“We must not confuse the present with the past. With regard to the past, no further action is possible.”
Pt. III : The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/ambiguity/ch03.htm#s2, Ch. 1 : The Aesthetic Attitude
The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
Context: We must not confuse the present with the past. With regard to the past, no further action is possible. There have been war, plague, scandal, and treason, and there is no way of our preventing their having taken place; the executioner became an executioner and the victim underwent his fate as a victim without us; all that we can do is to reveal it, to integrate it into the human heritage, to raise it to the dignity of the aesthetic existence which bears within itself its finality; but first this history had to occur: it occurred as scandal, revolt, crime, or sacrifice, and we were able to try to save it only because it first offered us a form. Today must also exist before being confirmed in its existence: its destination in such a way that everything about it already seemed justified and that there was no more of it to reject, then there would also be nothing to say about it, for no form would take shape in it; it is revealed only through rejection, desire, hate and love. In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in this world, oppressed or oppressing, resigned or rebellious, a man among men. But at the heart of his existence he finds the exigency which is common to all men; he must first will freedom within himself and universally; he must try to conquer it: in the light of this project situations are graded and reasons for acting are made manifest.
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Simone de Beauvoir 152
French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, po… 1908–1986Related quotes

The Law of Mind (1892)

Variant: Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.

“We should not be obsessed with the present alone, we must heed the past too.”
Thought at Sunrise (2007)
Context: We should not be obsessed with the present alone, we must heed the past too. Is it fair, for instance, to see only the 25 ft. tall tree and forget the seed that brought it forth? Will the tree accept it if we forget the seed of it all? Is it possible to visualise a future without the seed? We must learn to appraise ourselves of the past if we want a meaningful present. You could call this an act of gratitude or an evaluation of reality.

Speech to a joint session of the Dail and the Seanad, Dublin, Ireland (28 June 1963)
1963
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 107.