“It is delightful in itself when we are able to interpret features of the present as signs confirming our understanding of the past.”

“Happiness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself; nor do we delight in happiness because we restrain from our lusts; but on the contrary, because we delight in it, therefore we are able to restrain them.”

“When we are mired in the relative world, never lifting our gaze to the mystery, our life is stunted, incomplete; we are filled with yearning for that paradise that is lost when, as young children, we replace it with words and ideas and abstractions — such as merit, such as past, present, and future — our direct, spontaneous experience of the thing itself, in the beauty and precision of this present moment. We identify, label, and interpret our surroundings as abstract concepts, quite separate from another concept, which is our own separate identity and ego.”

“Appeals to the past are among the commonest of strategies in interpretations of 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 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.”

“We are quick to forgive and forget about the past, or our memories when we find the present satisfying.”

“When a person is confirmed by others, there has to be some sign of recognition.”

“As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to understand something of its past history and its possible future.”

“We go to the past to lay the blame - since the past can't argue. We go to our past selves to account for our present miseries.”