Popular quotes about Present! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 2
Tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live. There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly.
Alan WattsBeing thankful helps you to be present.People commit errors because they are not present.I would encourage women and men to be present - you'll avoid falling into certain pits.For instance, if you know that a person has just lost his wife or her husband or lover, it's unlikely that you will say something that will hurt that person's feelings if you're truly paying attention. You'll make a sweeter life for yourself and for those around you if you are present.
Maya AngelouGerald Westerby, he told himself. You were present at your birth. You were present at your several marriages and at some of your divorces, and you will certainly be present at your funeral. High time, in our considered view, that you were present at certain other crucial moments in your history.
John le CarreWe try to be present when we are drinking our tea, which isn't as easy as it sounds. It's very easy to think, right now I'm going to be really present while I'm drinking my tea, here I am drinking my tea, and I'm so present, look this is easy, I am here drinking my tea and I know I'm drinking my tea blah blah blah blah... right? And the one place where the mind is not, is here. It's just thinking about being here.
Tenzin PalmoBe present. I would encourage you with all my heart just to be present. Be present and open to the moment that is unfolding before you. Because, ultimately, your life is made up of moments. So don't miss them by being lost in the past or anticipating the future.
Jessica LangeThe present moment is never intolerable. It is always what is coming in five minutes or five days that makes people despair. The Law of Life is to live in the present, and this applies to both time and place. Keep your attention to the present moment, and in the place where your body is now. Do a fair day's work, and then stop. Overwork is not productive in the long run.
Emmet FoxExistence is only in the present. Mind is never in the present. In fact, the moment you are in the present, there is no mind in you, there is great silence. The whole sky of your inner being is without thoughts, without clouds. I call this the state of no-mind. Only in this state of no-mind do you meet existence. And that meeting is the ultimate ecstasy. Once you have tasted it, you will never bother about the future.
RajneeshIn fact, life is our greatest teacher. Whatever we are doing can be instructive, whether we are at the office, or talking to our spouse, or driving a car on the freeway. If we are present to our experiences, the impressions of our activities will be fresh and alive, and we will always learn something new from them. But if we are not present, every moment will be like every other, and nothing of the preciousness of life will touch us.
Don Richard RisoA thinking mind is not swallowed up by what it comes to know. It reaches out to grasp something related to itself and to its present knowledge (and so knowable in some degree) but also separate from itself and from its present knowledge (not identical with these). In any act of thinking, the mind must reach across this space between known and unknown, linking one to the other but also keeping visible to difference. It is an erotic space.
Anne CarsonWe do have the ability to shift our paradigms - by shifting our belief systems, by working on ourselves, by looking very closely at how we show up in the world. It's why I'm into health and wellness. It's why my partner and I are very focused on creating a life that is about being connected; it's about being present. Because my life was probably so much in the past. I was so fearful. I was so fearful of the future because I was so scared of my past. So if you can work towards being present, then you can shift.
Mariel HemingwayI am kind of prudish and I have very strict standards about how I present myself. But one of the things that I've always stood by is that women are beautiful and sexy. We shouldn't be afraid of that. [But] we need to make sure that we present that beauty and that sexiness in a way that says we are in control of our bodies. We're strong, we're classy, we're beautiful, powerful beings to be reckoned with, not victims.
Evangeline LillyThe grief of a child is always terrible. It is bottomless, without hope. A child has no past and no future. It just lives in the present moment - wholeheartedly. If the present moment spells disaster, the child suffers it with his whole heart, his whole soul, his whole strength, his whole little being.
Maria Franziska von TrappMost people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.
Eckhart TolleThere are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.
Abraham LincolnAnyone who stands on the edge of the unknown, fully in the present without reference point, experiences groundlessness. That's when our understanding goes deeper, when we find that the present moment is a pretty vulnerable place and that this can be completely unnerving and completely tender at the same time.
Pema ChodronAn orange on the table, your dress on the rug, and you in my bed, sweet present of the present, cool of night, warmth of my life.
Jacques PrevertLife is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future.
William WordsworthParliament is for discussion. Parliament is to show dissent. Parliament is to give an argument for one's opposition, to present an argument when they support. To uphold this basic spirit of Parliament, is the responsibility of every person who values democracy. It is the responsibility of those present in the Parliament and those outside. It is the responsibility of those in power and those not in power. This is a matter of spirit and it should be followed.
Narendra ModiIf you want to understand the causes that existed in the past, look at the results as they are manifested in the present. And if you want to understand what results will be manifested in the future, look at the causes that exist in the present.
Gautama BuddhaGet the big view of your job. Think, really think your present job is important. That next promotion depends mostly on how you think toward your present job.
David J. SchwartzIf only, then, I had been more living out of the present--such a beautiful word...present. The sense of it being, now to me, more beautiful than 'to look forward.
Stan BrakhageWe all reconstruct our past because we wish to see how our present came to be our present - do we not?
Robert Jackson BennettThe nature of the video camera really makes you focus on the present. Since I have always been a diarist filmmaker, not one who stages scenes with actors, it has always been about the present moment.
Jonas MekasNow time has a very different look; it is no longer the conquering present capturing the future; it is the present conquered and captured and carried off by the past.
Milan KunderaA look filled with understanding, an accepting smile, a loving word, a meal shared in warmth and awareness are the things which create happiness in the present moment. By nourishing awareness in the present moment, you can avoid causing suffering to yourself and those around you. The way you look at others, your smile, and your small acts of caring can create happiness. True happiness does not depend on wealth or fame.
Nhat HanhAs modern-day neuroscience tells us, we are never in touch with the present, because neural information-processing itself takes time. Signals take time to travel from your sensory organs along the multiple neuronal pathways in your body to your brain, and they take time to be processed and transformed into objects, scenes, and complex situations. So, strictly speaking, what you are experiencing as the present moment is actually the past.
Thomas MetzingerLive in the present. The past is gone; the future is unknown - but the present is real, and your opportunities are now.
Maxwell MaltzIt is an irrational claim to believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ and at the same time to hold that the greater part of his teachings have no application at the present time. If you say that the reason why the powers do not follow them that believe (as Christ said they would) is because you have not faith enough and are not pure enough-that will be all right. But to say that they have no application at the present time is to be ridiculous.
Swami VivekanandaHow can the past and future be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet? As for the present, if it were always present and never moved on to become the past, it would not be time, but eternity.
Saint AugustineSo scanty is our present allowance of happiness that in many situations life could scarcely be supported if hope were not allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed from the future.
Samuel JohnsonGod isn't present in the past or future. The great 'I Am' is in the present moment. When I claim that presence, I can get through anything today.
Regina BrettWhen we are mired in the relative world, never lifting our gaze to the mystery, our life is stunted, incomplete; we are filled with yearning for that paradise that is lost when, as young children, we replace it with words and ideas and abstractions - such as merit, such as past, present, and future - our direct, spontaneous experience of the thing itself, in the beauty and precision of this present moment.
Peter MatthiessenEach situation is different... Each situation, I'm a different person I guess. He's present; the actors are present; and you just work in that moment, trying to flush it out. We have history from Assassins and Wicked, but it's always new beginnings between us. You start off fresh and that's what I like and respect about him.
Kendra KassebaumCivilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the Present with the Past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be discovered.
Cyril ConnollyBut man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.
Ralph Waldo EmersonWe learn in the past, but we are not the result of that. We suffered in the past, loved in the past, cried and laughed in the past, but that's of no use to the present. The present has its challenges, its good and bad side. We can neither blame nor be grateful to the past for what is happening now. Each new experience of love has nothing whatsoever to do with past experiences. It's always new.
Paulo CoelhoThere is no past. That's another illusion. Everything that has ever happened to you, to me, to anyone in this world, happened in the present moment. That's all there ever is. So your relationship to life isn't your relationship to your past, it's your relationship to the present moment.
Wayne DyerIt must be that when God speaketh, he should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, from the centre of the present thought; and new date and new create the whole.Whenever a mind is simple and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away, - means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are made sacred by relation to it,-one as much as another. All things are disolved to ther center by thier cause.
Ralph Waldo EmersonOut of the past come the standards for judging the present; standards in turn to be shaped by the practice of present-day dramatists into broader standards for the next generation.
George P. BakerIn whatever position one is in, or in whatever condition in life one is placed, one must find balance. Balance is the state of the present - the here and now. If you balance in the present, you are living in Eternity.
B.K.S. IyengarIf there's not love present, it's much, much harder to function. When there's love present, it's easier to deal with life.
Brian WilsonFor the real difference between happiness and joy is that one is grounded in this world, the other in eternity. Happiness cannot encompass suffering and evil. Joy can. Happiness depends on the present. Joy leaps into the future and triumphantly creates a new present out of it.
Elise M. BouldingJust pausing for two to three breaths is a perfect way to stay present. This is a good use of our life. Indeed, it is an excellent, joyful use of our life. Instead of getting better and better at avoiding, we can learn to accept the present moment as if we had invited it, and work with it instead of against it, making it our ally rather than our enemy.
Pema ChodronHow strange it is that we of the present day are constantly praising that past age which our fathers abused, and as constantly abusing that present age, which our children will praise.
Charles Caleb Colton