“It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.”
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
F. Scott Fitzgerald411
American novelist and screenwriter 1896–1940Related quotes
“If you are living in the past or in the future, you will never find a meaning in the present.”
Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet
Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni
“The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind.”
Kiran Desai book The Inheritance of Loss
Source: The Inheritance of Loss
Marcel Pagnol (1895–1974) novelist, playwright and filmmaker from France
Variant: People see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is and the future less resolved than it’ll be.
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist
Thích Nhất Hạnh here quotes and interprets the "Ten Penetrations" of the Avatamsaka Sutra
The Sun My Heart (1996)
Context: The tenth penetration is, "All times penetrate one time. One time penetrates all times — past, present, and future. In one second, you can find the past, present, and future." In the past, you can see the present and the future. In the present, you can find the past and future. In the future, you can find the past and present. They "inter-contain" each other. Space contains time, time contains space. In the teaching of interpenetration, one determines the other, the other determines this one. When we realize our nature of interbeing, we will stop blaming and killing, because we know that we inter-are.
Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer
Oneness With All Life: Inspirational Selections from A New Earth (2008)
Kris Kristofferson (1936) American country music singer, songwriter, musician, and film actor
Nobody Wins
Song lyrics, Jesus Was a Capricorn (1972)