“…the future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.”
Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 51
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W. Somerset Maugham 158
British playwright, novelist, short story writer 1874–1965Related quotes
“I now spend a good part of my day dreaming of times past, present and future.”
90th Birthday Reflections (2007)
Context: I now spend a good part of my day dreaming of times past, present and future. As I try to survive on 15 hours sleep a day, I have plenty of time to enjoy vivid dreams. Being completely wheel-chaired doesn't stop my mind from roaming the universe — on the contrary!
The Golden Man (1954)
Context: "He can look ahead. See what's coming. He can — prethink. Let's call it that. He can see into the future. Probably he doesn't perceive it as the future."
"No," Anita said thoughtfully. "It would seem like the present. He has a broader present. But his present lies ahead, not back. Our present is related to the past. Only the past is certain, to us. To him, the future is certain. And he probably doesn't remember the past, any more than any animal remembers what happened."
"As he develops," Baines said, "as his race evolves, it'll probably expand its ability to prethink. Instead of ten minutes, thirty minutes. Then an hour. A day. A year. Eventually they'll be able to keep ahead a whole lifetime. Each one of them will live in a solid, unchanging world. There'll be no variables, no uncertainty. No motion! They won't have anything to fear. Their world will be perfectly static, a solid block of matter."
"And when death comes," Anita said, "they'll accept it. There won't be any struggle; to them, it'll already have happened."
Letter to a General Pinto<!-- (perhaps ?) late 1840s-->, as quoted in Captain of the Andes : The Life of José de San Martín, Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru (1943) by Margaret Hayne Harrison, p. 196
Context: One should be under no illusions as to the future of the Old World. The real contest in the present day is purely social. In a word the struggle lies between him who has nothing and him who has. Figure out the consequences of such a principle, infiltrated in the masses by the harangues of the clubs and the reading of millions of pamphlets.
“Thus does the unyielding, inescapable future ineluctably devour the present.”
Source: The Stochastic Man (1975), Chapter 29 (p. 161)
Bishop visits Virginia City to give homily at final St. Mary's Mass https://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/2008/sep/08/bishop-visits-virginia-city-to-give-homily-at-fina/ (September 8, 2008)
“The success of SpaceShipOne was Justice Day for dreamers and pioneers past, present and future.”
Space: What love's got to do with it - The Space Review (2004)
“There is no present or future-only the past, happening over and over again-now.”
Source: A Moon for the Misbegotten
“Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now.”
As quoted in Eternal Greece (1961) by Rex Warner, p. 34
Context: Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now. We do not need the praises of a Homer, or of anyone else whose words may delight us for the moment, but the estimation of facts will fall short of what is really true.