“Life can only be understood backward; the trouble is, it has to be lived forward.”

— Zia Haider Rahman

In The Light of what We Know (2014)

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Zia Haider Rahman 13

British novelist

Adeline Yen Mah (1937) Author and physician

Source: Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Variant: Life can only be understood going backward, but must be lived going forward.

“Life can only be understood looking backward. It must be lived forward.”

Eric Roth (1945) American screenwriter

Source: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay

“Our lives can only be lived forward and understood backwards. Living a life and understanding it occupy different dimensions.”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Collected Stories

“It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Journals IV A 164 (1843)
See Phenomenology: Critical Concepts in Philosophy, by Dermot Moran (2002)
Variants:
We live forward, but we understand backward.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s