW SOLOMON
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.
GOLDA MEIR
My Life
Enjoy the present, whatsoever it be, and be not solicitous about the future.
JEREMY TAYLOR
attributed, Day's Collacon
There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now.
EUGENE O'NEILL
A Moon for the Misbegotten
You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.
JOHN GREEN
Looking for Alaska
Tomorrow gives a beck'ning hand--
I turn my face away;
I'll not invite her to my home--
I only love Today.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
"Today"
Live in the present, remember the past, and fear not the future, for it doesn't exist and never shall. There is only now.
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI
Eldest
The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Kafka on the Shore
Zen lives in the present. The Whole teaching is: how to be in the present; how to get out of the past which is no more and how not to get involved in the future which is not yet, and just to be rooted, centered, in that which is.
OSHO
Zen: The Path of Paradox
When people can't abide things as they are, when they can't abide the present, they do one of two things ... either they ... either they turn to a contemplation of the past ... or they set about to ... alter the future. And when you want to change something ... YOU BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
EDWARD ALBEE
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Let us act as though there were no past, only so far as it aids and cheers the present; and no future, excepting such as we make it by the best use of the present.
MARTHA MARTELL
Second Love
I don't want a future, I want a present. To me this appears of greater value. You have a future only when you have no present, and when you have a present, you forget to even think about the future.
ROBERT WALSER
The Tanners
Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.
ALBERT CAMUS
Notebooks: 1935-1942