Quotes about the past

A collection of quotes on the topic of past, paste, future, use.

Best quotes about the past

„The past has no power over the present moment.“

— Eckhart Tolle German writer 1948

„Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.“

— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910

„Suffering passes, but the fact of having suffered never passes.“

— Léon Bloy French writer, poet and essayist 1846 - 1917

Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, Volume 19, Association of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry., 1984 [Association of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry., 1984]

„Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.“

— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910

„What's past is prologue.“

— William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Source: The Tempest

„Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.“

— Oscar Wilde Irish writer and poet 1854 - 1900

„I like men who have a future and women who have a past.“

— Oscar Wilde Irish writer and poet 1854 - 1900

„So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.“

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Closing lines
Source: Quoted, The Great Gatsby (1925)

„Happiness depends upon ourselves“

— Aristotle Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy -384 - -321 BC

An interpretative gloss of Aristotle's position in Nicomachean Ethics book 1 section 9, tacitly inserted by J. A. K. Thomson in his English translation The Ethics of Aristotle (1955). The original Greek at Book I 1099b.29 http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&getid=0&query=Arist.%20Eth.%20Nic.%201099b.25, reads ὁμολογούμενα δὲ ταῦτ’ ἂν εἴη καὶ τοῖς ἐν ἀρχῇ, which W. D. Ross translates fairly literally as [a]nd this will be found to agree with what we said at the outset. Thomson's much freer translation renders the same passage thus: [t]he conclusion that happiness depends upon ourselves is in harmony with what I said in the first of these lectures; the words "that happiness depends upon ourselves" were added by Thomson to clarify what "the conclusion" is, but they do not appear in the original Greek of Aristotle. Rackham's earlier English translation added a similar gloss, but averted confusion by confining it to a footnote.
Disputed
Variant: Happiness depends upon ourselves
Source: See http://www.mikrosapoplous.gr/aristotle/nicom1b.htm#I9 for the original Greek and Ross's translation; Thomson's translation can be viewed on Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=9SFrNWmO654C&dq=%22happiness+depends+upon+ourselves%22+aristotle&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22happiness+depends+upon+ourselves%22+.
Source: Rackham's translation of this passage is available here http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D9%3Asection%3D8

„Can’t repeat the past?…Why of course you can!“

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

All quotes about the past

Total 4315 quotes past, filter:

„The history of the castle at Wiśnicz Nowy is enlivened by many legends. Many well-known artists visited the castle in centuries past. Till now, many elements of old architecture (towers, chapel) have survived, together with some details of interior design.“

— Marek Żukow-Karczewski Polish historian, journalist and opinion journalist 1961

The castle of Kmita and Lubomirski at Wiśnicz Nowy, "Aura" 2, 1991-02, p. 18-20. http://agro.icm.edu.pl/agro/element/bwmeta1.element.agro-bd5a073d-07bd-4353-9edc-6bf8ea3d43c5?q=de70f1df-826d-4538-9cee-535aa9902521$5&qt=IN_PAGE

History

„Sensitiveness to beauty of the world continues, and efforts to preserve it were also made in the past.“

— Marek Żukow-Karczewski Polish historian, journalist and opinion journalist 1961

Enchanted by beauty (three forgotten relations), "Aura" 1, 1998-01, p. 17-19. http://yadda.icm.edu.pl/yadda/element/bwmeta1.element.agro-article-d2f0773c-592e-4250-8f73-558234a9140e?q=3c417fdf-4051-4e84-83b2-9eb4fc33b1e0$1&qt=IN_PAGE

World, Beauty, Effort

„We are what the past has made us. We are what the future will make us. Live now. Right now.“

— Tom Hiddleston English actor, producer and musical performer 1981

Future, Making love

„For several years we have witnessed climatic irregularities that prompt fear and anxiety about the conditions of our future existence. However, the climatic anomalies occurred also in the past when the blame for environmental destruction could hardly be put on humans.“

— Marek Żukow-Karczewski Polish historian, journalist and opinion journalist 1961

Weather anomalies in Poland's past, "Aura" 7, 1990-07, p. 6-8. http://yadda.icm.edu.pl/yadda/element/bwmeta1.element.agro-545c16f1-b48e-46e2-a0d2-6a4babeeeea0?q=89e2d267-8e35-4c74-b570-25a195714d27$8&qt=IN_PAGE

Fear, Future

„I put a lot of mannequins in my room in the past, and I still have mannequins in my room, because I used to be very lonely, painfully lonely. You have no idea. I used to walk the streets looking for people to talk to. I'm talking about the height of one's career…. I would walk up to them, strangers, and say, "will you be my friend?" They'd go, "my god, Michael Jackson!"“

— Michael Jackson American singer, songwriter and dancer 1958 - 2009

and that's not what I wanted.
The Michael Jackson Interview: The Footage You Were Never Meant to See (2002)

God, People, Idea

„The future's too bright to dwell on the past. Life moves fast, run faster.“

— Frank Iero American musician 1981

Life, Future

„This place makes me think about the mistakes I've made in the past… and I've made so many of them.“

— Hatake Kakashi, book Naruto

To Yugao, about Obito's name engraved in the Memorial Stone

Thinking, Making love

„Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.“

— Anaïs Nin writer of novels, short stories, and erotica 1903 - 1977

Love, Death, Error, Nature

„Brazil is in a solid position. In the past, if the United States sneezed, we caught pneumonia. Today, if the United States sneezes, we sneeze too.“

— Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Brazilian politician, 35th president of Brazil 1945

" Interview transcript: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6d42ae3a-110b-11db-9a72-0000779e2340.html in: Financial Times, July 7, 2006

„Clouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky.“

— Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

292
Source: Stray Birds (1916)

Life

„This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.“

— Corrie ten Boom, book The Hiding Place

Source: The Hiding Place

God, Future, Personality, Perfection

„The past year and a half has been really transitional for me, just personally, as well as transitioning into becoming a woman.“

— Selena Gomez American singer and actress 1992

Personality

„The past is behind you and there is nothing you can do to change it. However, you are in total control of your future.

RJ Intindola – 1980 *“

— RJ Intindola (Gandolfo)

Future, Change

„The past is behind you and there is nothing you can do to change it. However, you are in total control of your future.

RJ Intindola – 1980 *“

— RJ Intindola (Gandolfo)

Future, Change

„Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.“

— George Orwell, book 1984

Source: 1984

Future

„The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.“

— George Orwell English author and journalist 1903 - 1950

This is often attributed to George Orwell book 1984. We cannot find it inside. Perharps this is post-mortem paraphrase of his quote "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past".

People, Way, History, Understanding

„Everything that is past is either a learning experience to grow on, a beautiful memory to reflect on, or a motivating factor to act upon.“

— Denis Waitley American writer 1933

Beauty, Motivation, Learning, Memory

„forget the past, for it is gone from your domain! forget the future, for it is beyond your reach! control the present! Live supremely well now! This is the way of the wise…“

— Paramahansa Yogananda Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship 1893 - 1952

Way, Future, Forgetting

„When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.“

— Dian Fossey American zoologist, gorilla researcher 1932 - 1985

Life, Future

„The one who forgives never brings up the past to that person's face. When you forgive, it's like it never happened. True forgiveness is complete and total.“

— Louis Zamperini Italian-American middle distance runner 1917 - 2014

Source: Devil at My Heels

Forgiveness, Personality

„You have to know the past to understand the present.“

— Carl Sagan American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator 1934 - 1996

Understanding

„I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.“

— James Baldwin, book The Fire Next Time

"Me and My House" in Harper's (November 1955); republished in Notes of a Native Son (1955)
Source: The Fire Next Time

Pain, Hate, People, Imagination

„If you could not accept the past and its burden, there was no future, for without one there cannot be the other, and […] if you could accept the past you might hope for the future, for only out of the past can you make the future.“

— Robert Penn Warren, book All the King's Men

Source: All the King's Men (1946)

Hope, Future

„Everyone has got to realise you can't hold onto the past if you want any future. Each second should lead to the next one.“

— Joe Strummer British musician, singer, actor and songwriter 1952 - 2002

Interview for Sounds Magazine on 17 July 1982. [Armed Combat, Sounds Magazine, 17 July 1982]

Future

„When you speak in His presence about your past sins, He does not even understand your language. Only the present and the future have any interest for Him... I have committed crimes and have blood on my conscience. I told Jesus about it again and again. But because He had long ago washed all this away, there was no possibility of communication between us. He did not understand what I was talking about.“

— Richard Wurmbrand Romanian Christian minister of Jewish descent 1909 - 2001

If Prison Walls Could Speak (1972)

Communication, Understanding, Future

„I am strong. I lived through a divorce, separation from my family. I never let it break me down. I’m not an alcoholic. I’ve never smoked, I’ve never done drugs. I’ve floated through the disaster of my past clean. I arrived here undamaged.“

— Tina Turner singer, dancer, actress, and author 1939

Tina Turner is a soul survivor http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/music/141823/Tina-Turner-is-a-soul-survivor, Daily Express, 22th of November 2009

Alcohol, Family, Strong

„It has always been the particular forte of German leadership to grant wide scope to the self-dependence of subordinate commanders - to allot them tasks which leave the method of execution to the discretion of the individual. From time immemorial - certainly since the elder Moltke's day - this principle has distinguished Germany's military leadership from that of other armies.“

— Erich von Manstein German general 1887 - 1973

Describing Mission Command, Lost Victories, The Winter Campaign In South Russia

Time, Dependency

„There's no future without the past and anybody who doesn't really understand where jazz has come from has no right to try to direct where it's going.“

— Cannonball Adderley American jazz alto saxophonist 1928 - 1975

Interviewed by the "Chicago SEED", November 1968

Understanding, Future

„How unsearchable his judgments [are] and past tracing out his ways [are]! For “who has come to know Jehovah’s mind, or who has become his counselor?“

— Paul of Tarsus, book Epistle to the Romans

Romans 11:33 http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/romans/11/, NWT
Epistle to the Romans
Context: O the depth of God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How unsearchable his judgments [are] and past tracing out his ways [are]! For “who has come to know Jehovah’s mind, or who has become his counselor?”

Way

„Tattoos are interesting, but at the same time they are also a mask – you are exhibiting your past life on your body.“

— Keanu Reeves Canadian actor, director, producer and musician 1964

Life, Time, Tattoo

„The present is short lived. Difficult to define it without disturbing the past and the future events.“

— Mwanandeke Kindembo 1996

Future

„All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.“

— Nikola Tesla Serbian American inventor 1856 - 1943

A Means for Furthering Peace (1905)
Context: It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world!... Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discover's keen searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the heartless strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.

„Past is dead
Future is uncertain;
Present is all you have,
So eat, drink and live merry.“

— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955

Drink, Future, Dead

„Falling down ain't falling down,
If you don't cry when you hit the floor,
It's called the past cause I'm getting past,
And I ain't nothing like I was before,
You ought to see me now“

— Alicia Keys American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress 1981

Cry

„Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now; and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?“

— Eckhart Tolle German writer 1948

A New Earth (2005)
Variant: Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now, and if the past cant prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

„Don't be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise it will be too easy for you to look with blame… at your past, which naturally has a share with everything that now meets you.“

— Rainer Maria Rilke, book Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

Nature, Drawing

„The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.“

— Immanuel Kant German philosopher 1724 - 1804

Books, Reading

„If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.“

— George Burns American comedian, actor, and writer 1896 - 1996

People, Age, Funny

„For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.“

— T.S. Eliot, book Four Quartets

Variant: For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."

()
Source: Four Quartets

New Year

„As a matter of fact," the other voice went on, "if you do tie her up from time to time, or whip her just a little, and she begins to like it, that’s no good either. You have to get past the pleasure stage, until you reach the stage of tears.“

— Pauline Réage, book Story of O

Source: Story of O

Pleasure, Tear, Time

„She had been born for this man, and she had spent so many years trying to accept the fact that he had been born for someone else…“

— Julia Quinn American novelist 1970

Source: Romancing Mister Bridgerton

„It isn't a matter of forgetting. What one has to learn is how to remember and yet be free of the past.“

— Aldous Huxley, book Island

Source: Island

Learning, Forgetting

„My past, O Lord, to Your mercy; my present, to Your love; my future to Your providence.“

— Padre Pio Italian saint, priest, stigmatist and mystic 1887 - 1968

Love, Future

„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, book Eldest

Saphira
Source: Eldest (2005)

Fear, Future

„Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future.“

— Paulo Freire, book Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2

Understanding, Future

„You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.“

— Johnny Cash American singer-songwriter 1932 - 2003

Variant: You build on failure. You use it as a stepping sone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.

Failure, Time, Forgetting, Wise

„A person functioning exclusively in the Cartesian mode may be free from manifest symptoms but cannot be considered mentally healthy. Such individuals typically lead ego-centred, competitive, goal-oriented lives. Overpreoccupied with their past and their future, they tend to have a limited awarenessof the present and thus a limited ability to derive satisfaction from ordinary activities in everyday life. They concentrate on manipulating the external world and measure their living standard by the quantity of material possessions, while they become ever more alienated from their inner world and unable to appreciate the process of life. For people whose existence is dominated by this mode of experience no level of wealth, power, or fame will bring genuine satisfaction“

— Fritjof Capra American physicist 1939

Life, People, World, Future

„You can't undo the past but you can certainly not repeat it.“

— Bruce Willis American actor, producer, and musician 1955

US Magazine. Issue 249.

„The Rhapsody is not a composition at all. It's a string of separate paragraphs stuck together — with a thin paste of flour and water… I don’t think there has been such an inspired melodist on this earth since Tchaikovsky… but if you want to speak of a composer, that's another matter.“

— Leonard Bernstein American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist 1918 - 1990

Of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
"Why Don't You Run Upstairs and Write a Nice Gershwin Tune?", in The Atlantic Monthly, April 1955.

Thinking, Water

„I wish that every young man when he begins to write music would not concern himself with being a melodist, a harmonist, a realist, an idealist or a futurist or any other such devilish pedantic things. Melody and harmony should be simply tools in the hands of the artist, with which he creates music; and if a day comes when people stop talking about the German school, the Italian school, the past, the future, etc., etc., then art will perhaps come into its own.“

— Giuseppe Verdi Italian composer 1813 - 1901

Io…vorrei che il giovane quando si mette a scrivere, non pensasse mai ad essere né melodista, né realista, né idealista, né avvenirista, né tutti i diavoli che si portino queste pedanterie. La melodia e l’armonia non devono essere che mezzi nella mano dell'artista per fare della Musica, e se verrà un giorno in cui non si parlerà più né di melodia né di armonia né di scuole tedesche, italiane, né di passato né di avvenire ecc. ecc. ecc. allora forse comincierà il regno dell'arte.
Letter to Opprandino Arrivabene, July 14, 1875, cited from Julian Budden Le opere di Verdi (Torino: E.D.T., 1986) vol. 2, p. 60; translation from Josiah Fisk and Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997) p. 126

People, School, Art, Music

„Sprinting from one shady patch to another to escape the blistering heat of the sun on my journey to school
Felling the massacre on that fearsome night when most of my family was slaughtered
racing trains for fun
outrunning the police when I was caught stealing in Shahdra
leaving every one behind in my first race as an army jawan so that I could get an extra glass of milk
surging past my competitors in Tokyo when I was declared Asia’s best athlete
Running in Pakistan and being hailed as "The Flying Sikh."“

— Milkha Singh Indian track and field athlete 1935

The Race of My Life: An Autobiography Milkha Singh (2013)

School, Family, Sun, Flying

„Endurance is composed of four attributes: eagerness, fear, piety and anticipation (of death). so whoever is eager for Paradise will ignore temptations; whoever fears the fire of Hell will abstain from sins; whoever practices piety will easily bear the difficulties of life and whoever anticipates death will hasten towards good deeds.
Conviction has also four aspects to guard oneself against infatuations of sin; to search for explanation of truth through knowledge; to gain lessons from instructive things and to follow the precedent of the past people, because whoever wants to guard himself against vices and sins will have to search for the true causes of infatuation and the true ways of combating them out and to find those true ways one has to search them with the help of knowledge, whoever gets fully acquainted with various branches of knowledge will take lessons from life and whoever tries to take lessons from life is actually engaged in the study of the causes of rise and fall of previous civilizations.
Justice also has four aspects depth of understanding, profoundness of knowledge, fairness of judgment and dearness of mind; because whoever tries his best to understand a problem will have to study it, whoever has the practice of studying the subject he is to deal with, will develop a clear mind and will always come to correct decisions, whoever tries to achieve all this will have to develop ample patience and forbearance and whoever does this has done justice to the cause of religion and has led a life of good repute and fame.
Jihad is divided into four branches: to persuade people to be obedient to Allah; to prohibit them from sin and vice; to struggle (in the cause of Allah) sincerely and firmly on all occasions and to detest the vicious. Whoever persuades people to obey the orders of Allah provides strength to the believers; whoever dissuades them from vices and sins humiliates the unbelievers; whoever struggles on all occasions discharges all his obligations and whoever detests the vicious only for the sake of Allah, then Allah will take revenge on his enemies and will be pleased with Him on the Day of Judgment.“

— Ali, book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Life, Death, People, Truth

„A fine thing: suddenly to forget about one’s history, one’s past, to stop feeling that one’s present happiness is endangered by what one used to be.“

— Peter Handke Austrian writer, playwright and film director 1942

Source: Das Gewicht der Welt [The Weight of the World], p. 7

Feeling, History, Forgetting, Happiness

„When we enter a new situation in life and are confronted by a new person, we bring with us the prejudices of the past and our previous experiences of people. These prejudices we project upon the new person. Indeed, getting to know a person is largely a matter of withdrawing projections; of dispelling the smoke screen of what we imagine he is like and replacing it with the reality of what he is actually like.“

— Karl Popper Austrian-British philosopher of science 1902 - 1994

Anthony Storr as quoted in The Observer (12 July 1970)
Misattributed

Life, People, Imagination, Reality

„A shot in the dark
A past lost in space
Where do I start?
The past and the chase
You hunted me down
Like a wolf, a predator
I felt like a deer in the lights“

— Sia (musician) Australian singer 1975

She Wolf (Falling to Pieces), Nothing But the Beat 2.0 (2012). Cowritten with David Guetta, Chris Braide and Giorgio Tuinfort.
Songs

Light, Wolf

„Let us turn to the past: that will be progress.“

— Giuseppe Verdi Italian composer 1813 - 1901

Tornate all'antico e sarà un progresso.
Letter to Francesco Florimo, January 5, 1871, cited from Francesco Florimo Riccardo Wagner ed i wagneristi (Ancona: A. G. Morelli, 1883) p. 108; translation from Charles Osborne (ed. and trans.) Letters of Giuseppe Verdi (London: Victor Gollancz, 1971) p. 169.

„Ashoka’s emblem of the Amlaki will be seen on the cornices of the Institute, and towering above all is the symbol of thunderbolt. It was the RishiDadhichi, the pure and blameless, who offered his life that the divine weapon, the thunderbolt, might be fashioned out of his bones to smite evil and exalt righteousness. It is but half of the Amlaki that we can offer now. But the past shall be reborn in a yet nobler future. We stand here today and resume work tomorrow, so that by the efforts of our lives and our unshaken faith in the future we may all help to build the greater India yet to be.“

— Jagadish Chandra Bose Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist 1858 - 1937

Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose in Vijayaprasara

Life, Faith, Fashion, Effort

„To ordain conscience for Heaven and Earth, to secure life and fortune for the people, to continue the lost teachings of past sages, and to establish peace for all future generations.“

— Zhang Zai Chinese philosopher 1020 - 1077

Complete Works of Master Zhang, "Supplements to Reflections on Things at Hand", as quoted in Wang Chunyong's Famous Chinese Sayings Quoted by Wen Jiabao, trans. Chan Sin-wai (Hong Kong: Chung Hwa Book Co., 2009), p. 10
Original: (zh) 为天地立心，为生民立命，为往圣继绝学，为万世开太平。

Life, People, Peace, Future

„I think we're past the time in history where you have to come out and say, "you know I'm just happy all the time! I'm a joker, I'm a crazy man!"“

— Jim Carrey Canadian-American actor, comedian, and producer 1962

you know kind of thing. I think people understand I can turn that switch on but I'm also a sensitive, normal human being with feelings and I know how to express those too.
Fun with Dick & Jane: An Interview with Jim Carrey http://www.blackfilm.com/20051216/features/jimcarrey.shtml by Wilson Morales in Features, BlackFilm.com (December 2005)

History, Thinking, Time, Happiness

„If you find it necessary to judge me by my past… don’t be surprised when I find it necessary to put you there.“

— Will Smith American actor, film producer and rapper 1968

„If we dwell on real or imagined sins of the past, we shall never be able to find one another in the present, nor shall we be able to work together on building the future.“

— F. W. de Klerk South African politician 1936

Speech to the Good-will Foundation (9 March 1991)
1990s

Future, Imagination

„Another Boring Love Story

She was risky at best.
She had a sordid past.
She was complicated.
She was wild.
She had numerous demons.
But she had a loving heart.
But she had a soft smile.
But her tears smelled like morning dew.
But she was intelligent and worldly.
But she intimidated men.
So, I dove in headfirst without a second thought.
And wow; she was a demon.
The End“

— RJ Intindola (Gandolfo)

2005

Smile, Intelligence, Heart, Love

„In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.“

— Albert Camus French author and journalist 1913 - 1960

Summer, Winter, Learning, Motivational

„You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future.“

— Karen Blixen Danish writer 1885 - 1962

Future, Change

„I saved a girl from being attacked last night. I controlled myself.“

— Rodney Dangerfield American actor and comedian 1921 - 2004

Variant: I saved a girl from being attacked last night. I controlled myself.

Girl, Night

„The future is there," Cayce hears herself say, "looking back at us. Trying to make sense of the fiction we will have become. And from where they are, the past behind us will look nothing at all like the past we imagine behind us now.“

— William Gibson, book Pattern Recognition

Source: Pattern Recognition

Imagination, Sense, Future

„Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible…We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.“

— Maya Angelou American author and poet 1928 - 2014

Future, Motivational

„The belly is an ungrateful wretch, it never remembers past favors, it always wants more tomorrow.“

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Source: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)

„The past is a ghost, the future a dream and all we ever have is now.“

— Bill Cosby American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist 1937

Dreams, Future

„The past can't hurt you anymore, not unless you let it.“

— Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

Hurt

„To have compassion for those who suffer is a human quality which everyone should possess, especially those who have required comfort themselves in the past and have managed to find it in others.“

— Giovanni Boccaccio, book The Decameron

Source: The Decameron

Suffering

„When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction.“

— Stephen King, book Joyland

Source: Joyland

„The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.“

— Henri Bergson, book Matter and Memory

Source: Matter and Memory

Truth, Memory, Future

„Understand the nature and influence of repeating patterns, from childhood experiences or even from past lives. Wthout understanding, patterns tend to repeat, unnecessarily damaging the relationship.“

— Brian L. Weiss

Source: Messages from the Masters: Tapping into the Power of Love

Understanding, Nature, Childhood

„Remembrance restores possibility to the past, making what happened incomplete and completing what never was. Remembrance is neither what happened nor what did not happen but, rather, their potentialization, their becoming possible once again.“

— Giorgio Agamben Italian philosopher 1942

Source: Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy

„… the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect.“

— Zadie Smith, book White Teeth

Variant: A past tense, future perfect kind of night.
Source: White Teeth (2000)

Lie, Future, Perfection

„Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.“

— George Orwell, book 1984

Source: 1984

Future

„How can you become old in spirit? Only by carrying the past, isn't it? If you carry sixty years of burden with you, you're sixty years old. If you don't carry anything, you're like a newborn. The physical body may develop limitations, but the way you are has no limitations. It simply has no limitations. You are this many years old or that many years old simply because you carry that many years of garbage with you.“

— Sadhguru Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian 1957

Source: Mystic's Musings

Way

„Forgive the past. It is over. Learn from it and let go. People are constantly changing and growing. Do not cling to a limited, disconnected, negative image of a person in the past. See that person now. Your relationship is always alive and changing.“

— Brian L. Weiss

Source: Messages from the Masters: Tapping into the Power of Love

People, Forgiveness, Learning, Change

„He was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.“

— Gabriel García Márquez, book Love in the Time of Cholera

Variant: .. the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and [that] thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past
Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Memory, Heart