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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"Die to the past every moment. You don't need it. Only refer to it when it is absolutely relevant to the present. Feel the power of this moment and the fullness of Being. Feel your presence."
"One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished."
"The present moment, though, is outside of time, it’s Eternity. In India they use the word “karma” for lack of any better term. But it’s a concept that’s rarely given a proper explanation. It isn’t what you did in the past that will affect the present. It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future."
"No one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong -- only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that way. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong, for that which is done cannot be undone, but he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again."
"The Tibetan religion has a past. And furthermore it has such an appeal. There again young people today are drawn to Buddhism and to Tibet. It's not only because of the Dalai Lama. It's because of what Tibet represents. There is a vast reservoir of knowledge, of mystical knowledge, which can be found in Tibet.The Chinese shouldn't be afraid of that really. They have other means of survival."
"History is past politics, and politics is present history."
"No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have all of tomorrow. Success depends upon using it wisely by planning and setting priorities. The fact is, time is worth more than money, and by killing time we are killing our own chances for success."
"Pain in the present is experienced as hurt. Pain in the past is remembered as anger. Pain in the future is perceived as anxiety. Unexpressed anger, redirected against yourself and held within, is called guilt. The depletion of energy that occurs when anger is redirected inward creates depression."
"God can make a new beginning with people whenever God pleases, but not people with God. Therefore, people cannot make a new beginning at all; they can only pray for one. Where people are on their own and live by their own devices, there is only the old, the past."
"In the acceptance of depravity the sense of the past is most truly captured. What is a ruin but time easing itself of endurance? Corruption is the Age of Time."
"We Virginians do not go to the storied shrines of the past to do worship but rather to gain inspiration."
"I love the old movies from my past, when I was growing up. I just have a special place in my heart for them. They kind of feel like comfort food to me, so watching them is just cozy and warm."
"If the history of the past fifty years teaches us anything, it is that peace does not follow disarmament - disarmament follows peace."
"Gratitude is born in hearts that take time to count up past mercies. they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."
"Nothing's ever entirely new. It's more a matter of what gets picked up from the past at each time."
"When we resent someone in some way we need to "be on the alert" that even innocent gestures on their part can become suspect to us. Even something as simple as their walking into a room or whispering something to someone else can be conjured up in our minds, to look to us as if they're doing it on purpose to irritate us -as if they're involved in some diabolical plot to hurt us further. What they may be doing may have no connection to their past actions that hurt us in the first place but our resentful feelings against them can often taint our perception of what's really taking place."
"For the past several years, I have gone to sleep every night in this same little pocket, the most uneventful piece of time I could find. Same exact thing every night, night after night. Total silence. Absolutely nothing. That's why I chose it. I know for a fact nothing bad can happen to me in here."
"Peter Jones's is a vital public service. He reminds us that while we shouldn't live in the past, we are wiser and stronger when we live with it."
"We think very little of time present; we anticipate the future, as being too slow, and with a view to hasten it onward, we recall the past to stay it as too swiftly gone. We are so thoughtless, that we thus wander through the hours which are not here, regardless only of the moment that is actually our own."
"Growing up, you look at guys like Jeff Thomson as heroes, so going past him is pretty special."
