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Link Quote Stars Tags Author
e0049ff Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present. attributed-no-source widely-misattributed present past hope inspirational misattributed-eleanor-roosevelt Bill Keane
92ed0b2 I think you still love me, but we can't escape the fact that I'm not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I'm not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I'm not angry, either. I should be, but I'm not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong. moving-on pain relationships past life love infidelity Haruki Murakami
fff3945 You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past. past life Chuck Palahniuk
416b0de Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real. time reality past injuries scars memory Cormac McCarthy
617cadd The past beats inside me like a second heart. past John Banville
c25f7d1 Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting. time future past ticking possibilities Haruki Murakami
4546411 I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. moving-on memories future past homelessness belonging leaving attachment uncertainty roots home reminiscence memory Beryl Markham
8513c05 We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it. past change inspirational learning-from-mistakes growth Rick Warren
f9b4532 You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present. present past life labyrinth John Green
8e2eec7 You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure. past remembrance pleasure Jane Austen
3a78ec1 It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream. time dark future past dreams inspirational age dreaming Edgar Allan Poe
3429e6e Sooner or later we've all got to let go of our past. past Dan Brown
c755d55 The past was always there, lived inside of you, and it helped to make you who you were. But it had to be placed in perspective. The past could not dominate the future. past Barbara Taylor Bradford
8f6be58 There is no point in using the word 'impossible' to describe something that has clearly happened. reality past denial impossible logic Douglas Adams
c975a16 Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery. fish earth man loss nature world wonder past parable brooks glens environment trout mystery destruction creation maps Cormac McCarthy
d112a72 People are all over the world telling their one dramatic story and how their life has turned into getting over this one event. Now their lives are more about the past than their future. past human-nature Chuck Palahniuk
1f85264 I loved you so much once. I did. More than anything in the whole wide world. Imagine that. What a laugh that is now. Can you believe it? We were so intimate once upon a time I can't believe it now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can't imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven't been. past love intimacy memory Raymond Carver
ecd5182 My past has not defined me, destroyed me, deterred me, or defeated me; it has only strengthened me. strengthen defeat past motivational success happiness life inspirational define Steve Maraboli
addcb4a When you understand, that what you're telling is just a story. It isn't happening anymore. When you realize the story you're telling is just words, when you can just crumble up and throw your past in the trashcan, then we'll figure out who you're going to be. past Chuck Palahniuk
87a5967 I am a drifter, and as lonely as that can be, it is also remarkably freeing. I will never define myself in terms of anyone else. I will never feel the pressure of peers or the burden of parental expectation. I can view everyone as pieces of a whole, and focus on the whole, not the pieces. I have learned to observe, far better than most people observe. I am not blinded by the past or motivated by the future. I focus on the present because that is where I am destined to live. future past loner lonely David Levithan
6e0e4f0 Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead. present gratitude future past love C.S. Lewis
9bc0192 Frustration and Love can't exist in the same place at the same time, so get real and start doing what you would rather be doing in life. Love your life. All of it. Even the heavy shit that happened to you when you were 8. All of it was and IS perfect. past spiritual life love truth inspirational healing Jason Mraz
9c5061c Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, 'You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me.' It's saying, 'You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future. future past trap yourself Jodi Picoult
b6d709f Everyone has a past, but that's just it--it's in the past. You can learn from it, but you can't change it. past love nicholas-sparks Nicholas Sparks
3b647e7 These fragments I have shored against my ruins past fall aging nostalgia T.S. Eliot
c594e33 You couldn't erase the past. You couldn't even change it. But sometimes life offered you the opportunity to put it right. past inspiration change hope life inspirational Ann Brashares
e8d910c We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still close to us. The things we have tried to forget and put behind us would stir again, and that sense of fear, of furtive unrest, struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic - now mercifully stilled, thank God - might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion as it had before. past Daphne Du Maurier
cf7bbd8 Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow. past Toni Morrison
c9f7aa4 In magic - and in life - there is only the present moment, the now. You can't measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. 'Time' doesn't pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we're always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn't act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we're going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don't want and how to get what we have always dreamed of. present time past life living-in-the-moment Paulo Coelho
031a94d ...everything has a past. Everything - a person, an object, a word, everything. If you don't know the past, you can't understand the present and plan properly for the future. past davita potok harp understand planning Chaim Potok
f6dd9ca Its more fun to think of the future than dwell on the past. future past inspirational Sara Shepard
7ad5f23 Our past may explain why we're suffering but we must not use it as an excuse to stay in bondage. suffering past Joyce Meyer
84967ae He looked at the silver pocketknife in his hand. An idea came to him - possibly the stupidest, craziest idea he'd had since he thought, Hey, I'll get Percy to swim in the River Styx! He'll love me for that! past nico-di-angelo memory Rick Riordan
fa80c91 "How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?" world past truth simper R.A. Salvatore
ea6a684 If you have a past with which you feel dissatisfied, then forget it, now. Imagine a new story for your life and believe in it. Focus only on the moments when you achieved what you desired, and that strength will help you to get what you want. past strength forget Paulo Coelho
8679b1d A generation which ignores history has no past -- and no future. history past Robert A. Heinlein
1bf4dfa The Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most temporal part of time--for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. present future past C.S. Lewis
85f1f92 The past was gone and the future had yet to unfold, and he knew he should focus his life on the present...yet his day-to-day existence suddenly struck him as endless and unbearable. present past Nicholas Sparks
14ec3d2 How can the past and future be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet? As for the present, if it were always present and never moved on to become the past, it would not be time, but eternity. present future past St. Augustine of Hippo
9b5f9e2 No people whose word for 'yesterday' is the same as their word for 'tomorrow' can be said to have a firm grip on the time. time india past humor Salman Rushdie
b6c063e But now isn't simply now. Now is also a cold reminder: one whole day later than yesterday, one year later than last year. Every now is labeled with its date, rendering all past nows obsolete, until -- later of sooner -- perhaps -- no, not perhaps -- quite certainly: it will come. present time past Christopher Isherwood
72746ee Those who have hurt you in the past cannot continue to hurt you now unless you hold on to the pain through resentment. past hurts Rick Warren
34f4396 Always choose the future over the past. What do we do now? past life wisdom self-motivation Brian Tracy
27e9b47 because the past was always around her and might return at any time. It prowled the world searching for her, and she knew it was growing angrier at every passing day. past Nicholas Sparks
81014d4 I wish I could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that I hate to think they will be extinguished when I am. Well, but again, this life has its own mortal loveliness. And memory is not strictly mortal in its nature, either. It is a strange thing, after all, to be able to return to a moment, when it can hardly be said to have any reality at all, even in its passing. A moment is such a slight thing. I mean, that its abiding is a most gracious reprieve. mortality past Marilynne Robinson
6cc2ffb I desire no future that will break the ties of the past. past George Eliot
9c5c41f When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable past Martin Amis
f2388d2 No reflection was to be allowed now, not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet, so deadly sad, that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank, something like then world when the deluge was gone by. hopelessness future past sadness heartbreak Charlotte Brontë
ff913ec We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. past identity personal-history self Joan Didion
3d4a8b5 Let us not burthen our remembrance with A heaviness that's gone. past sadness William Shakespeare
5b806bb ...the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you. prayer past truth Anne Lamott
a3b4560 It is important for people to know that no matter what lies in their past, they can overcome the dark side and press on to a brighter world. past overcoming-past-weaknesses survivor Dave Pelzer
2c0b2a5 There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can't, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having. present past Terry Pratchett
9c756eb But this was what happened when you didn't want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you. karma past Bret Easton Ellis
a03c112 Regret is counterproductive. It's looking back on a past that you can't change. Questioning things as they occur can prevent regret in the future. past life inspirational questioning regret Colleen Hoover
603bddd [W]e must never allow the future to collapse under the burden of memory. past memory Milan Kundera
9c999c3 Lies 1: There is only the present and nothing to remember. Lies 2: Time is a straight line. Lies 3: The difference between the past and the future is that one has happened while the other has not. Lies 4: We can only be in one place at a time. Lies 5: Any proposition that contains the word 'finite' (the world, the universe, experience, ourselves...) Lies 6: Reality as something which can be agreed upon. Lies 7: Reality is truth. time lies reality past truth untruths Jeanette Winterson
5f52889 After all, Bao Bomu says, what is the past but what we choose to remember? past Amy Tan
a7e9070 She'd expected some backlash; it happened every time she shared her strength. But she hadn't anticipated so much raw anguish from Nico di Angelo... If this was only a portion of Nico's pain... how could he bear it? pain past torment Rick Riordan
b492e42 Spiritual growth involves giving up the stories of your past so the universe can write a new one. pain past spiritual-growth Marianne Williamson
e43b6f1 The world changes too fast. You take your eyes off something that's always been there, and the next minute it's just a memory. past regret memory Michel Faber
956fe6e If it's over, then don't let the past screw up the rest of your life. past present-moment Nicholas Sparks
63d36af I'm 65 years old. Everyday the future looks a little bit darker. But the past, even the grimy parts of it, well, it just keeps on getting brighter all the time. memories future past silk-spectre watchmen Alan Moore
cebe164 What is it about childhood that never lets you go, even when you're so wrecked it's hard to believe you ever were a child? past Mitch Albom
6c4b420 "As we experience this love, there is a temptation at times to become hostile to our earlier understandings, feeling embarrassed that we were so "simple" or "naive," or "brainwashed" or whatever terms arise when we haven't come to terms with our own story. These past understandings aren't to be denied or dismissed; they're to be embraced. Those experiences belong. Love demands that they belong. That's where we were at that point in our life and God met us there. Those moments were necessary for us to arrive here, at this place at this time, as we are. Love frees us to embrace all of our history, the history in which all things are being made new." past love Rob Bell
81a2528 After so many years even the fire of passion dies, and with it what was believed the light of the truth. Who of us is able to say now whether Hector or Achilles was right, Agamemnon or Priam, when they fought over the beauty of a woman who is now dust and ashes? war passion past truth troy passage-of-time justification iliad mythology right homer Umberto Eco
a45df20 "I changed it. I had to. Do you know why?" She studied him, her eyes grave. "Because that was then and this is now. Because the past is gone, even though it defines the present." present past stephen-king doctor-sleep Stephen King
8596cc6 These things...they are who you are. They brought you here. To this day. You didn't give me a chance to understand that ever the unattractive parts of you, the messy parts, were something I could accept. past love Laura Dave
b65bfea He remembered how nice the kids at Camp Half-Blood had been to him after the war with Kronos. Great job, Nico! Thanks for bringing the armies of the Underworld to save us! Everybody smiled. They all invited him to sit at their table. After about a week, his welcome wore thin. Campers would jump when he walked up behind them. He would emerge from the shadows at the campfire, startle somebody and see the discomfort in their eyes: Are you still here? Why are you here? It didn't help that immediately after the war with Kronos, Annabeth and Percy had started dating ... Nico set down his fartura. Suddenly it didn't taste so good. past heartbreak life love nico-di-angelo memory Rick Riordan
bd1374d Yet I have come to believe that while the past is unchangeable, our perceptions of is are malleable... past Nicholas Sparks
1b59b6a Sometimes it was harder to change the past than it was the future. future past kate-atkinson Kate Atkinson
85e21ed Sitting on the floor, I'd replay the past in my head. Funny, that's all I did, day after day after day for half a year, and I never tired of it. What I'd been through seemed so vast, with so many facets. Vast, but real, very real, which was why the experience persisted in towering before me, like a monument lit up at night. And the thing was, it was a monument to me. memories past real surreal remembering Haruki Murakami
6b7a76b "Haven't you noticed, too, on the part of nearly everyone you know, a growing rebellion against the present? And an increasing longing for the past? I have. Never before in all my long life have I heard so many people wish that they lived 'at the turn of the century,' or 'when life was simpler,' or 'worth living,' or 'when you could bring children into the world and count on the future,' or simply 'in the good old days.' People didn't talk that way when I was young! The present was a glorious time! But they talk that way now. For the first time in man's history, man is desperate to escape the present. Our newsstands are jammed with escape literature, the very name of which is significant. Entire magazines are devoted to fantastic stories of escape - to other times, past and future, to other worlds and planets - escape to anywhere but here and now. Even our larger magazines, book publishers and Hollywood are beginning to meet the rising demand for this kind of escape. Yes, there is a craving in the world like a thirst, a terrible mass pressure that you can almost feel, of millions of minds struggling against the barriers of time. I am utterly convinced that this terrible mass pressure of millions of minds is already, slightly but definitely, affecting time itself. In the moments when this happens - when the almost universal longing to escape is greatest - my incidents occur. Man is disturbing the clock of time, and I am afraid it will break. When it does, I leave to your imagination the last few hours of madness that will be left to us; all the countless moments that now make up our lives suddenly ripped apart and chaotically tangled in time. Well, I have lived most of my life; I can be robbed of only a few more years. But it seems too bad - this universal craving to escape what could be a rich, productive, happy world. We live on a planet well able to provide a decent life for every soul on it, which is all ninety-nine of a hundred human beings ask. Why in the world can't we have it? ("I'm Scared")" present past escapist escapism modernity nostalgia Jack Finney
188b00b What is the past but what we choose to remember? past Amy Tan
5a171f3 When the uncertain future becomes the past, the past in turn becomes uncertain. past uncertainty Mohsin Hamid
dff2759 The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence past historical-perspective history-repeating-itself human-perception jared-wheat past-and-future the-past historical presence perception T.S. Eliot
85e1ce5 Your past is just a story. And once you realise this, it has no power over you. past invisible-monsters past-and-future Chuck Palahniuk
57260e1 We went to the New York World's Fair, saw what the past had been like, according to the Ford Motor Car Company and Walt Disney, saw what the future would be like, according to General Motors. And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep. present thoughts past life Kurt Vonnegut
57025b1 In trying to escape the fatality of memory, he discovered with an immense sadness that pursuing the past inevitably only leads to greater loss. past Richard Flanagan
e232093 The future is foretold from the past and the future is only possible because of the past. Without past and future, the present is partial. All time is eternally present and so all time is ours. There is no sense in forgetting and every sense in dreaming. Thus the present is made rich. present time past Jeanette Winterson
ec29ca0 It's not easy remembering the good times. memories past humor love remembered Cecelia Ahern
0abe13f "There is nothing worse, is there," she said, "than a past that has never been fully dealt with. One can convince oneself, that it is all safely in the past and forgotten about, but the very fact that we can tell ourselves that it is forgotten proves that it is not." past Mary Balogh
a51dcf0 It's best to be ruthless with the past. past ruthless Stephen King
525954c It is difficult to live in the present, pointless to live in the future and impossible to live in the past. present past Frank Herbert
ad5d774 But she knew that no matter what beauty lay behind, it must remain there. No one could go forward with a load of aching memories. memories beauty past Margaret Mitchell
550656f If New Orleans is not fully in the mainstream of culture, neither is it fully in the mainstream of time. Lacking a well-defined present, it lives somewhere between its past and its future, as if uncertain whether to advance or to retreat. Perhaps it is its perpetual ambivalence that is its secret charm. Somewhere between Preservation Hall and the Superdome, between voodoo and cybernetics, New Orleans listens eagerly to the seductive promises of the future but keeps at least one foot firmly planted in its history, and in the end, conforms, like an artist, not to the world but to its own inner being--ever mindful of its personal style. present time history future past mainstream new-orleans conformity timelessness Tom Robbins
98bce33 Not everybody believes in ghosts, but I do. Do you know what they are, Trisha? She had shaken her head slowly. Men and women who can't get over their past . . . That's what ghosts are. past ghosts Stephen King
d41d843 It may be argued that the past is a country from which we have all emigrated, that its loss is part of our common humanity. past Salman Rushdie
f17bd6d I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and thus effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognised them the spell is broken. Delivered by us, they have overcome death and return to share our life. And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) of which we have no inkling. And it depends on chance whether or not we come upon this object before we ourselves must die. past Marcel Proust
f3a79fd Cultural survival is not about preservation, sequestering indigenous peoples in enclaves like some sort of zoological specimens. Change itself does note destroy a culture. All societies are constantly evolving. Indeed a culture survives when it has enough confidence in its past and enough say in its future to maintain its spirit and essence through all the changes it will inevitably undergo. future past misattributed david-marbury-lewis evolve culture survival Wade Davis
a888725 Witness also that when we talk about literature, we do so in the present tense. When we speak of the dead, we are not so kind. present time literature past tense John Green
04cdc85 I don't know whether you can look at your past and find, woven like the hidden symbols on a treasure map, the path that will point to your final destination. past life symbols looking-back path Jodi Picoult
6e2e82d History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past present history future past mystification John Berger
469d105 Strange, what brings these past things so vividly back to us, sometimes! past suddenly Harriet Beecher Stowe
1cb372b ... truth, whose mother is history, who is the rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, example and lesson to the present, and warning to the future. present time history warning future past truth depository lesseon rival example witness Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
3a2c75e The past never went away and it was not designed to do so. It would always be there, and it should be acknowledged. moving-on past hurt remember Jennifer L. Armentrout
0ffb5f2 I still preserve those relics of past sufferings and experience, like pillars of witness set up in travelling through the valve of life, to mark particular occurrences. The footsteps are obliterated now; the face of the country may be changed; but the pillar is still there, to remind me how all things were when it was reared. past life-experience Anne Brontë
1812056 Leave off sniffing the carcass of your old life-do you enjoy unending pain? There is no shame in walking away from bones. Nor is there any special wisdom in injuring oneself over and over. What is your loyalty to that pain? To abandon it will not lessen you. past Robin Hobb
0614973 After his experience with Minos, Nico realized that most spectres held only as much power as you allowed them to have. They pried into your mind, using fear or anger or longing to influence you. Nico had learned to shield himself. Sometimes he could even turn the tables and bend ghosts to his will. past life wisdom lesson Rick Riordan
b2e6a0f But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know? time past einstein-s-dreams Alan Lightman
df6a989 In the space between yes and no, there is a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk and one you leave behind; it's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; it's the legroom for the lies you will tell yourself in the future. future past leave-behind yes path no decisions Jodi Picoult
cfc0503 When you are young, you think that the old lament the deterioration of life because this makes it easier for them to die without regret. When you are old, you become impatient with the way in which the young applaud the most insignificant improvements ... while remaining heedless of the world's barbarism. I don't say things have got worse; I merely say the young wouldn't notice if they had. The old times were good because then we were young, and ignorant of how ignorant the young can be. past Julian Barnes
211b44e The past informs the present. Memory makes the map we carry, no matter how hard we try to erase it. past present-moment memory Cara Black
f420213 Nothing is but what is now past life-and-living present-moment Ron Rash
571278b I have emotions that are like newspapers that read themselves. I go for days at a time trapped in the want ads. I feel as if I am an ad for the sale of a haunted house: 18 rooms $37,000 I'm yours ghosts and all. poetry past sadness ruins ghosts Richard Brautigan
99f77be When the light at Vernon turned green, we stepped into the street and George grabbed my hand and the ghosts of our younger selves crossed with us. youth past memory Aimee Bender
f7b16ce The choices we're working with here are a block universe, where past, present and future all coexist simultaneously and everything has already happened; chaos, where anything can happen and nothing can be predicted because we can't know all the variables; and a Christian universe in which God made everything and it's all here for a purpose but we have free will anyway. present universe future free-will past god life choices Audrey Niffenegger
3a2d0be I didn't mean I'd seen everything, John Grady said. I know you didn't. I just meant I'd seen some things I'd as soon not of. I know it. There's hard lessons in this world. What's the hardest? I dont know. Maybe it's just that when things are gone they're gone. They aint comin back. Yessir. lessons loss past Cormac McCarthy
988eddb Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak. present time humanity past epistemology trees George R.R. Martin
6f00c47 What is our life: (Pause.) it's looking forward or it's looking back. And that's our life. That's it. Where is the moment? present past life moment David Mamet
c86d402 We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self. These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,--the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled Autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man. winter perfection shakespeare true grief doubt passion nature joy fear past death dreams music hope life love truth hateful philosophies religion-myths scorn sacred-books brave tender fairy haunted pagan king-lear spring woods fable poetic mountains lake birth smiles deny eternity autumn punishment gods effort tears questions mystery beautiful throne summer thought delight william-shakespeare pleasure Robert G. Ingersoll
72112e4 Sometimes, I think one should only live in the present. The past is only a heavy burden to carry with you. And yet... it's so hard to let them go... to forget... to move ahead... present past moving-on-and-letting-go Danielle Steel
9d22ad6 ...the past is in us, and not behind us. Things are never over. past Tim Winton
29e7ea3 I went to my grandmother, your great-great-grandmother, and asked her to write a letter. She was my mother's mother. Your father's mother's mother's mother. I hardly knew her. I didn't have any interest in knowing her. I have no need for the past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me. What kind of letter? my grandmother asked. I told her to write whatever she wanted to write. You want a letter from me? she asked. I told her yes. Oh, God bless you, she said. The letter she gave me was sixty-seven pages long. It was the story of her life. She made my request into her own. Listen to me. history past Jonathan Safran Foer
3b3a6d2 I stole their future from them; I can only being to repay by seeing what I can learn from their past. past retribution Orson Scott Card
f2d9562 Did you ever look back at some moment in your past and have it suddenly grow so vivid that all the intervening years seemed brief, dreamlike, impersonal--the motions of a May afternoon surrendered to routine? past years remembering Roger Zelazny
3104f8b How did it make you feel? past reflection Irvine Welsh
2f28cf0 But you must stop playing among his ghosts -- it's stupid and dangerous and completely pointless. He's trying to lay them to rest here, not stir them up, and you seem eager to drag out all the sad old bones of his history and make them dance again. It's not nice, and it's not fair. past Patricia A. McKillip
fc15a26 Patricia embraces me on the station platform. 'The past is what you leave behind in life, Ruby,' she says with the smile of a reincarnated lama. 'Nonsense, Patricia,' I tell her as I climb on board my train. 'The past's what you take with you. past Kate Atkinson
d637741 You cannot see the past that did not happen any more than you can foresee the future. past regret Madeleine L'Engle
f9bd6ad Memory, therefore, not simply as the resurrection of one's private past, but an immersion in the past of others, which is to say: history - which one both participates in and is a witness to, is a part of and apart from. Everything, therefore, is present in his mind at once, as if each element were reflecting the light of all the others, and at the same time emitting its own unique and unquenchable radiance. past memory Paul Auster
c98419a You forget the life you had before, after awhile. Things you cherish and hold dear are like pearls on a string. Cut the knot and they scatter across the floor, rolling into dark corners never to be found again. So you move on, and eventually you forget what the pearls even looked like. At least, you try. past remembering-the-past new-life Diana Gabaldon
f1008b0 It is dreadful to think that behind me my own past is no longer anything but shifting darkness. past Simone de Beauvoir
8a92f62 And though some days it is very hard, I try not to live for the future. And I try not to dream of the past. past Chris Bohjalian
a8f968f by now you've already formed your own impression. you believe that an act committed a lifetime ago defines a man, or you believe that a person's past has nothing to do with his future. you think i am either a hero, or a monster. maybe knowning more about circumstances will make you think differently about me, but it won't change what happened twenty-eight years ago. past life Jodi Picoult
88eb3ab I'm a poor audience for my memory. She wants me to attend her voice nonstop, but I fidget, fuss, listen and don't, step out, come back, then leave again. She wants all my time and attention. She's got no problem when I sleep. The day's a different matter, which upsets her. She thrusts old letters, snapshots at me eagerly, stirs up events both important and un-, turns my eyes to overlooked views, peoples them with my dead. In her stories I'm always younger. Which is nice, but why always the same story. Every mirror holds different news for me. She gets angry when I shrug my shoulders. And takes revenge by hauling out old errors, weighty, but easily forgotten. Looks into my eyes, checks my reaction. Then comforts me, it could be worse. She wants me to live only for her and with her. Ideally in a dark, locked room, but my plans still feature today's sun, clouds in progress, ongoing roads. At times I get fed up with her. I suggest a separation. From now to eternity. Then she smiles at me with pity, since she knows it would be the end of me too. poetry past Wisława Szymborska
01242d2 Neither mine nor other people's prospects seem particularly pleasing just at the moment, and I have fantasies of going to Iceland, never to return. As it is, I tell myself not to remember the past, not to hope or fear for the future, and not to think in the present, a comprehensive program that will undoubtedly have very little success. present past iceland Edward Gorey
cdb8a41 When I look back at myself at age twenty, what I remember most is being alone and lonely. I had no girlfriend to warm my body or my soul, no friends I could open up to. No clue what I should do every day, no vision for the future. For the most part, I remained hidden away, deep within myself. Sometimes, I'd go a week without talking to anybody. loneliness past haruki-murakami i remembrance lonely Haruki Murakami
a605749 I'd forgotten about it, and now I forgot it again. There are things that have to be forgotten if you want to go on living. memories past living forgotten Jim Thompson
0207569 Events, once happened, lose reality, alter with a glance, a storm, a night. In time, the past never happened. But who could know? Who could know that the past is not as solid as this instant... reality past Alan Lightman
000b98b "As I write this, we are in an especially divisive era in American politics. There are questions about who holds power, who abuses it, who profits from it, and at what cost to our democracy. It is a time of questions about what makes us American, of shifting identities, inclusion and exclusion, protest, civil and human rights, the strength of our compassion versus the weakness of our fears, and the seductive lure of a mythic "great" past that never was versus the need for the consciousness and responsibility necessary if we are truly to live up to the rich promise of "We the People." We are a country built by immigrants, dreams, daring, and opportunity. We are a country built by the horrors of slavery and genocide, the injustice of racism and exclusion. These realities exist side by side. It is our past and present. The future is unwritten. This is a book about ghosts. For we live in a haunted house." present future past inspirational-quote americans Libba Bray
d15de03 If you remember your past too well you start blaming your present for it. Look what they did to me, that's what caused me to be like this, it's not my fault. Permit me to correct you: it probably is your fault. And kindly spare me the details. present past Julian Barnes
c58865b But thing in the past are like plate that's shattered to pieces. You can never put it back together like it was, right? past Haruki Murakami
c5bb37d In half hour my mother has managed to give me what my father couldn't: my past. past mother Jodi Picoult
7ce30fa Yesterday was a beautiful tune on the lips of life and today is a silent secret. past Kahlil Gibran
7964300 Back then, things were plainer: less money, no electronic devices, little fashion tyranny, no girlfriends. There was nothing to distract us from our human and filial duty which was to study, pass exams, use those qualifications to find a job, and then put together a way of life unthreateningly fuller than that of our parents, who would approve, while privately comparing it to their own earlier lives, which had been simpler, and therefore superior. past life parents-and-children memory Julian Barnes
bd645d2 There are things that once done can't be undone, things that once said can't be unsaid. present past life reverse said the-neighbor undone mistakes Lisa Gardner
1760484 the past is so hard to shift. It comes with us like a chaperon, standing between us and the newness of the present - the new chance. present past Jeanette Winterson
71d7043 She had the bizarre feeling of time bending all around her, as though she was from the past reading about the future, or from the future reading about the past. time reading past Mohsin Hamid
cea4564 We may call Eurydice forth from the world of the dead, but we cannot make her answer; and when we turn to look at her we glimpse her only for a moment, before she slips from our grasp and flees. As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come; and, try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our own day. time light past wisdom eurydice day matrix dystopia Margaret Atwood
3d36be7 "Have you noticed," she asked him, "how we live much of our lives in the past and most of the rest of it in the future? Have you noticed how often the present moment slips by quiet unnoticed?" present past Mary Balogh
c715192 Information about time cannot be imparted in a straightforward way. Like furniture, it has to be tipped and tilted to get it through the door. If the past is a solid oak buffet whose legs must be unscrewed and whose drawers must be removed before, in an altered state, it can be upended into the entryway of our minds, then the future is a king-size waterbed that hardly stands a chance, especially if it needs to be brought up in an elevator. Those billions who persist in perceiving time as the pursuit of the future are continually buying waterbeds that will never make it beyond the front porch or the lobby. And if man's mission is to reside in the fullness of the present, then he's got no space for the waterbed, anyhow, not even if he could lower it through a skylight. present time past Tom Robbins
33eb66d "UP You wake up filled with dread. There seems no reason for it. Morning light sifts through the window, there is birdsong, you can't get out of bed. It's something about the crumpled sheets hanging over the edge like jungle foliage, the terry slippers gaping their dark pink mouths for your feet, the unseen breakfast--some of it in the refrigerator you do not dare to open--you will not dare to eat. What prevents you? The future. The future tense, immense as outer space. You could get lost there. No. Nothing so simple. The past, its density and drowned events pressing you down, like sea water, like gelatin filling your lungs instead of air. Forget all that and let's get up. Try moving your arm. Try moving your head. Pretend the house is on fire and you must run or burn. No, that one's useless. It's never worked before. Where is it coming form, this echo, this huge No that surrounds you, silent as the folds of the yellow curtains, mute as the cheerful Mexican bowl with its cargo of mummified flowers? (You chose the colours of the sun, not the dried neutrals of shadow. God knows you've tried.) Now here's a good one: you're lying on your deathbed. You have one hour to live. poetry future fear past life forgiveness Margaret Atwood
d116095 photographs are very interesting, and you can look into them a million times and still find a new meaning in them, something in the past that was caught in the film itself... photography grief loss romance joy meaning past love fujifilm nikon kodak kodachrome super-8 canon photo capture film knowledge nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
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