The next day is never so good as the day before.
—Publilius Syrus (fl.85–43 BCE) Syrian-born Roman Latin Writer
Praises for our past triumphs are as feathers to a dead bird.
—Paul Eldridge (1888–1982) American Poet, Educator
They spend their time looking forward to the past.
—John Osborne (1929–94) English Playwright, Actor
You can be cautious about the future but not the past.
—Chinese Proverb
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future by the past.
—Patrick Henry (1736–99) American Patriot, Orator
I had to learn to forgive myself, not to judge, but to learn from the past. They showed me how vital it is to accept, be truthful, and love myself. So I could do the same with others.
—Marlo Morgan (1937–98) American Novelist, Author
The past is the best prophet of the future.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
If the past cannot teach the present and the father cannot teach the son, then history need not have bothered to go on, and the world has wasted a great deal of time.
—Russell Hoban (1925–2011) American Novelist, Children’s Writer
I love my past, I love my present. I am not ashamed of what I have had, and I am not sad because I no longer have it.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
When I wanted to understand what is happening today, I try to decide what will happen tomorrow; I look back, a page of history is worth a volume of logic.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) American Jurist, Author
How the past perishes is how the future becomes.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
We are not free to use today, or to promise tomorrow, because we are already mortgaged to yesterday.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
What’s past is prologue.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
A sponge to wipe away the past; a rose to sweeten the present; a kiss to greet the future.
—Arabic Proverb
Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
One may return to the place of his birth, He cannot go back to his youth.
—John Burroughs (1837–1921) American Naturalist, Writer
The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
The rewards in life go to those who are willing to give up the past
—Indian Proverb
The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Don’t look back. Something may be gaining on you.
—Satchel Paige (1906–82) American Baseball Player
Each had his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart; and his friends could only read the title, James Spalding, or Charles Budgeon, and the passengers going the opposite way could read nothing at all—save “a man with a red moustache,” “a young man in gray smoking a pipe.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.
—Warren Buffett (b.1930) American Investor
When I reflect, as I frequently do, upon the felicity I have enjoyed, I sometimes say to myself, that were the offer made me, I would engage to run again, from beginning to end, the same career of life. All I would ask, should be the privilege of an author, to correct in a second edition, certain errors of the first.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends.
—Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) British Essayist, Caricaturist, Novelist
The Past: Our cradle, not our prison; there s danger as well as appeal in its glamour. The past is for inspiration, not imitation, for continuation, not repetition.
—Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) English Playwright, Novelist, Zionist Activist
Nor deem the irrevocable past
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
Losers live in the past. Winners learn from the past and enjoy working in the present toward the future.
—Denis Waitley (b.1933) American Motivational Speaker, Author
The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
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 Actor, Director, Producer
Live today, forget the past.
—Greek Proverb
Leave a Reply