Past quotes
10.5K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside past — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"We hence acquire this sublime and interesting idea; that all the calcareous mountains in the world, and all the strata of clay, coal, marl, sand, and iron, which are incumbent on them, are MONUMENTS OF THE PAST FELICITY OF ORGANIZED NATURE!"
"I am mindful that scientific achievement is rooted in the past, is cultivated to full stature by many contemporaries and flourishes only in favorable environment. No individual is alone responsible for a single stepping stone along the path of progress, and where the path is smooth progress is most rapid. In my own work this has been particularly true."
"When you focus upon lack in an attitude of complaining, you establish a vibrational point of attraction that then gives you access only to more thoughts of complaint. Your deliberate effort to tell a new story will establish a new pattern of thought, providing you with a new point of attraction from your present, about your past, and into your future. The simple effort of looking for positive aspects will set a new vibrational tone that will begin the immediate attraction of thoughts, people, circumstances, and things that are pleasing to you."
"We do NOT know the past in chronological sequence. It may be convenient to lay it out anesthetized on the table with dates pasted on here and there, but what we know we know by ripples and spirals eddying out from us and from our own time."
"Yeah, I did see where the people dissing me were coming from. But, it's like, anything that happened in the past between black and white, I can't really speak on it, because I wasn't there. I don't feel like me being born the color I am makes me any less of a person."
"Usually the people that peak in high school are tragic, tragic adults. Most of them end up working for the water department in their hometown and driving around said high school as the decades slip past."
"What was given to us by the past is adapted to the possibilities of the future."
"The past is a bucket of ashes"
"I would be wary of experts' intuition, except when they deal with something that they have dealt with a lot in the past."
"All of us roughly know what memory is. I mean, memory is sort of the storage of the past. It's the storage of our personal experiences. It's a very big deal."
"Calculate a stock's price/earnings ratio yourself, using Graham's formula of current price divided by average earnings over the past three years."
"Only one accomplishment is beyond both the power and the mercy of the Gods. They cannot make the past as though it had never been."
"Layer upon layer, Italy's storied past unfolds in Robert Kaster's captivating journey along the venerable Queen of Roads. I cannot imagine a more perfect guide to such a rich trove of ancient and modern memories. Illuminating, erudite, entertaining, and evocative."
"Live each day as if was your last, not in the future, not in the past. You may not get what you want, but, in the long run, you will get what you expect."
"The next thing you think, the next action you take, will either create a new possibility for you, or it will repeat the past."
"There's a bridge to tomorrow, There's a bridge to the past."
"...Gratitude transforms the torment of memory of good things now gone into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain."
"The function of posterity is to look after itself."
"Like myself, all Americans have a deep concern for the well-being of Iran. With them I have watched closely your courageous efforts, your steadfastness over the past difficult years, and with them I too have hoped that you might achieve the goals you so earnestly desire. The attainment of an oil settlement along the lines which have been announced should be a significant step in the direction of the realization of your aspirations for your people."
"Taking the money from drug operations and all that sort of stuff is something that goes past what most of us in society would expect a policeman should do. That temptation hits the police force at the same time as the temptation to take those drugs that are readily available hits the people on the streets."
