Quotes about present (4870 quotes, page 48)

“Past is gone , present is going and tomorrow is day after tomorrow's yesterday . So why worry about anything ? God is in all this .”

R. K. Narayan (1906–2001) writer of Indian English literature

The Painter Of Signs(1977)

Past , God

“When agony is not present, no matter how imminent it looms, painful change must come from outside. This is a truth.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Fresco (2000), Chapter 20, p. 157

Truth , Pain , Change

“BECOME A WORTHY CONDUIT OF GOD’S LOVE AND CREATIVE POWER OF REALIZATION. LIKE A LIGHTNING FLASH, WHEN CONDITIONS ARE PRESENT, THE LIGHT SUDDENLY FILLS US, ILLUMINATING THE WORLD FOR AN INSTANT.”

Alex Grey (1953) American artist

Art Psalms (2008), The Plan

God , Light , World , Love

“Happiness is closer to the experience of acceptance and contentment than it is to pleasure. True happiness exists as the spacious and compassionate heart's willingness to feel whatever is present.”

Noah Levine (1971) American Buddhist teacher

Against the Stream (2007)

Happiness , Heart , Pleasure , Feeling

“At present the whole world is passing through thrice difficult days, and it was indicated to read in the Apocalypse the first verse, chapter 21—"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth" so it is, and with the old consciousness one cannot enter the New World.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

11 February 1938
Armageddon

World , Reading

“Yoga takes you into the present moment, the only place where life exists.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

Patanjali, in "Being Consciousness Bliss: A Seeker's Guide", p. 205.

Life

“I am a straightforward man, with no crime on my conscience,
But I was accused of being a spy for China
So life, you see, is never a very smooth business
And now the present bristles with difficulties.”

Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese communist leader and first president of Vietnam

"Hard is the Road of Life"
1950's

Business , Life

“I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge. And those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any. That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country. The pride in who we are is not a part of our past, it defines our present and our future.”

Isabel II do Reino Unido (1926–2022) queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations

Address to the UK and Commonwealth during the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, 05/04/2020 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/queens-speech-coronavirus-full-transcript-text-read-a9448531.html.

Country , Strong , Past , Future

“It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do the sick no harm. It is quite necessary, nevertheless, to lay down such a principle, because the actual mortality in hospitals, especially in those of large crowded cities, is very much higher than any calculation founded on the mortality of the same class of diseases among patients treated out of hospital would lead us to expect. The knowledge of this fact first induced me to examine into the influence exercised by hospital construction on the duration and death-rate of cases received into the wards; and it led me to lay before the Social Science Association a paper reprinted with the present title. Since the publication of the first edition of that paper, great advances have been made in the adoption of sound principles of hospital construction; and there are already a number of examples of new hospitals realizing all, or nearly all, the conditions required for the successful treatment of the sick and maimed poor.”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Notes on Hospitals 3rd Edition (1863), Preface

Success , Knowledge , Exercises , Science

“I have a line in the last book about how to draw an invisible man, and it says, “I’m trying to be transparent.” I don’t actually want to be invisible, which is the dilemma of people of color, but I would like to be transparent, so people can see what my issues are, good and bad. I just try to be transparent and very present, and then see what happens.”

Terrance Hayes (1971) American poet

On seeking transparency in “Terrance Hayes on Shakespeare, Ol’ Dirty Bastard and What Makes a Good MFA” https://lithub.com/terrance-hayes-on-shakespeare-ol-dirty-bastard-and-what-makes-a-good-mfa/ in Lit Hub (2018 May 9)

Drawing , Bad luck , People , Books

“Now, India presents the greatest of all fields for missionary exertion, greater even than China.”

Sir Richard Temple, 1st Baronet (1826–1902) British politician

“I learned, after my mother's death, that she could read, and that she was the only one of all the slaves and colored people in Tuckahoe who enjoyed that advantage. How she acquired this knowledge, I know not, for Tuckahoe is the last place in the world where she would be apt to find facilities for learning. I can, therefore, fondly and proudly ascribe to her an earnest love of knowledge. That a "field hand" should learn to read, in any slave state, is remarkable; but the achievement of my mother, considering the place, was very extraordinary; and, in view of that fact, I am quite willing, and even happy, to attribute any love of letters I possess, and for which I have got—despite of prejudices—only too much credit, not to my admitted Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated mother—a woman, who belonged to a race whose mental endowments it is, at present, fashionable to hold in disparagement and contempt.”

Frederick Douglass book My Bondage and My Freedom

Source: 1850s, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), Chapter 3: Parentage.

Love , Reading , Making love , Happiness

“I see and appreciate beauty in my weird little way. It’s easy to buy presents or make romantic gestures, but the more simple things demonstrate you really know someone – that’s what I find sexy and romantic. Being romantic is knowing what makes the person you love happy.”

Liv Tyler (1977) American actress, producer and former model

Liv Tyler reveals what she finds sexy and romantic about husband David Gardner https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/liv-tyler-reveals-what-finds-13970530 (February 10, 2019)

Personality , Beauty , Happiness , Way

“You change the world not through some all-encompassing ideology or mass religious conversion or misplaced dreams of the future, but by achieving the maturation and dignity of each individual in the present, here and now.”

Mark Manson book Everything Is Fucked

World , Future , Dreams , Change

“When I see the present Socialist Government denouncing capitalism in all its forms, mocking with derision and contempt the tremendous free enterprise capitalist system on which the mighty production of the United States is founded, I cannot help feeling that as a nation we are not acting honourably or even honestly.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Churchill By Himself: The Definitive Collections of Quotations, ed. Richard Langworth, 2008, p. 124, (1948, 10 July) Woodford, Essex, Europe, 374)
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Feeling , Help

“A non-mathematical presentation has necessary limitations; and the reader who wishes to learn how certain exact results follow from Einstein's, or even Newton's, law of gravitation is bound to seek the reasons in a mathematical treatise. ...[T]he geometry of relativity in its perfect harmony expresses a truth... which my bowdlerised version misses.
But the mind is not content to leave scientific Truth in a dry husk of mathematical symbols, and demands that it shall be alloyed with familiar images.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Space, Time and Gravitation (1920)

Law , Learning , Perfection , Truth

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Paul of Tarsus book Epistle to the Romans

Epistle to the Romans

God , Pain , Time , Waiting

“The last hundred years have shown... that one man cannot do it all, and that anyone who attempts to hold within his two hands all the threads of a great business of the present day fails to achieve the greatest success.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

Business , Success

“One of the chief differences between the commerce of the sixteenth century and of the twentieth lies in the wonderful and complicated organizations of the present day. Their magnitude makes even the largest of those of which we have been reading seem insignificant.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

Making love , Reading

“Initiation leads to the mount whence vision can be had, a vision of the eternal Now, wherein past, present, and future exist as one.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: Initiation, Human and Solar (1922), p. 13

Past , Future

“Initially, new ideas are rejected. Later they become dogma, if you’re right. And if you’re really lucky you can publish your rejections as part of your Nobel presentation.”

Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1921–2011) American medical physicist

From a speech given by Rosalyn Yalow to a group of school children approximately five years after being awarded the Nobel Prize, as quoted by the New York Times, June 2, 2011 https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/us/02yalow.html.

Idea , Parting

“A man must be either conscientiously scientific in his approach or frankly speculative. What he must not do is present his speculative untested ideas in a manner and style of dogmatic certainty that they are not entitled to claim. This is being pseudo-scientific.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Source: Man and Time (1964), Ch. 11, p. 271

Idea

“Present excitement will at all times magnify present dangers, but true philosophy must teach us that none more threatening than the past can remain to be overcome; and we ought (for we have just reason) to entertain an abiding confidence in the stability of our institutions and an entire conviction that if administered in the true form, character, and spirit in which they were established they are abundantly adequate to preserve to us and our children the rich blessings already derived from them, to make our beloved land for a thousand generations that chosen spot where happiness springs from a perfect equality of political rights.”

Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) American politician, 8th President of the United States (in office from 1837 to 1841)

Inaugural address (1837)

Confidence , Time , Past , Happiness

“...the French business is no light or trivial thing, or such as has commonly occurd in the course of political Events. At present the whole political State of Europe hinges upon it. On the Continent there is little doubt; every thing will take is future shape and colour from the good or ill success of the Duke of Brunswick. In my opinion, it is the most important crisis that ever existed in the World. ... My poor opinion is, that these principles...cannot possibly be realized in practice in France, without an absolute certainty and that at no remote period, of overturning the whole fabrick of the British Constitution.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

1790s
Source: Letter to the Foreign Secretary Lord Grenville (19 September 1792), quoted in P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VII: January 1792–August 1794 (1968), pp. 218-219

Success , Business , Light , Future

“In the present situation, such an experiment would be doubly dangerous to the Russian Social Democracy. It stands on the eve of decisive battles against tsarism. It is about to enter, or has already entered, on a period of intensified creative activity, during which it will broaden (as is usual in a revolutionary period) its sphere of influence and will advance spontaneously by leaps and bounds. To attempt to bind the initiative of the party at this moment, to surround it with a network of barbed wire, is to render it incapable of accomplishing the tremendous task of the hour.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Leninism or Marxism? (1904)

Democracy , Decision

“Communist parties are both legal and illegal, and the illegal structure governs the legal. But legality is an enormous aid to the illegal conspiracy. It prevents forthright action against the chief criminals; it leads to roundabout persecution; it enables the Communist to deceive simple, generous-hearted, and gullible citizens, and it leads to dubiously legal actions from the government itself. The present half-legal, half-persecuted position of the Party and its members is not justice. It operates to eliminate one evil with another, both evils containing dangers to the Constitutional order.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, “The Truth about Communism” https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051180423&view=1up&seq=5 (1948), p. 15-16

Evil , Justice , Heart

“All Communists speak of the Soviet Union as their ‘Fatherland.’ At this seventh Congress, Marcel Cachin, one of the French delegates, said, ‘Comrades, all the parties of the Communist International have never been more attached than at the present time to their Fatherland, the Soviet Union.’”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, “The Truth about Communism” https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051180423&view=1up&seq=5 (1948), p. 8

Time

“Lynchings in the past have significantly shaped race relations in the present. A killing such as George Floyd’s lands on black people with a much heavier psychological weight because of lynching’s legacy. Too many white people fail to recognize this, and that needs to change. The hurt is too great, the simmering fear and anger too volatile, to bury forever. All Americans who would seek or demand a nation that is fairer to every citizen, less racist, and more peaceful have a responsibility to know this history in detail. … Confronting this ugliness would be difficult for everyone, of course, but it should be attempted. Ignorance and denial certainly have not worked, because this American wound still bleeds.”

Guy P. Harrison (1963) American skeptic author

Hurt , Peace , Anger , History

“There is a great affinity in me with the Hindu genius - that mind, vast, imaginative, loving, dreamy and speculative, but destitute of ambition, personality and will. Pantheistic disinterestedness, the effacement of the self in the great whole, womanish gentleness, a horror of slaughter, antipathy to action - these are all present in my nature, in the nature at least which has been developed by years and circumstances. Still the West has also its part in me. What I have found difficult to keep up a prejudice in favor of my form, nationality or individuality whatever. Hence my indifference to my own person, my own usefulness, interest or opinions of the moment. What does it all matter? It is not perhaps not a bad thing,' he says, 'that in the midst of the devouring activities of the Western world there should be a few Brahmanical souls.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

Source: Amie1, Henri Frederic Amie! s journal: The Journal intime of Henri-Frederic Amie! p. 159 161,224. and 269.
Quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.

Soul , Imagination , Indifference , Personality

“When I announced in April of 1961 that this kind of comprehensive tax reform would follow the bill enacted this year, I had hoped to present it in an atmosphere of a balanced budget. But it has been necessary to augment sharply our nuclear and conventional forces, to step up our efforts in space, to meet the increased cost of servicing the national debt and meeting our obligations, established by law, to veterans. These expenditure increases, let me stress, constitute practically all of the increases which have occurred under this administration, the remainder having gone to fight the recession we found in industry--mostly through the supplemental employment bill-and in agriculture. We shall, therefore, neither postpone our tax cut plans nor cut into essential national security programs. This administration is determined to protect America's security and survival and we are also determined to step up its economic growth. I think we must do both.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Law , Hope , Thinking , Fight

“The new tax bill should improve both the equity and the simplicity of our present tax system. This means the enactment of long-needed tax reforms, a broadening of the tax base and the elimination or modification of many special tax privileges. These steps are not only needed to recover lost revenue and thus make possible a larger cut in present rates; they are also tied directly to our goal of greater growth. For the present patchwork of special provisions and preferences lightens the tax load of some only at the cost of placing a heavier burden on others. It distorts economic judgments and channels an undue amount of energy into efforts to avoid tax liabilities. It makes certain types of less productive activity more profitable than other more valuable undertakings. All this inhibits our growth and efficiency, as well as considerably complicating the work of both the taxpayer and the Internal Revenue Service. These various exclusions and concessions have been justified in part as a means of overcoming oppressively high rates in the upper brackets--and a sharp reduction in those rates, accompanied by base-broadening, loophole-closing measures, would properly make the new rates not only lower but also more widely applicable. Surely this is more equitable on both counts.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Making love , Parting , Effort

“I am talking about the accumulated evidence of the last 5 years that our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peace time; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking. In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the Federal Government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures. [...] While rising demand will expand imports, new investment in more efficient productive facilities will aid exports and a new economic climate could both draw capital from abroad and keep capital here at home.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Home , Peace , Drawing , Time

“The final and best means of strengthening demand among consumers and business is to reduce the burden on private income and the deterrents to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system; and this administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Business , Personality , Summer

“No one, I think, can deny that the depression of the agricultural interest is excessive. Though I can recall periods of suffering, none of them have ever equalled the present in its instances. ... [N]or is it open to doubt that foreign competition has exercised a most injurious influence on the agricultural interests of the country. The country, however, was perfectly warned that if we made a great revolution in our industrial system, that was one of the consequences that would accrue. I may mention that the great result of the returns we possess is this, that the immense importations of foreign agricultural produce have been vastly in excess of what the increased demands of our population actually require, and that is why the low prices are maintained...That is to a great degree the cause of this depression.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech in the House of Lords on the agricultural depression (28 March 1879), reported in The Times (29 March 1879), p. 8

Country , Thinking , Suffering , Exercises

“This Administration has been looking hard at exactly what civil defense can and cannot do. It cannot be obtained cheaply. It cannot give an assurance of blast protection that will be proof against surprise attack or guaranteed against obsolescence or destruction. And it cannot deter a nuclear attack. We will deter an enemy from making a nuclear attack only if our retaliatory power is so strong and so invulnerable that he knows he would be destroyed by our response. If we have that strength, civil defense is not needed to deter an attack. If we should ever lack it, civil defense would not be an adequate substitute. But this deterrent concept assumes rational calculations by rational men. And the history of this planet, and particularly the history of the 20th century, is sufficient to remind us of the possibilities of an irrational attack, a miscalculation, an accidental war, for a war of escalation in which the stakes by each side gradually increase to the point of maximum danger which cannot be either foreseen or deterred. It is on this basis that civil defense can be readily justifiable--as insurance for the civilian population in case of an enemy miscalculation. It is insurance we trust will never be needed--but insurance which we could never forgive ourselves for foregoing in the event of catastrophe. Once the validity of this concept is recognized, there is no point in delaying the initiation of a nation-wide long-range program of identifying present fallout shelter capacity and providing shelter in new and existing structures. Such a program would protect millions of people against the hazards of radioactive fallout in the event of large-scale nuclear attack. Effective performance of the entire program not only requires new legislative authority and more funds, but also sound organizational arrangements.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress

Forgiveness , History , Strong , War

“The main burden of local defense against local attack, subversion, insurrection or guerrilla warfare must of necessity rest with local forces. Where these forces have the necessary will and capacity to cope with such threats, our intervention is rarely necessary or helpful. Where the will is present and only capacity is lacking, our Military Assistance Program can be of help. But this program, like economic assistance, needs a new emphasis. It cannot be extended without regard to the social, political and military reforms essential to internal respect and stability. The equipment and training provided must be tailored to legitimate local needs and to our own foreign and military policies, not to our supply of military stocks or a local leader's desire for military display. And military assistance can, in addition to its military purposes, make a contribution to economic progress, as do our own Army Engineers.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress

Training , Making love , Help

“It is obvious, that the people of England are at this moment animated against each other, with a spirit of hatred and rancour. It behoves you, in the first place, to find a remedy for these distempers which at present are predominant in the civil constitution.”

Robert Walpole (1676–1745) British statesman

Source: Speech https://historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/walpole-robert-ii-1676-1745 in the House of Commons (10 January 1711)

Animals , People

“Nothing troubled the charm and silence of this solitude. Making the most serious reflections on what we behold, and on our present position, I said to myself: Thus does life also pass away, now calm, now agitated, but at last the end is attained. Happy, ah, thrice happy they who can then look out to the never-ending future with calm and confidence, who can cast themselves on the bosom of God, the Center of our felicity.”

Théodore Guérin (1798–1856) Catholic saint and nun from France

First Journal of Travel (1840)

God , Confidence , Silence , Happiness

“There’s no reason, with a good Republican governor that welcomes business into the state of Louisiana, that we can’t get the space command there with our present governor there, we can build the starship Enterprise into the state before he’ll let good business into the state.”

Ralph Abraham (politician) (1954) American physician and congressman

Ralph Abraham: We’ll Make Louisiana the ‘Leading Candidate’ for U.S. Space Command https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2019/03/16/ralph-abraham-well-make-louisiana-the-leading-candidate-for-u-s-space-command/ (16 March 2019)

Business

“Folks, this is a time of testing. We face an attack on our democracy and on truth. A raging virus, growing inequity, the sting of systemic racism, a climate in crisis. America′s role in the world. Any one of these would be enough to challenge us in profound ways. But the fact is, we face them all at once. Presenting this nation with one of the gravest responsibilities we′ve had. Now we′re going to be tested.Are we going to step up, all of us? It′s time for boldness, for there is so much to do. And this is certain. I promise you, we will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era. We will rise to the occasion, is the question. Will we master this rare and difficult hour?”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2021, January, Presidential Inaugural Address (2021)

Democracy , Time , Question , Truth

“Addicted to war? Not us. Still, all in all, it’s quite a record and let’s not forget that looming on the horizon is another possible war, this time with Iran, a country that the men overseeing the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (including present National Security Advisor John Bolton) were eager to go after even then. “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad,” so the saying reputedly went in Washington at the time. “Real men want to go to Tehran.””

Tom Engelhardt (1944) American writer

And it’s just possible that, in 2019, Bolton and crew will be able to act on that much delayed urge. Considering the history of American wars in these years, what could possibly go wrong?
We’re Not the Good Guys, CounterPunch https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/04/were-not-the-good-guys/ (4 July 2019)

Time , Country , War , Forgetting

“At present they [philosophers] seem to be in a very lamentable condition, and such as the poets have given us but a faint notion of in their descriptions of the punishment of Sisyphus and Tantalus.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

For what can be imagin'd more tormenting, than to seek with eagerness, what for ever flies us; and seek for it in a place, where 'tis impossible it can ever exist?
Part 4, Section 3
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 1: Of the understanding

“Endless wars persist (and in some cases have even intensified); the nation’s various alliances and its empire of overseas bases remain intact; US troops are still present in something like 140 countries; Pentagon and national security state spending continues to increase astronomically.”

Andrew Bacevich (1947) United States Army officer

Quoted in Patriotic Dissent: How a Working-Class Soldier Turned Against “Forever Wars”, by Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/24/patriotic-dissent-how-a-working-class-soldier-turned-against-forever-wars/ CounterPunch, (24 July 2020)

War , Country

“The institutions of democracy will be gradually and, if possible, imperceptibly withdrawn. The Press will become a better and better directed and drilled servant of the capitalist class. All other methods of disseminating information, notably the cinema and the wireless, will be more and more consciously monopolized. Power may be gradually withdrawn from a democratically elected Chamber (cf . Reform of the House of Lords in Britain) or alternatively the franchise may be gradually curtailed (cf. the proposals of the British Conservative party for withholding the franchise from persons in receipt of poor relief). At the same time, the habitual regime of police violence will be increased (cf. the present heavy sentences on working-class militants in Britain passed almost openly, not for any specific offence but because the accused were working-class militants, as notably in the case of Arthur Homer; the increasing use of terror in all American wage disputes ; the police regime in France, etc., etc.). This method applies the principle of " the inevitability of gradualness " to the introduction of an open capitalist dictatorship.”

John Strachey (1901–1963) British politician and writer (1901-1963)

Source: The Coming Struggle for Power (1932), p. 268

Democracy , Personality , Time , Housing

“So we know that young people are the present and the future, but what inspires me are older people who are becoming transformed in the service of this movement. I'm inspired by seeing older people step into their own power and leadership and say, "I'm not passing a torch, I'm helping you light the fire."”

Alicia Garza (1981) Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter International movement

An Interview with the Founders of Black Lives Matter, Ted Talks, https://www.ted.com/talks/alicia_garza_patrisse_cullors_and_opal_tometi_an_interview_with_the_founders_of_black_lives_matter?language=en (October 2016)

Light , Future , People , Help

“For it may be very plausibly urged on their behalf, that it is impossible to extinguish evil until the origin thereof has been discovered and destroyed. This great river of human Time (rivers were expressly created to feed metaphors, allegories, and navigable canals) which comes flowing down thick with filth and blood from the immemorial past surely cannot be thoroughly cleansed by any purifying process applied to it here in the present for the pollution, if not in its very source (supposing it has a source), or deriving from unimaginable remotenesses of eternity indefinitely beyond its source, at any rate interfused with it countless ages back, and is perennial as the river itself. This immense poison-tree of Life, with its leaves of illusion, blossoms of delirium, apples of destruction, surely cannot be made wholesome and sweet by anything we may do to the branchlets and twigs on which, poor insects, we find ourselves crawling, or to the leaves and fruit on which we must fain feed; for the venom is drawn up in the sap by the taproots plunged in abysmal depths of the past. This toppling and sinking house wherein we dwell cannot be firmly re-established, save by re-establishing from its lowest foundation upwards.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part VIII, pp. 93–94
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Tree , Time , Housing , Past

“But, so far as we can see, so long as the present laws and constitution of nature continue there must still remain a vast amount of really inevitable suffering for mankind, without reckoning beastkind, birdkind, fishkind, insectkind, reptilekind, plant- kind, and leaving quite out of discussion stonekind.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part V, p. 83
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Suffering , Law , Nature

“Let your every moment be always better than the past, you live in the present for the future, you live with love, music, happiness and above all courage in difficult times.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Fa che ogni tuo istante sia sempre migliore di quello passato, si vive di presente per il futuro, si vive d'amore, musica, felicità e soprattutto coraggio nei momenti difficili.
Source: prevale.net

Courage , Time , Past , Future

“The past has ended its time, the present is the moment, the future the becoming.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Il passato ha concluso il suo tempo, il presente è l'attimo, il futuro il divenire.
Source: prevale.net

Past , Future , Time

“Avoid the past, live the present, anticipate the future.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Evita il passato, vivi il presente, anticipa il futuro.
Source: prevale.net

Past , Future

“My first impulse, when presented with any spanking-new piece of computer hardware, is to imagine how it will look in ten years’ time, gathering dust under a card table in a thrift shop. And it probably will.”

William Gibson book Distrust That Particular Flavor

"My Obsession," Wired, issue 7.01. 1999.
Distrust That Particular Flavor (2012)

Imagination , Time

“And this is the only explanation of the dreadful intensity with which men of modern times strive to stupefy themselves, with spirits, tobacco, opium, cards, reading newspapers, traveling, and all kinds of spectacles and amusements. These pursuits are followed up as an important, serious business. And indeed they are a serious business. If there were no external means of dulling their sensibilities, half of mankind would shoot themselves without delay, for to live in opposition to one's reason is the most intolerable condition. And that is the condition of all men of the present day. All men of the modern world exist in a state of continual and flagrant antagonism between their conscience and their way of life. This antagonism is apparent in economic as well as political life. But most striking of all is the contradiction between the Christian law of the brotherhood of men existing in the conscience and the necessity under which all men are placed by compulsory military service of being prepared for hatred and murder—of being at the same time a Christian and a gladiator.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter V, Contradiction Between our Life and our Christian Conscience

Time , Law , Reading , Business

“Music allows me to disconnect from my present reality, and communicate to my future wisdom.”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

Future , Communication , Music , Reality

“What are presented as the best arguments against anarchism are inevitably a description of the status quo.”

Michael Malice (1976) American writer

Tweeted on June 20, 2020 https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1274452143886553091, repeated subsequently.

“Only by proving that we are superior to the savages, not only through our power to kill them but through our entire way of life, can we control them as they are now, in their present stage; it is necessary for their own well-being, even more than ours.”

Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) Welsh journalist and explorer

Source: Leopold II, Het hele Verhaal, Johan Op De Beeck Horizon, 2020 https://klara.be/leopold-ii-aflevering-6 ISBN 9789463962094 Stanley writes this on his first expidition commissioned by King Leopold II of Belgium after describing with horror the horrible scenes of atrocities and cannibalism that take place in Congo.

Way , Life

“It’s beautiful when you have the opportunity to change from a completely inward role to a very organic, present role.”

Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey (1986) Franco-Spanish actress

Astrid Bergès-Frisbey's prismatic peepers https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/21865/1/astrid-berges-frisbeys-prismatic-peepers (September 26, 2014)

Beauty , Change

“We must present democracy as a force holding within itself the seeds of unlimited progress by the human race. By our actions we should make it clear that such a democracy is a means to a better way of life, together with a better understanding among nations.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

Essentials to Peace (1953)

Democracy , Understanding , Way , Life

“I need not tell you that the world situation is very serious. That must be apparent to all intelligent people. I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. Furthermore, the people of this country are distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for them to comprehend the plight and consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples, and the effect of those reactions on their governments in connection with our efforts to promote peace in the world.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

The Marshall Plan Speech (1947)

Peace , Country , Intelligence , People

“Every age before this one has performed or permitted acts that to us are morally stupefying. So unless we have any reason to think we are more reasonable, morally better or wiser than at any time in the past, it is reasonable to assume there will be some things we are presently doing – possibly while flushed with moral virtue – that our descendants will whistle through their teeth at, and say ‘What the hell were they thinking?’”

Douglas Murray (1979) British political commentator and far-right activist

The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity (2019)

Hell , Time , Thinking , Age

“Now is the time for the true friend of his country to remind the masses that their present political elevation is owing to no principles less broad and noble than these—the love of liberty, of liberty for all without distinction of class, creed, or country, and the resolute preference of the interests of the whole to any interest, be it what it may, of a narrower scope.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Sir John Cowan (17 March 1894), quoted in The Times (22 March 1894), p. 8
1890s

Love , Making love , Time , Country

“It was at this time that the suggestion of studying medicine was first presented to me, by a lady friend. This friend finally died of a painful disease, the delicate nature of which made the methods of treatment a constant suffering to her. She once said to me,'You are fond of study, have health and leisure; why not study medicine? If I could have been treated by a lady doctor, my worst sufferings would have been spared me.'”

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) England-born American physician, abolitionist, women's rights activist

But I at once repudiated the suggestion as an impossible one, saying that I hated everything connected with the body, and could not bear the sight of a medical book.
... My favourite studies were history and metaphysics, and the very thought of dwelling on the physical structure of the body and its various ailments filled me with disgust.
pp. 27–28 https://books.google.com/books?id=GHkIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA27
Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895)

Pain , Study , Time , Disease

“See, you get caught up in the past and you become useless to the present.”

Brent Weeks book The Way of Shadows

Source: The Way of Shadows (2008), Chapter 18 (p. 144)

Past

“The Gospel is, first of all, confirmed by the witness of life, the testimony of those who let themselves daily convert by the Lord. More than technics, it is the announcement of the infinite love of God’s mercy by concrete people. It is God, present in the person who announces and in the heart of the one who listens to the announcement, and that is where the Gospel draws its effectiveness.”

Nuno Brás (1963) Portuguese priest

Europe, Evangelization, and Civilizational Suicide https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2015/12/28/europe-evangelization-and-civilizational-suicide/ (December 28, 2015)

God , Drawing , Personality , People

“I’m not sure there’s really that much of a separation between imagination and reality when it comes to creatures. My inspiration is almost always from something nature has created. Nature is relentless and astonishingly diverse in the amount and variety of life it presents. It’s really what parts you put together and how far from reality you want to go when you design creatures.”

Chris Walas (1955) American special effects artist and film director

Imagination , Reality , Life , Parting

“Each one of us has to take responsibility for reality, and present it so that kids will grow up familiar with that and say, OK. I've seen that before. I'm not afraid of it.”

Thuy Trang (1973–2001) Vietnamese actress (1973-2001)

Reality

“It is veils that wrap past, present and future time from your view. When the veils are withdrawn one can see all.”

Abu al-Hassan al-Kharaqani (963–1033) Iranian Sufi (963–1033)

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2002), p. 93

Past , Future , Time

“Reading sheds light on our dark path ahead. By traveling into the past, I enhance my grasp of the present.”

James Mattis (1950) 26th and current United States Secretary of Defense; United States Marine Corps general

Source: Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead (2019), p. 42

Light , Past , Travel , Reading

“[E]lections to the supreme power having upon some occasions produced the most destructive contentions, many states would take refuge from a return of the same calamities, in a rule of succession; and no rule presents itself so obvious, certain, and intelligible, as consanguinity of birth.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Vol. II, Book VI, Ch. I.
The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785)

Birth , Intelligence , Success

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

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Understanding , Past , Future

“Don't ruin the present with the ruined past.”

Ellen Gilchrist (1935) Fiction writer, poet

Past

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Past , Future , Dreams , Motivational

“I suggest that scientific knowledge, though logically more articulate and far more complex, is of this sort. The books and teachers from whom it is acquired present concrete examples together with a multitude of theoretical generalizations. Both are essential carriers of knowledge, and it is therefore Pickwickian to seek a methodological criterion that supposes the scientist can specify in advance whether each imaginable instance fits or would falsify his theory.”

Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) American historian, physicist and philosopher

"Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?", Criticism and the growth of knowledge edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (1970)

Imagination , Teachers , Books , Knowledge

“Determinism looks backwards to the causes of the present state, not forward to the consequences.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 22 “Free Will” (p. 307)

“One of the greatest errors in the reconstruction of another era lies in our tendency to think of them as being like ourselves in feeling and attitudes. Actually, without considerable study on the part of a present-day man — if he were confronted by a fifteenth-century man — there would be no possible communication. I think it is possible through knowledge and discipline for a modern man to understand, and, to a certain extent, live into a fifteenth-century mind, but the reverse would be completely impossible.”

John Steinbeck book The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

Appendix, letter to Elizabeth Otis and Chase Horton (14 March 1958)
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)

Communication , Understanding , Knowledge , Thinking

“Telling the truth about the past helps cause justice in the present.”

James W. Loewen (1942) American historian

Justice , Past , Help , Truth

“Another great entity standing behind the Christ is the Spirit of Peace or Equilibrium. He is overshadowing the Christ, in a very similar way to the way the Christ overshadowed and worked through the disciple Jesus in Palestine. He works very closely with the law of Action and Reaction, and His function is to transform the prevalent discord, confusion, chaos, turmoil in the world into its opposite, so that we shall enter an era of tranquility and peace - in exact proportion to the present discord. The violence and hatred of today will be transmuted into goodwill, and again, in exact proportion to the intensity of the hatred and violence. This is the great Law of Action and Reaction functioning. The law stated is that action and reaction are equal and opposite, and this great Cosmic Entity, the Spirit of Equilibrium, is working now through the Christ, producing the transformation of the world.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980)

Way , World , Peace , Law

“Spirituality is the search for perfect understanding, for Self-discovery, for Truth, and it must take place right where you are. The Truth that you are searching for must already be right here, for it is timelessly present.”

Mooji (1954) Jamaican spiritual teacher

Greater than Sky, Vaster than Space, (2018), Part I

Understanding , Search , Perfection , Truth

“Many individual immune systems will be compromised by the hardships of the Long Emergency and disease will seize the opportunities presented, as it always has. […] Millions of human beings are going to die.”

James Howard Kunstler book The Long Emergency

Source: The Long Emergency (2005), Chapter 5, p. 182.

Disease

“The past and present speak to the future. The future does not speak, but waits to see what we bring to it.”

Randolph Roque Calvo (1951) Catholic bishop

Bishop visits Virginia City to give homily at final St. Mary's Mass https://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/2008/sep/08/bishop-visits-virginia-city-to-give-homily-at-fina/ (September 8, 2008)

Waiting , Past , Future

“The work of the liturgy transcends us because it is Christ’s work, and it is our privilege to participate. This work is an art, sanctioned by the Church, which is Christ’s Body. In the liturgy we present what He has intended to make lasting for the salvation of mankind until all is consummated.”

Glen Provost (1949) Catholic bishop

Bishop Provost’s Chrism Mass Homily for 2021 http://www.lcdiocese.org/the-diocese/our-bishop/homilies/3150-bishop-provost-s-chrism-mass-homily-for-2021 (31 March 2021)

Art , Christ

“For myself, I am totally convinced that these are the true happenings of our time; that, even as I write, these events are unfolding. As they further unfold, I believe they will prove to your fullest satisfaction that this is the true condition of our present time in history.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Great Approach (2001) p. 1

Time , History

“Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to be present; inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness, with the intention to embody as best we can an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity right here and right now.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life (2005)

“As writers we have to walk in the world in touch with that present, alert part of ourselves, that animal sense part that looks, sees, and notices - street signs, corners, fire hydrants, newspaper stands.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Be an animal". p.91
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

World , Animals , Sense , Parting

“If I could talk face to face with the pilot who dropped the bomb, I could tell him we cannot change history. But we should try to do good things for the present and for the future to promote peace.”

Phan Thi Kim Phuc (1963) Child depicted in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph taken during the Vietnam War on June 8, 1972

"`Time To Heal, Time For Peace'" in Chicago Tribune https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6VPc2Y8SsL4J:https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1996-11-12-9611120185-story.html+&cd=21&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (12 November 1996)

History , Change , Peace , Future