The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.
—Henri Bergson (1859–1941) French Philosopher, Evolutionist
Everyone knows the usefulness of the useful, but no one knows the usefulness of the useless.
—Zhuang Zhou (c.369–c.286 BCE) Chinese Taoist Philosopher
The past and present are only our means; the future is always our end. Thus we never really live, but only hope to live.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Although you should not erase your responsibility for the past, when you make the past your jailer, you destroy your future. It is such a great moment of liberation when you learn to forgive yourself, let the burden go, and walk out into a new path of promise and possibility.
—John O’Donohue (1956–2008) Irish Priest, Hegelian Philosopher
This strange disease of modern life, with its sick hurry, its divided aims.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
Nothing is improbable until it moves into the past tense.
—George Ade (1866–1944) American Humorist, Playwright
It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.
—George Steiner (1929–2020) American Critic, Scholar
The past is all holy to us; the dead are all holy; even they that were wicked when alive.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
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
With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man’s past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present: it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavors and the tinglings of a merited shame.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
The heart’s memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good; and thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burdens of the past.
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927–2014) Colombian Novelist, Short-Story Writer
God gave us memory that we might have roses in December.
—J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) Scottish Novelist, Dramatist
Some are so very studious of learning what was done by the ancients that they know not how to live with the moderns.
—William Penn (1644–1718) American Entrepreneur, Philosopher, Political Leader
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
—Buddhist Teaching
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
While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.
—Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American Head of State
If you have tried to do something and failed, you are vastly better off than if you had tried to do nothing and succeeded. You must never regret what might have been. The past that did not happen is as hidden from us as the future we cannot see.
—Richard Martin Stern (1915–2001) American Mystery Novelist
If you must cry over spilled milk then please try to condense it
—Unknown
The people who live in the past must yield to the people who live in the future. Otherwise the world would begin to turn the other way round.
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) British Novelist, Playwright, Critic
Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Nostalgia keeps dissolving the ironic narratives in which I have contained my past.
—Mason Cooley (1927–2002) American Aphorist
Some of the best lessons we ever learn are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future.
—Dale Turner (1917–2006) American Priest, Columnist, Epigrammist
The rewards in life go to those who are willing to give up the past
—Indian Proverb
Don’t brood on the past, but don’t forget it either.
—Thomas Head Raddall (1903–94) Canadian Novelist, Historian
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 (1936–2015) American Educator
The moments of the past do not remain still; they retain in our memory the motion which drew them towards the future, towards a future which has itself become the past, and draw us on in their train.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
In the maxim of the past you cannot go anywhere.
—Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) Russian Novelist, Dramatist, Political Activist
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
They spend their time looking forward to the past.
—John Osborne (1929–94) English Playwright, Actor
The past itself, as historical change continues to accelerate, has become the most surreal of subjects—making it possible… to see a new beauty in what is vanishing.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
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