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
To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow. But of course, without the top you can’t have any sides. It’s the top that defines the sides.
—Robert M. Pirsig (b.1928) American Writer, Philosopher, Author
The one charm of the past is that it is the past.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Look back, and smile at perils past.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
It is to live twice, when we can enjoy the recollections of our former life.
—Martial (40–104) Ancient Roman Latin Poet
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
The good old days were never that good, believe me. The good new days are today, and better days are coming tomorrow. Our greatest songs are still unsung.
—Hubert Humphrey (1911–78) American Head of State, Politician
We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.
—Frederick Douglass (1817–95) American Abolitionist, Author, Editor, Diplomat, Political leader
Because men really respect only that which was founded of old and has developed slowly, he who wants to live on after his death must take care not only of his posterity but even more of his past.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Clinging to the past is the problem. Embracing change is the answer.
—Gloria Steinem (b.1934) American Feminist, Journalist, Social Activist, Political Activist
Living in the moment means letting go of the past and not waiting for the future. It means living your life consciously, aware that each moment you breathe is a gift.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
The illusion that times that were are better than those that are has probably pervaded all ages.
—Horace Greeley (1811–72) American Elected Rep, Politician, Reformer, Editor
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
Nothing is as new as something which as been long forgotten.
—German Proverb
Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
—Frank Herbert (1920–86) American Science Fiction Writer
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
The next day is never so good as the day before.
—Publilius Syrus (fl.85–43 BCE) Syrian-born Roman Latin Writer
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
—L. P. Hartley (1895–1972) British Writer, Critic
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
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
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
The biggest thing in today’s sorrow is the memory of yesterday’s joy.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
A man cannot free himself from the past more easily than he can from his own body.
—Andre Maurois (1885–1967) French Novelist, Biographer
We do NOT know the past in chronological sequence. It may be convenient to lay it out anesthetized on the table with dates pasted on here and there, but what we know we know by ripples and spirals eddying out from us and from our own time.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
Human life may be regarded as a succession of frontispieces. The way to be satisfied is never to look back.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Mr. Meant-to has a friend, his name is Didn’t-Do. Have you met them? They live together in a house called Never-Win. And I am told that it is haunted by the Ghost of Might-have-Been.
—Marva Collins (b.1936) American Educator
It’s very expressive of myself. I just lump everything in a great heap which I have labeled “the past,” and, having thus emptied this deep reservoir that was once myself, I am ready to continue.
—Unknown
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
May you look back on the past with as much pleasure as you look forward to the future.
—Paul Dickson (b.1939) American Writer
They spend their time looking forward to the past.
—John Osborne (1929–94) English Playwright, Actor
To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
The past but lives in written words: a thousand ages were blank if books had not evoked their ghosts, and kept the pale unbodied shades to warn us from fleshless lips.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
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
To design the future effectively, you must first let go of your past.
—Charles J. Givens (1941–98) American Self-Help Writer
The past is at least secure.
—Daniel Webster (1782–1852) American Statesman, Lawyer
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put the past together again. So let’s remember: Don’t try to saw sawdust.
—Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American Self-Help Author
If you are carrying strong feelings about something that happened in your past, they may hinder your ability to live in the present.
—Les Brown
The past is a guidepost, not a hitching post.
—Thomas L. Holdcroft
Posterity will pay everyone their due.
—Tacitus (56–117) Roman Orator, Historian
The people who get into trouble in our company are those who carry around the anchor of the past.
—Jack Welch (1935–2020) American Businessperson
To be able to look back upon one’s past life with satisfaction is to live twice.
—Martial (40–104) Ancient Roman Latin Poet
How the past perishes is how the future becomes.
—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
It is delightful to transport one’s self into the spirit of the past, to see how a wise man has thought before us, and to what a glorious height we have at last reached.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Here lies my past, Goodbye I have kissed it; Thank you kids, I wouldn’t have missed it.
—Ogden Nash (1902–71) American Writer of Sophisticated Light Verse
Age and sorrow have the gift of reading the future by the past.
—Frederic William Farrar (1831–1903) English Clergyman, Writer
It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
Man… cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer