“We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow.”
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), First Inaugural address (1981)
Context: You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we're not bound by that same limitation? We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow.
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Ronald Reagan 264
American politician, 40th president of the United States (i… 1911–2004Related quotes

Excerpts of Martial law speech (14 December 1981)

“Act as if you were to die tomorrow, but to die in order to survive and be eternalized.”
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), XI : The Practical Problem
Context: And what is its moral proof? We may formulate it thus: Act so that in your own judgment and in the judgment of others you may merit eternity, act so that you may become irreplaceable, act so that you may not merit death. Or perhaps thus: Act as if you were to die tomorrow, but to die in order to survive and be eternalized. The end of morality is to give personal, human finality to the Universe; to discover the finality that belongs to it — if indeed it has any finality — and to discover it by acting.

Still. A. T., Journal of Osteopathy, p. 127. https://www.atsu.edu/museum/subscription/pdfs/JournalofOsteopathyVol5No31898August.pdf/.
“If we saw tomorrow’s newspaper today, tomorrow would never happen.”
Attributed to Kenneth Boulding in: Russell Ackoff " Russell Ackoff: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking; Editor’s note http://www.pegasuscom.com/levpoints/ackoff_a-lifetime-of-systems-thinking.html" in: Leverage Points, Issue 115.
1990s and attributed

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work

“Today's today. Tomorrow we may be
ourselves gone down the drain of Eternity.”
Source: Alcestis (438 BC), l. 788