Yesterday is a cancelled check; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is the only cash you have—so spend it wisely.
—Unknown
The illusion that times that were are better than those that are has probably pervaded all ages.
—Horace Greeley (1811–72) American Journalist, Author
‘Tis not to see the world
As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,
And heart profoundly stirred;
And weep, and feel the fullness of the past,
The years that are not more.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
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
Look back, and smile at perils past.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
They spend their time looking forward to the past.
—John Osborne (1929–94) English Playwright, Actor
To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
To design the future effectively, you must first let go of your past.
—Charles J. Givens (1941–98) American Self-Help Writer
The function of posterity is to look after itself.
—Dylan Thomas (1914–53) Welsh Poet, Author
The past should be a springboard, not a hammock.
—Ivern Ball (1926–92) American Writer, Aphorist
Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false naming of real events.
—Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American Poet, 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 (1936–2015) American Educator
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
If you must cry over spilled milk then please try to condense it.
—Unknown
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 past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays, nor just for tomorrow, but in the here and now. Keep moving and forget the post-mortems. And remember, no one can get the jump on the future.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
Fearfulness, contrary to all other vices, maketh a man think the better of another, the worse of himself.
—Philip Sidney (1554–86) English Soldier Poet, Courtier
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
Losers live in the past. Winners learn from the past and enjoy working in the present toward the future.
—Denis Waitley (1933–2025) American Speaker, Consultant, Self-help Pioneer
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
The Golden Age was never the present Age.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
Modern men are afraid of the past. It is a record of human achievement, but its other face is human defeat.
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) American Journalist, Political Commentator
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
Posterity will pay everyone their due.
—Tacitus (56–117) Roman Orator, Historian
From the wreck of the past, which hath perish.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
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
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
There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternally new now that builds and creates itself out of the Best as the past withdraws.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
The next day is never so good as the day before.
—Publilius Syrus (fl.85–43 BCE) Syrian-born Roman Latin Writer
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
Leave a Reply