The one charm of the past is that it is the past.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again.
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German Literary and Marxist Critic
We ought not to look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dear-bought experience.
—George Washington (1732–99) American Head of State, Military Leader
The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.
—Warren Buffett (b.1930) American Investor
Live today, forget the past.
—Greek Proverb
In the maxim of the past you cannot go anywhere.
—Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) Russian Novelist, Dramatist, Political Activist
The past is for us, but the sole terms on which it can become ours are its subordination to the present.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and afflictive, that the mind might perform its functions without encumbrance, and the past might no longer encroach upon the present.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Our reverence for the past is just in proportion to our ignorance of it.
—Theodore Parker (1810–60) American Unitarian Minister, Abolitionist
Bring the past only if you are going to build from it.
—Domenico Cieri (b.1954) Mexican Author, Aphorist
The rewards in life go to those who are willing to give up the past.
—Indian Proverb
Things without remedy, should be without regard; what is done, is done.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The Past—the dark unfathomed retrospect! The teeming gulf—the sleepers and the shadows! The past! the infinite greatness of the past! For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist
The past always looks better than it was; it’s only pleasant because it isn’t here.
—Finley Peter Dunne (1867–1936) American Humorist, Journalist, Creator of “Mr. Dooley”
Whatever obstacles appear in your path, put your head down and get past them. Those obstacles aren’t real. They’re just God’s way of testing you. He’s asking you, “Do you want to make it or not?”
—Russell Simmons (b.1957) American Music Promoter
The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn.
—H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English Novelist, Historian, Social Thinker
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
The past is only the present become invisible and mute; and because it is invisible and mute, its memorized glances and its murmurs are infinitely precious. We are tomorrow’s past.
—Mary Webb (1881–1927) British Novelist, Poet
We have seen better days.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.
—Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American Head of State
One must be thrust out of a finished cycle in life, and that leap is the most difficult to make—to part with one’s faith, one’s love, when one would prefer to renew the faith and recreate the passion.
—Anais Nin (1903–77) French-American Essayist
A book is a good friend when it lays bare the errors of the past.
—Indian Proverb
Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.
—John Wayne (1907–79) American Academy Award-winning Actor, Western Icon
No hand can make the clock strike for me the hours that are passed.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
What you need to know about the past is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment. And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new. Right now.
—Unknown
That past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself founded on some past that went before it.
—Anne Louise Germaine de Stael (1766–1817) French Woman of Letters
When the danger is past God is cheated.
—Italian Proverb
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