Source: Man’s Search for Himself (1953), p. 227
Context: The first thing necessary for a constructive dealing with time is to learn to live in the reality of the present moment. For psychologically speaking, this present moment is all we have. The past and future have meaning because they are part of the present: a past event has existence now because you are thinking of it at this present moment, or because it influences you so that you, as a living being in the present, are that much different. The future has reality because one can bring it into his mind in the present. Past was the present at one time, and the future will be the present at some coming moment. To try to live in the "when" of the future or the "then" of the past always involves an artificiality, a separating one's self from reality; for in actuality one exists in the present. The past has meaning as it lights up the present, and the future as it makes the present richer and more profound.
“Present and past—what had Dr. Orme said about that? The light was most fully in the present when, flaring up, it met John's eye directly. Whatever else he saw must have been lit up before and now shone only within his own eye—a light of the past.”
p, 125
The Discovery of Slowness (1983, 1987)
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Sten Nadolny 21
German novelist 1942Related quotes
Geological Sketches (1870), ch. 2, pp. 31–32 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044018968388;view=1up;seq=49
“I'm keeping an eye on the future, an eye on the past, and the present in my pocket.”
Lyrics, Light Grenades (2006)
Source: 1980s, Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983), Chapter 2, p. 62
Pherecydes, 2.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 2: Socrates, his predecessors and followers
“He swore, pissed off, trying to keep the past in the past instead of stinking up the present.”
Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 11 (p. 130)
Time in History: Views of Time from Prehistory to the Present Day (1988), p. 21
On Eagle's Wings, 1977, p. 159
As of a Trumpet, On Eagle's Wings
The Golden Man (1954)
Context: "He can look ahead. See what's coming. He can — prethink. Let's call it that. He can see into the future. Probably he doesn't perceive it as the future."
"No," Anita said thoughtfully. "It would seem like the present. He has a broader present. But his present lies ahead, not back. Our present is related to the past. Only the past is certain, to us. To him, the future is certain. And he probably doesn't remember the past, any more than any animal remembers what happened."
"As he develops," Baines said, "as his race evolves, it'll probably expand its ability to prethink. Instead of ten minutes, thirty minutes. Then an hour. A day. A year. Eventually they'll be able to keep ahead a whole lifetime. Each one of them will live in a solid, unchanging world. There'll be no variables, no uncertainty. No motion! They won't have anything to fear. Their world will be perfectly static, a solid block of matter."
"And when death comes," Anita said, "they'll accept it. There won't be any struggle; to them, it'll already have happened."