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.
"The police don't look at you as long when they drive past. Sometimes they don't look at you at all. In South Central, you've got them looking and lurking. I think it's basic harassment. It's part of their tactics to have everybody nervous of them. In the valley, at least I don't feel it the same way."
"We can let our past [difficulties and failures] beat us or teach us [to be more knowledgeable, competent and realistic in the future]!"
"A good relationship is when someone accepts your past, supports your present and encourages your future."
"Forgivness is letting go of the hope that the past can be changed"
"The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are."
"In 1973, America imported 30 percent of its crude oil needs. Today, that number has doubled to more than 60 percent. Gas prices are as high as they are now in part because we've had no comprehensive national energy policy for the past few decades"
"I used to rent a house in Princeton, New Jersey, and whenever people came to visit me, I would drive them past Albert Einstein's house, which is the most ordinary house in Princeton - a house, let me assure you, that now a salesman wouldn't live in. I'd always say, "That was Albert Einstein's house." And they'd say, "What do you mean? Why would Albert Einstein live in a little house like that?" And I'd always say to people, "Because he didn't care!""
"You have the illusion of free will, but, in fact, that illusion comes about because you don't know the future. Because you are a prisoner of the present, forever locked in transition, between the past and the future."
"Any material form, or thought, or feeling, past or present, should be regarded as, 'This is not mine, this is not what I am, this is not my self.'"
"Each minute we spend worrying about the future and regretting the past is a minute we miss in our appointment with life - a missed opportunity to engage life and to see that each moment gives us the chance to change for the better, to experience peace and joy."
"It is generally said, "Past labors are pleasant," Euripides says, for you all know the Greek verse, "The recollection of past labors is pleasant." [Lat., Vulgo enim dicitur, Jucundi acti labores: nec male Euripides: concludam, si potero, Latine: Graecum enim hunc versum nostis omnes: Suavis laborum est proeteritorum memoria."
"The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls."
"I belong to a nation which over the past centuries has experienced many hardships and reverses. The world reacted with silence or with mere sympathy when Polish frontiers were crossed by invading armies and the sovereign state had to succumb to brutal force."
"ice contains no future , just the past, sealed away. As if they're alive, everything in the world is sealed up inside, clear and distinct. Ice can preserve all kinds of things that way- cleanly, clearly. That's the essence of ice, the role it plays."
"With each passing moment I'm becoming part of the past. There is no future for me, just the past steadily accumulating."
"It would never occur to me to map my research against events in my life, and the recent history of globalization seems to be part of someone else's life. Still, maybe I have been trying to fill in a history or address that amnesia for the recent past. There's so much that's opaque about the ways in which extra layers of global governance have developed since Pax Americana and really accelerated in these last thirty, forty years."
"In Plains, I saw Jimmy Carter as he really is - a nice, decent man... in terms of compassionate contribution to society, he certainly has proven to be our best past president."
"If I were starting life over again, I am inclined to think that I would go into the advertising business in preference to almost any other. The general raising of the standards of modern civilization among all groups of people during the past half ce"
"Genuine religion is not about speculating about God or the soul or about what happened in the past or will happen in the future; it cares only about one thing finding out exactly what should or should not be done in this lifetime."
"I have discovered nothing. I have only found out what I knew. I understand the force that in the past gave me life, and now too gives me life. I have been set free from falsity, I have found the Master."
