We were wise indeed, could we discern truly the signs of our own time; and by knowledge of its wants and advantages, wisely adjust our own position in it. Let us, instead of gazing idly into the obscure distance, look calmly around us, for a little, on the perplexed scene where we stand. Perhaps, on a more serious inspection, something of its perplexity will disappear, some of its distinctive characters and deeper tendencies more clearly reveal themselves; whereby our own relations to it, our own true aims and endeavors in it, may also become clearer.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Nothing is worth more than this day. You cannot relive yesterday. Tomorrow is still beyond your reach.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Let any man examine his thoughts, and he will find them ever occupied with the past or the future. We scarcely think at all of the present; or if we do, it is only to borrow the light which it gives for regulating the future. The present is never our object; the past and the present we use as means; the future only is our end. Thus, we never live, we only hope to live.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them; and the evils bear patiently and sweetly; for only this day is ours; we are dead to yesterday, and not born tomorrow.
—Jeremy Taylor
The second half of the twentieth century is a complete flop.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–91) Polish-born American Writer, Novelist, Short Story Writer
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
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
We convince by our presence.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Duty and today are ours, results and futurity belong to God.
—Horace Greeley (1811–72) American Journalist, Author
The obscurest epoch is to-day.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
The present is the ever moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope.
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American Architect
Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Believe that each day that shines on you is your last.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure, fly away; enjoy therefore the present time, and trust not too much to what tomorrow may produce.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
Use your precious moments to live life fully every single second of every single day.
—Marcia Wieder
There is no such thing in anyone’s life as an unimportant day.
—Alexander Woollcott (1887–1943) American Author, Critic, Actor
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
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
The future is purchased by the present.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Where were you… when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons (and daughters) of God shouted for joy?
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future are not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Devote each day to the object then in time, and every evening will find something done.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Today must not borrow from tomorrow.
—German Proverb
There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past.
—George Carlin (1937–2008) American Stand-Up Comedian
Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present—which seldom happens to us.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
Those who live to the future must always appear selfish to those who live to the present.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
In the midst of hopes and cares, of apprehensions and of disquietude, regard every day that dawns upon you as if it was to be your last; then super-added hours, to the enjoyment of which you had not looked forward, will prove an acceptable boon.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
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
Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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