Quotes about presentation
page 7

“Thoughts and feelings are not mistakes, and they are not asking to be HEALED. They are asking to be HELD, here, now, lightly, in the loving arms of present awareness…”

Jeff Foster (1980) Spiritual teacher

Source: https://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/

“Where speculation ends — in real life — there real, positive science begins: the representation of the practical activity, of the practical process of development of men. Empty talk about consciousness ceases, and real knowledge has to take place. When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of activity loses its medium of existence. At the best its place can only be taken by a summing-up of the most general results, abstractions which arise from the observation of the historical development of men. Viewed apart from real history, these abstractions have in themselves no value whatsoever. They can only serve to facilitate the arrangement of historical material, to indicate the sequence of its separate strata. But they by no means afford a recipe or schema, as does philosophy, for neatly trimming the epochs of history. On the contrary, our difficulties begin only when we set about the observation and the arrangement — the real depiction — of our historical material, whether of a past epoch or of the present.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846), Vol. I, Part 1, [The Materialist Conception of History].

Life, Men, History, Knowledge

“I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us.
I would like an abundance of peace.
I would like full vessels of charity.
I would like rich treasures of mercy.
I would like cheerfulness to preside over all.
I would like Jesus to be present.
I would like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us.
I would like the friends of Heaven to be gathered around us from all parts.
I would like myself to be a rent payer to the Lord; that I should suffer distress, that he would bestow a good blessing upon me.
I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings.
I would like to be watching Heaven's family drinking it through all eternity.”

Brigit of Kildare (451–525) Irish abbess and saint

Prayer traditionally attributed to St. Brigit, as quoted in Prayers of the Saints: An Inspired Collection of Holy Wisdom (1996), by Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, p. 77

Family, Peace, Angels, Drink

“In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Water, Time

“You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Past

“In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

Life, Family, Thinking

“Honest students of this century alone know that the facts presented to us regarding wars, assassinations, political motivations and all the machinations of the political and religious power systems we live under are hogwash. So it has been for at least 1700 years.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Revolution by Number

War, Motivation

“Holy Scripture presents a kind of mirror to the eyes of the mind, so that our inner face may be seen in it. There we learn our own ugliness, there our own beauty.”

Pope Gregory I (540–604) Pope from 590 to 604

Morals in the Book of Job, 553d, as translated in Cultural Performances in Medieval France (2007), p. 129
Original: (la) Scriptura sacra mentis oculis quasi quoddam speculum opponitur, ut interna nostra facies in ipsa videatur. Ibi etenim foeda, ibi pulchra nostra cognoscimus.

Beauty, Learning

“The issue of a battle is the result of an instant, of a thought. There is the advance, with its various combinations, the battle is joined, the struggle goes on a certain time, the decisive moment presents itself, a spark of genius discloses it, and the smallest body of reserves accomplish victory.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Decision, Time, Victory

“It is a mistake, too, to say that the face is the mirror of the soul. The truth is, men are very hard to know, and yet, not to be deceived, we must judge them by their present actions, but for the present only.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Men, Truth, Soul

“The future that we will never experience is constantly haunting us in the present moment. Thus, taking away our true happiness.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Happiness, Future

“Some people can't focus on the present moment for a great reason that they can't explain to anyone else.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

People

“Your past, present and future sins will be placed upon your shoulders and not on the shoulders of the man who left us long ago.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Past, Future

“With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public.”

Henry A. Wallace (1888–1965) Vice President of the United States

Quoted by Thom Hartmann in Fascists Compete To Own America, Common Dreams, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/04/30/fascists-compete-own-america (30 April 2018)

Truth, Problem

“A moment of danger can bring about a temporary cessation of the stream of thinking and thus give you a taste of what it means to be present, alert, aware.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Ch 2

Thinking

“We women have presented larger petitions in support of our enfranchisement than were ever presented for any other reform; we have succeeded in holding greater public meetings than men have ever held for any reform, in spite of the difficulty which women have in throwing off their natural diffidence, that desire to escape publicity which we have inherited from generations of our foremothers. We have broken through that. We have faced hostile mobs at street corners, because we were told that we could not have that representation for our taxes that men have won unless we converted the whole of the country to our side. Because we have done this, we have been misrepresented, we have been ridiculed, we have had contempt poured upon us, and the ignorant mob have been incited to offer us violence, which we have faced unarmed and unprotected by the safeguards which Cabinet Ministers enjoy. We have been driven to do this; we are determined to go on with this agitation because we feel in honour bound. Just as it was the duty of your forefathers, it is our duty to make the world a better place for women than it is to-day.”

Emmeline Pankhurst book My Own Story

My Own Story (1914), Book II, Ch. 3

Women, Men, Hostility, World

“The form of this book can be seen as a revival for the present age of the oldest form of recorded spiritual teachings: the sutras of ancient India. Sutras are powerful pointers to the truth in the form of aphorisms or short sayings, with little conceptual elaboration. The Vedas and Upanishads are the early sacred teachings recorded in the form of sutras, as are the words of the Buddha. The sayings and parables of Jesus, too, when taken out of their narrative context, could be regarded as sutras, as well as the profound teachings contained in the Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese book of wisdom. The advantage of the sutra form lies in its brevity...”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), intro

Wisdom, Truth, Books, Age

“So many people are most miserable these days.
The reason they find it so difficult to be happy is that they always view the past to be better than it was, the present dramatically worse than it is, and the future less resolute than it will be.
The idea of happiness is foreign to them.
Is this not something that is innate because babies are born with
"tabula rasa" which refers to the epistemological idea that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that therefore all knowledge comes from experience or perception. However I don't disagree with the doctrine of Innatism which holds that the mind is born already in possession of certain knowledge.
A smile, for instance is natural and innate!
So it is a combination of the two schools of thought.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Happiness, People, School, Smile

“I'm living in the future so the present is my past.
My presence is a present, kiss my ass.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Monster
Lyrics, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)

Kiss, Past, Future

“Words were so puzzling. should mean a present just asshould mean to stick tacks in people.”

Beverly Cleary book Ramona the Pest

Source: Ramona the Pest

People

“I am convinced that God is love, this thought has for me a primitive lyrical validity. When it is present to me, I am unspeakably blissful, when it is absent, I long for it more vehemently than does the lover for his object.”

Sören Kierkegaard book Fear and Trembling

Source: Fear and Trembling

Love, God, Lovers

“I reflected that everything happens to a man precisely, precisely now. Centuries of centuries and only in the present do things happen; countless men in the air, on the face of the earth and the sea, and all that really is happening is happening to me...”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths
Source: Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings

Men, Sea

“Everything I know and I am and I have seen felt done past present past now then before now seen felt done hurt felt focus into a something beyond words beyond beyond beyond and it speaks now and it says.
Stay.
Fight.
Live.
Take it.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

Past, Fight, Hurt

“You have to let yourself be fully present in every moment. Just be awake for it, do you know what I mean? Go all in and wring every last drop out of the experience.”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

“The future is an inﬁnite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in deﬁance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, p. 270.
Source: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
Context: To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacriﬁce, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magniﬁcently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an inﬁnite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in deﬁance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

Thinking, Success, Future, Victory

“Did you pick that out?" I asked Dimitri. Honestly, I would have expected him to bend a piece of steel with his bare hands and present her with that.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: The Ruby Circle

“Pray, pray be composed, and do not betray what you feel to every body present”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

Feeling

“The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Source: Tradition and the Individual Talent: An Essay

Feeling

“Life is the past, the present and the perhaps.”

Bette Davis (1908–1989) film and television actress from the United States

Life, Past

“Today is a gift from God - that is why it is called the present.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Source: Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge 1995-2000

God

“One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius; and the feminine situation has up to the present rendered this becoming practically impossible.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Bk. I, Pt. 2, Ch. 8: Since the French Revolution: the Job and the Vote, p. 133
Source: The Second Sex (1949)

“I live in the present because the future is always chancy. When it comes to being with you, I'm willing to take the risk.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Exiled Queen

Future

“The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present.”

Alan Lightman book Einstein's Dreams

Source: Einstein's Dreams

Life, World, Past

“Best not to mix the past with the present. The present paints the past with gold. The past paints the present with lead.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Past, Painting

“Anxiety, the illness of our time, comes primarily from our inability to dwell in the present moment.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

Time

“Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality… One can't possess reality, one can possess images--one can't possess the present but one can possess the past.”

Susan Sontag book On Photography

Source: On Photography

Way, Reality, Past

“We will not just say, "I love him very much," but instead, "I will do something so that he will suffer less." The mind of compassion is truly present when it is effective in removing another person's suffering.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Love, Suffering, Personality

“Last forever!' Who hasn't prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying.”

Annie Dillard book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Source: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

“The present no matter what I brought couldn’t change the past. The Past was set and sealed.”

Ann Brashares book Sisterhood Everlasting

Source: Sisterhood Everlasting

Change, Past

“Devotion is diligence without assurance. Faith is a way of saying "Yes, I pre-accept the terms of the universe and I embrace in advance what I am presently incapable of understanding.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Faith, Way, Understanding, Universe

“Most people are perpetually locked in the present. Their decisions are overly influenced by the most immediate event; they easily become emotional and ascribe greater significance to a problem than it should have in reality.”

Robert Greene book Mastery

Source: Mastery

People, Problem, Reality, Decision

“He doesn't know which is worse, a past he can't regain or a present that will destroy him if he looks at it too clearly. Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

Past, Future

“Live one day at a time. Keep your attention in present time. Have no expectations. Make no judgements. And give up the need to know why things happen as they do. Give it up!”

Caroline Myss (1952) author from the United States

Source: Why People Don't Heal and How They Can: A Practical Programme for Healing Body, Mind and Spirit

Time

“I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.”

Doris Lessing book The Golden Notebook

Source: The Golden Notebook

Future, Personality

“That's what came from having romance in your soul. You believe in things like love at first sight and perfect presents.”

Dorothy Koomson book My Best Friend's Girl

Source: My Best Friend's Girl

Love, Soul, Perfection

“I am a recluse at present & do nothing but write & read & read & write”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

Source: The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume 1: 1903-1917

Reading

“Limitations are possibilities…
Opportunities to perceive ourselves
Beyond our present selves…”

Ilchi Lee (1950) South Korean businessman

Songs of Enlightenment

“The danger would be going back, or staying still. The only way out was through. The past was ruins, but the present was still in play.”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

Way, Past

“And it was this image that was stamped on the hearts and minds of all who were present that day. Of Froi of the Exiles holding the future of Lumatere in his hands.”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

Future, Heart

“Spirituality is not about being fixed; it is about God's being present in the mess of our unfixedness. (Messy Spirituality)”

Mike Yaconelli (1942–2003) American theologian

God

“She worked in order to live, and presently fell in love, also in order to live, for the heart, too, has its hunger.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Love, Hunger, Heart

“I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Waiting

“The past does not only draw us back to the past. There are certain memories of the past that have strong steel springs and, when we who live in the present touch them, they are suddenly stretched taut and then they propel us into the future.”

Yukio Mishima book The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Source: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Spring, Strong, Memory, Past

“what is the worst pain? To me, it's always the pain that is present.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Pain

“Was life like that? You could look ahead to the future or back to the past, but the present moved too quickly to absorb.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Life, Past, Future

“A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Source: Walden, or Life in the Woods

Grass

“Through it [literature] we know the past, govern the present, and influence the future.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer

Source: The Man-Made World

Literature, Past, Future

“Confine yourself to the present.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

“It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph

Change, Past, Future

“Ghosts don't haunt us. That's not how it works. They're present among us because we won't let go of them.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: M is for Malice

“But laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man may present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

"On Freedom" (1940), p. 13 http://books.google.com/books?id=Q1UxYzuI2oQC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q&f=false <br class="br">1950s, Out of My Later Years (1950) <br class="br">Context: This freedom of communication is indispensable for the development and extension of scientific knowledge, a consideration of much practical import. In the first instance it must be guaranteed by law. But laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man may present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population. Such an ideal of external liberty can never be fully attained but must be sought unremittingly if scientific thought, and philosophical and creative thinking in general, are to be advanced as far as possible.

Law, Penalty, Freedom

“For it is only by forgetting that we ever really drop the thread of time and approach the experience of living in the present moment, so elusive in ordinary hours.”

Michael Pollan (1955) American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism

Source: The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World

Time, Forgetting

“Lei had recently discovered how to change the display, like the Times Square JumboTron, so now the banner read: Merry Christmas! All your presents belong to Leo!”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Diaries

Variant: Leo had recently discovered how to change the display, like the Times Square JumboTron, so now the banner read: Merry Christmas! All your presents belong to Leo!
Source: The Demigod Diaries

Change, Time, Reading, Christmas

“A lone walker is both present and detached, more than an audience but less than a participant. Walking assuages or legitimizes this alienation.”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

Source: Wanderlust: A History of Walking

“He formed his sentences hesitantly and then threw them at me with such force that I felt as if I were receiving a present each time”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Mandarins

Source: The Mandarins

Time

“We must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.”

Gretchen Rubin (1966) American writer

Source: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

Happiness, Exercises

“So eager are our people to obliterate the present.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

People

“["The Devil in the Dark"] impressed me because it presented the idea, unusual in science fiction thennow, that something weird, and even dangerous, need not be malevolent. That is a lesson that many of today's politicians have yet to learn.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Idea, Learning, Science

“Everything which is done in the present, affects the future by consequence, and the past by redemption.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Past, Future

“Even if we no longer have much in common, we would have always had the past, which, in some ways, is just as important as the present or future. It is where we come from, what makes us who we are.”

Emily Giffin book Where We Belong

Source: Where We Belong

Way, Past, Future

“… why bother remembering a past that cannot be made into a present?”

Sören Kierkegaard book Fear and Trembling

Source: Fear and Trembling

Past

“Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Life

“And then there was Jeremiah. When I looked at Jeremiah, I saw past, present, and future. He didn’t just know the girl I used to be. He knew the right-now me, and he loved me anyway.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

Love, Girl, Past, Future

“If you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

“I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Parting

“Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records — Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

"Theme from English B"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

Love, Life, Color, Drink

“The older one becomes the quicker the present fades into sepia and the past looms up in glorious technicolour”

Beryl Bainbridge (1932–2010) English novelist

Past

“Sometimes I think I live more closely to the past than the present.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: Dragon Bones

Thinking, Past

“The present rearranges the past. We never tell the story whole because a life isn't a story; it's a whole Milky Way of events and we are forever picking out constellations from it to fit who and where we are.”

Rebecca Solnit book The Faraway Nearby

Source: The Faraway Nearby

Life, Way, Past

“It’s my belief that the study of history should be our preparation for understanding the present, rather than an escape from it.”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Historian

Source: The Historian (2005), Ch. 39
Context: I’ve always been interested in foreign relations. It’s my belief that the study of history should be our preparation for understanding the present, rather than an escape from it.

History, Understanding, Study

“Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know which he doth not.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Reading

“At least as a single woman, I had time to pursue my own interests, read voraciously, and travel when opportunity presented.”

Tasha Alexander (1969) American writer

Source: And Only to Deceive

Travel, Time, Reading

“When confronted with a birthday in a week I will remember that a book can be a really good present, too.”

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (1968) Canadian writer

Source: At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much

Books, Birthday, Birthday

“No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.”

Laurie Colwin (1944–1992) Novelist, short story writer, food writer

Wisdom, Past, Cooking

“We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past, but by the love we're not extending in the present.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Love, Past

“Even if times got bad, he would never again deny himself the possibility that the future might be happy even if the present was painful. He would allow himself dreams.”

Suzanne Collins book Gregor the Overlander

Source: Gregor the Overlander

Pain, Happiness, Dreams, Time

“I think it’s more like a shirt that says, ‘I’m going to have to end this date early so I can go prepare my Power Point presentation”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Thinking

“The seeds of the past bear fruit in the present.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Past

“It is not possible that you could ever find yourself anywhere where God was not fully present, fully active, able and willing to set you free.”

Emmet Fox (1886–1951) American New Thought writer

Source: Find and Use Your Inner Power

God

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

John Berger book Ways of Seeing

Source: Ways of Seeing

Fear, History, Past

“We have no future because our present is too volatile. We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition.”

William Gibson book Pattern Recognition

Source: Pattern Recognition

Future

“Like the wild beasts, she lives without a future. She inhabits only the present tense, a fugue of the continuous, a world of sensual immediacy as without hope as it is without despair.”

Angela Carter (1940–1992) English novelist

Source: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

World, Hope, Future, Despair

“The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Variant: Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.

Life, Past, Future

“Let the past hold on to itself and let the present move forward into the future.”

Douglas Adams book Mostly Harmless

Source: Mostly Harmless

Past, Future

“You may have created my past and screwed up my present, but you have no control over my future.”

David Klass book You Don't Know Me

Variant: The good news is that you may have created my past and screwed up my present, but you havce no control over my future. You don't know me at all.
Source: You Don't Know Me

Past, Future