quotations about the present
The present is pregnant with the future.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ
Philosophical Writings
When you are depressed, the past and future are absorbed entirely by the present moment, as in the world of a three-year-old. You cannot remember a time when you felt better, at least not clearly; and you certainly cannot imagine a future time when you will feel better.
ANDREW SOLOMON
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
The past was gone and the future had yet to unfold, and he knew he should focus his life on the present ... yet his day-to-day existence suddenly struck him as endless and unbearable.
NICHOLAS SPARKS
The Choice
Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day.
ROMAIN ROLLAND
Jean-Christophe
Tomorrow gives a beck'ning hand--
I turn my face away;
I'll not invite her to my home--
I only love Today.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
"Today"
Zen lives in the present. The Whole teaching is: how to be in the present; how to get out of the past which is no more and how not to get involved in the future which is not yet, and just to be rooted, centered, in that which is.
OSHO
Zen: The Path of Paradox
If I did not love what is present, if I could not cling to this enormous, safe parachute, I would long since have fallen into the abyss.
CHRISTIAN MORGENSTERN
Levels
All the past is not worth one today.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"New Year"
In order to enjoy the present, it is necessary to be intent on the present; to be doing one thing and thinking of another is a very unsatisfactory mode of spending life. Some people are always wishing themselves somewhere but where they are, or thinking of something else than what they are doing, or of somebody else than to whom they are speaking; this is the way to enjoy nothing well, and to please nobody. It is better to be interested with inferior persons and inferior things, than to be indifferent with the best.
GEORGE MOGRIDGE
attributed, Day's Collacon
There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now.
EUGENE O'NEILL
A Moon for the Misbegotten
We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infintesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality.
ALAN W. WATTS
attributed, S.A.I.N.T.: How to live more fully in the Spirit
When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable.
MARTIN AMIS
Other People
Let any one try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice or attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.
WILLIAM JAMES
Principles of Psychology
You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.
JOHN GREEN
Looking for Alaska
The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind.
KIRAN DESAI
The Inheritance of Loss
When people can't abide things as they are, when they can't abide the present, they do one of two things ... either they ... either they turn to a contemplation of the past ... or they set about to ... alter the future. And when you want to change something ... YOU BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
EDWARD ALBEE
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Let us act as though there were no past, only so far as it aids and cheers the present; and no future, excepting such as we make it by the best use of the present.
MARTHA MARTELL
Second Love
There is no comfort looking forth nor back,
The present gives the lie to all her past.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Epochs: VI. Grief"
The present is a bright speck between the darkness of the future and the twilight of the past.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
We must not confuse the present with the past. With regard to the past, no further action is possible.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Ethics of Ambiguity