Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.
—Denis Waitley (b.1933) American Motivational Speaker, Author
We convince by our presence.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Enjoy yourself, drink, call the life you live today your own—but only that; the rest belongs to chance.
—Euripides (480–406 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
The pleasure we derive from the representation of the present is due, not only to the beauty it can be clothed in, but also to its essential quality of being the present.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
The span of life is waning fast; Beware, unthinking youth, beware! Thy soul’s eternity depends Upon the record moments bear.
—Eliza Cook (1818–89) English Author, Poet
Some people are making such thorough preparation for rainy days that they aren’t enjoying today’s sunshine.
—William Feather (1889–1981) American Publisher, Author
Love the moment and the energy of the moment will spread beyond all boundaries.
—Corita Kent (1918–86) American Artist, Graphic Artist, Educator
If its colors were but fast colors, self-conceit would be a most comfortable quality.—But life is so humbling, mortifying, disappointing to vanity, that a great man’s idea of himself gets washed out of him by the time he is forty.
—Charles Buxton (1823–71) British Politician, Writer
We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.
—Cesare Pavese (1908–50) Italian Novelist, Poet, Critic, Translator
I have realized that the past and the future are real illusions, that they exist only in the present, which is what there is and all that there is.
—Alan Watts (1915–73) British-American Philosopher, Author
The present is the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
Very strange is this quality of our human nature which decrees that unless we feel a future before us we do not live completely in the present.
—Phillips Brooks (1835–93) American Episcopal Clergyman, Author
Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
—Abbie Hoffman (1936–89) American Political Activist, Anarchist
One today is worth two tomorrows; what I am to be, I am now becoming.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past.
—George Carlin (1937–2008) American Stand-up Comedian
We can see well into the past; we can guess shrewdly in to the future; but that which is rolled up and muffled in impenetrable folds is today.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
This—the immediate, everyday, and present experience—is it, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe.
—Alan Watts (1915–73) British-American Philosopher, Author
In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
It is now and in this world that we must live.
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
And now, Lord, what wait I for?
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow’s joy is possible only if today’s makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
Act—act in the living present.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
One cannot change the past, but one can ruin the present by worrying over the future.
—Unknown
We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.
—Henry Ford (1863–1947) American Businessperson, Engineer
We live in the present, we dream of the future, but we learn eternal truths from the past.
—Soong Mei-ling (1898–2003) First Lady of the Republic of China
Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.
—Stephen Vincent Benet (1898–1943) American Poet, Novelist
A man would do well to carry a pencil in his pocket and write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable, and should be secured, because they seldom return.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day.
—William C. Durant (1861–1947) American Industrialist
Live for today. Multitudes of people have failed to live for today … What they have had within their grasp today they have missed entirely, because only the future has intrigued them.
—William Allen White (1868–1944) American Editor, Politician, Author
The flesh endures the storms of the present alone, the mind those of the past and future as well.
—Epicurus (c.341–270 BCE) Greek Philosopher
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