“Misunderstanding of the present is the inevitable consequence of ignorance of the past. But a man may wear himself out just as fruitlessly in seeking to understand the past, if he is totally ignorant of the present…This faculty of understanding the living is, in very truth, the master quality of the historian.”

“I'm very good at the past. It's the present I can't understand.”

“You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don't plan for it!”

“The present is only understandable through the past, with which it forms a living continuity; and the past is always grasped from our own partial viewpoint within the present.”

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

“The Master said, “A true teacher is one who, keeping the past alive, is also able to understand the present.”
(Analects 2.11)”

“The past doesn't matter. People cling to it because it allows them to ignore the present.”

“The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.”

“By living deeply in the present moment we can understand the past better and we can prepare for a better future.”

“History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past”