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 past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
—L. P. Hartley (1895–1972) British Writer, Critic
The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.
—Warren Buffett (b.1930) American Investor
Study the past, if you would define the future.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
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
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
To design the future effectively, you must first let go of your past.
—Charles J. Givens (1941–98) American Self-Help Writer
Everyone knows the usefulness of the useful, but n o one knows the usefulness of the useless.
—Zhuang Zhou (c.369–c.286 BCE) Chinese Taoist Philosopher
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
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, Political leader, Philosopher
It is not the literal past, the “facts” of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.
—Brian Friel (1929–2015) Irish Dramatist, Short Story Writer
Clogged with yesterday’s excess, the body drags the mind down with it.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
It’s easy to carry the past as a burden instead of a school. It’s easy to let it overwhelm you instead of educate you.
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Poet
If you want to succeed in your life, remember this phrase: The past does not equal the future. Because you failed yesterday; or all day today; or a moment ago; or for the last six months; the last sixteen years; or the last fifty years of life, doesn’t mean anything…All that matters is: What are you going to do, right now?
—Tony Robbins (b.1960) American Self-Help Author, Entrepreneur
There is nothing new, but what has become antiquated.
—French Proverb
In the maxim of the past you cannot go anywhere.
—Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) Russian Writer, Dramatist, Political Activist, Novelist
A man’s memory may almost become the art of continually varying and misrepresenting his past, according to his interest in the present.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
If you must cry over spilled milk then please try to condense it
—Unknown
To yackety-yak about the past is for me time lost. Every morning I wake up saying, ‘I’m still alive—a miracle.’ And so I keep on pushing.
—Jacques Cousteau (1910–97) French Oceanographer, Documentary Director
He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
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 destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to an idealised past.
—Robertson Davies (1913–95) Canadian Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
May you look back on the past with as much pleasure as you look forward to the future.
—Paul Dickson (b.1939) American Writer
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
Why should we look to the past in order to prepare for the future? Because there is nowhere else to look.
—James E. Burke (1925–2012) American Business Executive
While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.
—Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American Head of State
You can never plan the future by the past.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman