Past quotes
10.5K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside past — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Make the least of all that goes and the most of all that comes. Don't regret what is past. Cherish what you have. Look forward to all that is to come. And most important of all, rely moment by moment on Jesus Christ."
"The past is our only real possession in life. It is the one piece of property of which time cannot deprive us; it is our own in a way that nothing else in life is. In a word, we are our past; we do not cling to it, it clings to us."
"It's not about the past or the future, it's about right now."
"There is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege, or to believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown social laws. These are simply decisions made within institutions that are subject to human will and that must face the test of legitimacy. And if they do not meet the test, they can be replaced by other institutions that are more free and more just, as has happened often in the past."
"Some say that no one ever leaves Montreal, for that city, like Canada itself, is designed to preserve the past, a past that happened somewhere else."
"Business men go down with their businesses because they like the old way so well they cannot bring themselves to change. One sees them all about - men who do not know that yesterday is past, and who woke up this morning with their last year's ideas."
"Man... cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him."
"A dying people tolerates the present, rejects the future, and finds its satisfactions in past greatness and half remembered glory"
"This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. It cannot be otherwise. If now there is not a communist government in Paris, this is only because Russia has no an army which can reach Paris in 1945."
"Rivers flow not past, but through us; tingling, vibrating, exciting every cell and fiber in our bodies, making them sing and glide."
"The past is not dead; it is not even past. People live on inner time; the moment in which a decisive thought or feeling takes place can be at any time. Timeless feelings are common to all of us."
"You think that just because it's already happened, the past is finished and unchangeable? Oh no, the past is cloaked in multicolored taffeta and every time we look at it we see a different hue."
"Life is like a game of chess...there are many moves possible, but each move determines your next move...where you wind up is the sum total of all your past moves...but first you have to make some kind of move."
"The lessons of the past should steer us towards ensuring lasting legacies for generations yet to be born."
"In art, there is neither past nor future. The art that is not in the present will never be."
"Do not allow past experiences to be imprinted on your mind. Perform asana each time with a fresh mind and with a fresh approach."
"My top priority in any trade negotiation is expanding opportunity for hardworking Americans. It's no secret that past trade deals haven't always lived up to their promise, and that's why I will only sign my name to an agreement that helps ordinary Americans get ahead, the bill put forward today would help us write those rules in a way that avoids the mistakes from our past, seizes opportunities for our future and stays true to our values."
"Through Self-realization man becomes aware of true values as to his place in the divine plan and his relation to the past, present, and future of mankind."
"Forgiveness of the present is even more important than forgiveness of the past. If you forgive every moment - allow it to be as it is - then there will be no accumulation of resentment that needs to be forgiven at some later time."
"To know another human being in their essence, you don’t really need to know anything about them - their past, their history, their story. We confuse knowing about with a deeper knowing that is non-conceptual. Knowing about and knowing are totally different modalities. One is concerned with form, the other with the formless. One operates through thought, the other through stillness."
