Quotes about past
past attention genius
Society expresses its sympathy for the geniuses of the past to distract attention from the fact that it has no intention of being sympathetic to the geniuses of the present. Celia Green
past laughing patterns
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? Alan Lightman
past men cost
Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free. Over time, some have determined that the only way to live is to die. In death, a man or a woman is free of the weight of the past [and the future].
past night reality
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…
past order law
Order is the law of nature, the universal trend, the cosmic direction. If time is an arrow, that arrow points toward order. The future is pattern, organization, union, intensification; the past, randomness, confusion, disintegration, dissipation.
past islands people
Most people have learned to live in the moment. The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past. And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence. Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. ... It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning.
past disregard
Americans have a penchant for the future and tend to disregard the past. Alan Dundes
past worldview formulas
I mentioned that one of the tripartite formulas in American worldview involves time: past, present, and future.
past atmosphere would-be
We're putting 70 million tonnes of pollution into the atmosphere every day, trapping an enormous amount of extra heat from the sun inside the earth's atmosphere. It's threatening to push the planet past a tipping point beyond which climate change would be difficult to stop Al Gore
past house political
The role of campaign contributions in our political system and the role of lobbyists have now reached levels that are quite unhealthy for the operations of our democracy. But the antidote, as in past eras of lobbyist excess, is for more involvement by citizens to build pressure on members of the House and Senate to serve the public interest.
past civilization done
CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally... Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past.
past doubt sake
But I can't confront the doubts I have. I can't admit that maybe the past was bad, and so, for the sake of momentum I'm condemning the future to death so it can match the past. Aimee Mann
past forget our-future
The past is over... forget it. The future holds hope... reach for it. Charles R. Swindoll
past giving gazing
Focusing intently on Christ naturally results in a lifestyle of increasingly greater selflessness. And it has another benefit. Gazing on Christ gives us greater ability to look past life's trials and remain calm in the midst of what others would call chaos.
past cures standards
The standard formulation on remedy is that it ought to cure past violations and prevent their recurrence. That's what antitrust is all about.
past world looks
On the theory of natural selection we can clearly understand the full meaning of that old canon in natural history, “Natura non facit saltum.” This canon, if we look only to the present inhabitants of the world, is not strictly correct, but if we include all those of past times, it must by my theory be strictly true. Charles Darwin
past justice mind
The moral faculties are generally esteemed, and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers. But we should always bear in mind that the activity of the mind in vividly recalling past impressions is one of the fundamental though secondary bases of conscience. This fact affords the strongest argument for educating and stimulating in all possible ways the intellectual faculties of every human being.
past places-to-live best-place
The past is so reliable, so delightful and the best place to live. Barry Humphries
past thinking
I think it's a promising time which will show a lot of diversification that we've seen in the past. Barry Levinson
past want records
I don't want to live on past records. Barry Gibb
past age fifty
When you get past fifty, you have to decide whether to keep your face or your figure. I kept my face. Barbara Cartland
past thinking rights
With so many of our fundamental rights hanging in the balance, it is not good enough to simply roll the dice, hoping a nominee has changed his past views. It's not good enough to think, 'This is the best we can expect from this president'. Barbara Boxer
past errors age
As the strata of the earth preserve in succession the living creatures of past epochs, so the shelves of libraries preserve in succession the errors of the past and their expositions, which like the former were very lively and made a great commotion in their own age but now stand petrified and stiff in a place where only the literary palaeontologist regards them. Arthur Schopenhauer
past expectations long
To gain anything we have longed for is only to discover how vain and empty it is; and even though we are always living in expectation of better things, at the same time we often repent and long to have the past back again.
past reality littles
Something of great importance now past is inferior to something of little importance now present, in that the latter is a reality, and related to the former as something to nothing.
past lessons print
I did learn one great lesson from a past relationship, and that was to never talk about relationships in print again because I'd rather live my private life than read about it. Brittany Murphy
past drawing errors
In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind. Edmund Burke
past age complaining
To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.
past men decision
Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through past prejudice, his duty becomes part of his nature.
past giving promise
...the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whaterver form. Both are illusions. Eckhart Tolle
past ego important
For the ego to survive, it must make time - past and future - more important than the present moment.
past quality degrees
If it is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that determines the future, then what is it that determines the quality of your consciousness? Your degree of presence. So the only place where true change can occur and where the past can be dissolved is the Now.
past keys desire
When you are fully present with everyone you meet, you relinquish the conceptual identity you made for them - your interpretation of who they are and what they did in the past - and are able to interact without the egoic movements of desire and fear. Attention, which is alert stillness, is the key.