Quotes about the future
page 9

“I am for who i was in the beginning but now is present and i exist in the future.”

Source: Angela's Ashes

“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Thomas Cooper (29 November 1802)
1800s, First Presidential Administration (1801–1805)
Variant: If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.

Happiness, People

“You're always free to change your mind
and choose a different future, or a different past.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Change, Past

“When we put things off until some future-probably mythical-Laterland, we drag the past into the future. The burden of yesterday's incompletions is a heavy load to carry. Don't carry it.”

Peter McWilliams (1949–2000) American author and civil liberties advocate

Past

“You can't look back - you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.”

Jodi Picoult Salem Falls

Variant: A very wise man once told me that you can't look back-you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.
Source: Salem Falls

Past, Missing You, Moving On

“People want pretty much the same things: They wanted to be happy. Most young people seemed to think that those things lay somewhere in the future, while most older people believed they lay in the past.”

Nicholas Sparks book Nights in Rodanthe

Source: Nights in Rodanthe

Happiness, People, Thinking, Past

“Looking at him, she saw her future and felt all the ragged tears in her heart heal themselves. "I fit," she whispered in marvel, stepping into him. "I fit with you."
He nodded and wrapped his arms around her.
"Perfectly”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Simply Irresistible

Tear, Heart

“Percy grunted. ‘Probably something to do with that creep Octavian. Maybe he was so bad at telling the future that he broke Apollo’s powers.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“This is what you do. You make a future for yourself out of the raw material at hand.”

Michael Cunningham book A Home at the End of the World

Source: A Home at the End of the World

“The past always seems better when you look back on it than it did at the time. And the present never looks as good as it will in the future.”

Peter Benchley book Jaws

Source: Jaws

Time, Past

“And if, in some distant place in the future, we see each other in our new lives, I will smile at you with joy, and remember how we spent a summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Love, Smile, Tree, Learning

“no matter what happens to us in the future, everyday we are together is the greatest day of my life. i will always be yours.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Life

“Even people capable of living in the past don't really know what the future holds.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

People, Past

“We can only die in the future, I thought; right now we are always alive.”

Amy Hempel (1951) Short story writer

Source: The Collected Stories

“You are speaking of my future lover. Be more respectful.”

Charlaine Harris book Club Dead

Source: Club Dead

Lovers

“A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world.”

Lois Wyse (1926–2007) American advertising executive

Life, World, Past, Friendship

“A pioneer is not someone who makes her own soap. She is one who takes up her burdens and walks toward the future.”

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (1938) American historian

“It was one of those moments when you feel the future so much that it humbles the present.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Feeling

“He was jealous of her future, and she of his past.”

Anaïs Nin book Delta of Venus

Source: Delta of Venus

Past

“God is in the résumé-building business. He is always using past experiences to prepare us for future opportunities.”

Mark Batterson (1969) American pastor and writer

Source: In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day: How To Survive And Thrive When Opportunity Roars

God, Business, Past

“The future for me is already a thing of the past.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Love and Theft (2001), Bye and Bye
Source: Bob Dylan - Love and Theft: Piano/Vocal/Guitar

Past, Valentine's Day, For Him, For Boyfriend

“The past is gone-the future is not come. And we are here together, you and I.”

Diana Gabaldon book The Fiery Cross

Source: The Fiery Cross

Past

“There is no past or future. Using tenses to divide time is like making chalk marks on water.”

Janet Frame (1924–2004) New Zealand author

Water, Time, Past

“I didn't dare think of the future; the past was still happening.”

John Grisham book The Street Lawyer

Source: The Street Lawyer

Thinking, Past

“Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs that should not survive an elementary school education.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

Women, Men, World, Education

“Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Life

“For your own good, for the good of your family and your future, grow a backbone. When something is wrong, stand up and say it is wrong, and don't back down.”

Dave Ramsey (1960) American financial advisor

Source: The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness

Family

“All I could think was that right there, in ever passing second, was the future winding itself own. Never would forever, with all its meanings, be so clear and distinct as in the true, guaranteed end of the world.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

World, Thinking

“You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Source: Survivor

Past

“I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality, if one may so speak.”

André Breton book Manifestoes of Surrealism

Source: Manifestoes of Surrealism

Dreams, Reality

“… I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing for future tense, songs of regret for past tense, and songs of love for present tense.”

Mary Doria Russell The Sparrow

Source: The Sparrow

Love, Past

“After all, the wrong is done. It is past and cannot be changed. We have only the present and the future upon which to move forward.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Source: Loving Each Other

Change, Past

“There's no escaping fate, it just keeps going. Day and night, the future just keeps coming at you.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Fate, Night

“Later she remembered all the hours of the afternoon as happy -- one of those uneventful times that seem at the moment only a link between past and future pleasure, but turn out to have been the pleasure itself.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: Tender is the Night

Happiness, Pleasure, Time, Past

“We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet- for the sake of hamburgers”

Peter Singer book Animal Liberation

Source: Animal Liberation

“Was I the only person who was distracted by this future without a chance?”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

Chance, Personality

“I was learning that if I lived slightly in the future-what will happen next-I didn't have to feel so much about what was going on in the present.”

Augusten Burroughs book Running with Scissors

Source: Running with Scissors

Feeling, Learning

“Make no mistake: peaceful madmen are ahead of the future.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Source: Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Peace

“The future happens. No matter how much we scream.”

Derek Walcott (1930–2017) Saint Lucian–Trinidadian poet and playwright

Source: The Odyssey

“The adolescents of my generation, greedy for life, forgot in body and soul about their hopes for the future until reality taught them that tomorrow was not what they had dreamed, and they discovered nostalgia.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Source: Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Life, Dreams, Hope, Soul

“I had come to regard him as a loner with no real past and a future so vague there was no sense talking about it.”

Hunter S. Thompson The Rum Diary

Source: 1990s, The Rum Diary (1998)

Sense, Past

“These guys, they were so sure of their places in life--so deeply confident of their merit and their future--they didn't need any kind of front at all.”

E. Lockhart book The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Source: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Life, Guy, Confidence

“If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Feeling, Reality, Change, Past

“You are unnerving the hell out of me, Valkyrie."
"oh" she frowned, petting her bat fitfully " I must have misread the future for the past." she shrugged. "It happens.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: MacRieve

Hell, Past

“In the blink of an eye, something happens by chance - when you least expect it - sets you on a course that you never planned, into a future you never imagined.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Lucky One

Source: The Lucky One

Imagination, Chance

“The future would end up finding out the truth about the past.”

Paulo Coelho book Like the Flowing River

Source: Like the Flowing River

Truth, Past

“There is no moment more precious than the exact moment they are living. And that exact moment has a lot to do with how future moments play out.”

Obert Skye book Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo

Source: Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo

“He's a two-faced, cutthroat, dirt-dumb, chickenshit, slimy little bastard… with a bright future in politics.”

John Grisham book The Confession

Source: Attorney Robbie Flak speaking of the (fictional) Governor of Texas, The Confession, Ch. 12 (2010)

“I don't think we have a future. I know we do. I want to marry you and have kids and be a stay-at-home writer dad while you take Boston journalism by storm. I want to wake up beside you every day for the rest of my life.”

Shannon Stacey (1972) american writer

Source: Exclusively Yours

Life, Home, Thinking

“Sometimes, Ms. Lane,” he said, “one must break with one’s past to embrace one’s future. It is never
an easy thing to do. It is one of the distinguishing characteristics between survivors and victims.
Letting go of what was, to survive what is.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Variant: Sometimes, Ms. Lane," he said, "one must break with one's past to embrace one's future. It is never an easy thing to do. It is one of the distinguishing characteristics between survivors and victims. Letting go of what was, to survive what is.
Source: Darkfever

Past

“Reading is awesome and flexible and fits around chores and earning money and building the future and whatever else I’m doing that day. My attitude towards reading is entirely Epicurean—reading is pleasure and I pursue it purely because I like it.”

Jo Walton (1964) Welsh Canadian writer

Money, Pleasure, Reading

“I just want to let you know that when I look into my future, I see nothing but you.” That’s what Chaz had whispered in my ear at some point during the wedding last night.

Then he’d whispered. “And you’re not even wearing Spanx.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Wedding, Night

“But then again maybe "I will" is nicer. It has a future in it.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Source: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

“But you only get so many do-overs in this life, so many chances to, if not change your past, alter your future.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Life, Change, Chance, Past

“Who do you love?
It's a question anyone should be able to answer. A question that defines a life, creates a future, guides most minutes of one's days. Simple, elegant encompassing.
Who do you love?”

Lisa Gardner (1956) American author

Love, Life, Question

“Enjoy the present, bid defiance to the future, laugh at all those reasonable beings who exercise their reason to avoid the misfortunes which they fear, destroying at the same time the pleasure that they might enjoy.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

Pleasure, Fear, Exercises, Time

“I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can.”

Gregory Maguire book Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Source: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Way, Past, Hurt

“There were some people who hit your life so hard, they left a stain on your future.”

Jodi Picoult book The Tenth Circle

Source: The Tenth Circle

Life, People

“Indeed, the direction of the future is only there in order to elude us.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: Literature and Evil

“For a moment, Percy actually remembered what it was like to be happy. He had an amazing girlfriend. They could have a future together.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Happiness

“Why do you wear a mask and hood?"
I think everybody will in the near future," was the man in black's reply. "They're terribly comfortable.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Thinking

“There are men you build a future with, Dani. And then there are men that you know, going in, that you're only making a memory with. I know the difference
.. Some memories are worth the price. I'll deal with it.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

Men, Memory

“It is youth’s felicity as well as its insufficiency that it can never live in the present, but must always be measuring up the day against its own radiantly imagined future”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, and Other Stories

Youth, Imagination

“When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 12, “Puzzle Pieces Fitting” (p. 88)

Children, Thinking, Childhood

“Oh God, without them [libraries], what have we? We have no past and we have no future.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Mojave magazine (November 1990)

God, Past

“The past does not equal the future.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

Past

“I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty, which will protect the beauty of our natural environment, which will preserve the great old American houses and squares and parks of our national past, and which will build handsome and balanced cities for our future.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Speech at Amherst College

Wisdom, Beauty, Nature, Past

“Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past, let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Past

“No past. No future. Just present. Give it a chance.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Every Day

Chance, Past

“They're already taking my future! They can't have the things that mattered to me in the past!”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Past

“One day all of this will be proof, proof that we were here, proof that we loved each other. It’s the guarantee that no matter what happens to us in the future, this time was ours. When”

Jenny Han book Always and Forever, Lara Jean

Source: Always and Forever, Lara Jean

Love, Time

“Every time we burn a gallon of gas or an acre of rain forest, aren't we killing the future to preserve the present?”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Time

“It's strange, I think, the way our lives turn out. Moments of circumstance, when later combined with conscious decisions and actions and a boatload of hope, can eventually forge a future that seems predestined.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Source: The Longest Ride

Hope, Way, Thinking, Decision

“The future was one thing that could never be broken, because it had not yet had the chance to be anything.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Saint Anything

Chance

“And if you were always spending your time getting over your past, how were you supposed to get on with your future?”

Candace Bushnell book Trading Up

Source: Trading Up

Time, Past

“Plans let past drives the future.”

Jason Fried software entrepreneur

Rework

Past

“Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.”

Carl Sagan book The Demon-Haunted World

Source: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Way, Science, Past

“Any system which allows men to choose their own future will end by choosing safety and mediocrity, and in such a Reality the stars are out of reach.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Men, Star, Reality

“Butch didn't live in his own place. He didn't spend his own money. He had no job, no future. He was a well-kept pet, not a man.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Revealed

Source: Lover Revealed

Money

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Money

“I want an infinitely blank book and the rest of time…
… why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time, my greatest regret is how much I believed in the future.”

Jonathan Safran Foer (1977) Novelist

Books, Learning, Time

“I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.”

George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer

Life

“What I'm mostly good at is sleeping, he once told me in confidence, but he added, I don't see much future in it.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Confidence, Sleep

“Would you complain because a beautiful sunset doesn't have a future or a shooting star a payoff? And why should romance 'lead anywhere'? Passion isn't a path through the woods. Passionthe woods.”

Tom Robbins Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

Source: Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

Beauty, Star, Passion

“The illusion that we understand the past fosters overconfidence in our ability to predict the future.”

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking, Fast and Slow

Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow

Understanding, Past

“But you cannot change your past, no matter how you craft your future.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto: A Novel

Change, Past

“The future is a hundred thousand threads, but the past is a fabric that can never be rewoven.”

Orson Scott Card book Xenocide

Source: Xenocide

Past

“The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.”

Gaylord Nelson (1916–2005) American politician

“The future is not a gift. It is an achievement.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

“For whatever the future holds, one thing is certain… It just won't be the same.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

Source: V for Vendetta, Vol. I of X

“Time keeps on… slippin'… slippin'… slippin' into the future.”

Jessica Bird book Covet

Source: Covet

Time

“Life is not a race to restore a past situation. Nor does one have to hurry to meet the future. Seeing how things change is what makes life interesting.”

Robin Hobb (1952) American fiction writer (pseudonym)

Life, Change, Past

“How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun

Life, Sadness, Beauty, Past

“The past attracts me, the present frightens me, because the future is death.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

Source: The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant, Part One

Death, Past

“Hey, Hot Stuff, Can’t wait till you get over that guy you were with. He sounds like a real jerk. Hope it’s soon. You’re way too tasty to be alone for too long. Come find me. I’m out here waiting. Your Future”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Hope, Jerk, Way, Guy

“The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future.”

Stephen E. Ambrose (1936–2002) American historian

Love, Faith, Hope, Knowledge

“There was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Usher II (1950)
The Martian Chronicles (1950)
Source: Fahrenheit 451
Context: They began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and, of course, films, one way or another, one group or another, political bias, religious prejudice, union pressures; there was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.

Past

“There is hope for the future because God has a sense of humor and we are funny to God.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

God, Hope, Sense

“May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Love

“In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.”

Alex Haley (1921–1992) African American biographer, screenwriter, and novelist

As quoted in Traits of a Healthy Family (1985) by Dolores Curran, p. 199.
Context: The family is our refuge and our springboard; nourished on it, we can advance to new horizons. In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.

Family, Past, Family

Quotes about the future page 9

Quotes about the future
page 9