Popular quotes about Present! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 5
You think you're safe. Until you see a picture like that. And then you know you'll always be a slave to the present because the present is more powerful than the past, no matter how long ago the present happened.
Ann-Marie MacDonaldWe 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 PalmoMarriage is an effort to legalize love. It is out of fear. It is thinking about the future, about the tomorrows. Man always thinks of the past and the future, and because of this constant thinking about past and future, he destroys the present. And the present is the only reality there is. One has to live in the present. The past has to die and has to be allowed to die.
RajneeshThese tenses-past, present and future-are not the tenses of time; they are tenses of the mind. That which is no longer before the mind becomes the past. That which is before the mind is the present. And that which is going to be before the mind is the future. Past is that which is no longer before you. Future is that which is not yet before you. And present is that which is before you and is slipping out of your sight. Soon it will be past.
RajneeshThe past, as you suggest, is absolutely present at all times and the present is born from the past. I wouldn't want to suggest that the past determines the present.
Chang-Rae LeeThe future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
W. Somerset MaughamOne of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present.
Stephen CoveyI construct my memories with my present. I am lost, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to rejoin the past: I cannot escape.
Jean-Paul SartreWe show our adoration by going to visit Christ in the tabernacle or exposed in the monstrance. Would it not indeed be a failing in respect to neglect the divine Guest who awaits us? He dwells there, really present, He who was present in the crib, at Nazareth, upon the mountains of Judea, in the supper-room, upon the Cross. It is the same Jesus who said to the Samaritan woman, 'If thou didst know the gift of God!'
Columba MarmionI've learned to relax and be my present age and my present position. I feel comfortable on my mid-thirties. It doesn't seem such an alien place to be.
David BowieBringing people into the here-and-now. The real universe. That's the present moment. The past is no good to us. The future is full of anxiety. Only the present is real--the here-and-now. Seize the day.
Saul BellowI don't have a past. I have a continuous present. The past is part of the present, just as the future is. We exist in time.
George BalanchineReal morality is based on a single criterion: right action, appropriate action, in the present moment and present situation.
Brad WarnerBasically, if the mind stays in the present, it's impossible to worry. Upon careful consideration, it becomes clear that human beings are capable of worrying only about an event that has already transpired or one that may take place in the future (although the occurrence might have just happened or may be about to happen in the next instant). The present moment contains no time or space for worry.
H. E DaveyThe only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future.
Alfred North WhiteheadThe 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 TrappDeath, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.
EpicurusGenerally, a betting system for which each wager depends only on present resources and present probability of success is known as a Markov betting system.
Richard Arnold EpsteinWe care too much about what happens to be there as a result of history. I worry even more that we care too much for the past and not enough for the present and the near present.
Nicholas SerotaThe future has become uninhabitable. Such hopelessness can arise, I think, only from an inability to face the present, to live in the present, to live as a responsible being among other beings in this sacred world here and now, which is all we have, and all we need, to found our hope upon.
Ursula K. Le GuinDon't let your imagination to be crushed by life as a whole. Don't try to pictures everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand. ...Then remind yourself that past and present have no power over you. Only the present.
Marcus AureliusOur present tax system ... exerts too heavy a drag on growth ... It reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking ... The present tax load ... distorts economic judgments and channels an undue amount of energy into efforts to avoidtaxliabilities.
John F. KennedyI do not see why the axiom of Prudence should not be questioned, when it conflicts with present inclination, on a ground similar to that on which Egoists refuse to admit the axiom of Rational Benevolence. If the Utilitarian has to answer the question, 'Why should I sacrifice my own happiness for the greater happiness of another?' it must surely be admissible to ask the Egoist 'Why should I sacrifice a present pleasure for a greater one in the future? Why should I concern myself about my own future feelings any more than about the feelings of other persons?'
Henry SidgwickO Mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love's coming, That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man's son doth know. What is love? 'Tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What's to come is still unsure: In delay there lies not plenty; Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure.
William ShakespeareDuring the first half of the present century we had an Alexander von Humboldt, who was able to scan the scientific knowledge of his time in its details, and to bring it within one vast generalization. At the present juncture, it is obviously very doubtful whether this task could be accomplished in a similar way, even by a mind with gifts so peculiarly suited for the purpose as Humboldt's was, and if all his time and work were devoted to the purpose.
Hermann von HelmholtzWhat we are left with then is the present, the only time where miracles happen. We place the past and the future as well into the hands of God. The biblical statement that โtime shall be no moreโ means that we will one day live fully in the present, without obsessing about past or future.
Marianne WilliamsonI'm not writing anything out of some sense of obligation, or for marketing purposes. This is just what I prefer to write. Even though I write mostly for kids, I'm not out to teach a moral lesson or present a guidebook for life. My primary goal as a writer is to create fun, entertaining books that present interesting ideas and themes, so kids can have a break from the stresses of their lives. I got a fan letter once from a girl who said one of my books made her feel good about herself, and if there's anything I'm reaching for, it's that.
Hope LarsonIt has to be real, and I think a lot of the problems we have as a society is because we donโt acknowledge that family is important and it has to be people who are present, you know and mothers and fathers, both are not present enough with children.
James Earl JonesHow 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 AugustineThe children's writer not only makes a satisfactory connection between [the writer's] present maturity and his past childhood, he also does the same for his child-characters in reverse - makes the connection between their present childhood and their future maturity. That their maturity is never visibly achieved makes no difference; the promise of it is there.
Philippa PearceWe may make our future by the best use of the present. There is no moment like the present.
Maria EdgeworthWhen two human beings get together, they're co-present, there is built into it a certain responsibility we have for each other, and when people are co-present in family relationships and other relationships, that responsibility is there. You can't just turn off a person. On the Internet, you can.
Neil PostmanEach 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 KassebaumWhen people are suicidal, their thinking is paralyzed, their options appear spare or nonexistent, their mood is despairing, and hopelessness permeates their entire mental domain. The future cannot be separated from the present, and the present is painful beyond solace. โThis is my last experiment,โ wrote a young chemist in his suicide note. โIf there is any eternal torment worse than mine Iโll have to be shown.
Kay Redfield JamisonLaziness acknowledges the relation of the present to the past but ignores its relation to the future; impatience acknowledge its relation to the future but ignores its relation to the past; neither the lazy nor the impatient man, that is, accepts the present instant in its full reality and so cannot love his neighbour completely.
W. H. AudenWhat happens in the present moment? In the present moment, you are producing thought, speech, and action. And they continue in the world.
Nhat HanhWe got a wonderful present from Stalin and Hitler that they never meant to give us. We were immune for 60 years or so to aggression, racism and militarism. They made us partly immune to these things. Now it appears this Stalin-Hitler present has reached its expiration date. We were spoiled by this. So maybe we are just emerging out of a relatively golden age.
Amos OzI do not mean to be the slightest bit critical of TV newspeople, who do a superb job, considering that they operate under severe time constraints and have the intellectual depth of hamsters. But TV news can only present the "bare bones" of a story; it takes a newspaper, with its capability to present vast amounts of information, to render the story truly boring.
Dave BarryIf 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 WilsonAll meditations are nothing but efforts to bring you to the present. When you live in the present moment, with no past hanging around you, with no future projection, you are free from life and death, you are free from body and mind. You are free - simply free - you are freedom.
RajneeshTo use the past to justify the present is bad enoughโbut itโs just as bad to use the present to justify the past.
Amitav GhoshSir, sorrow is inherent in humanity. As you cannot judge two and two to be either five, or three, but certainly four, so, when comparing a worse present state with a better which is past, you cannot but feel sorrow. It is not cured by reason, but by the incursion of present objects, which bear out the past.
Samuel JohnsonPlants, again, inasmuch as they are without locomotion, present no great variety in their heterogeneous pacts. For, when the functions are but few, few also are the organs required to effect them. ... Animals, however, that not only live but perceive, present a great multiformity of pacts, and this diversity is greater in some animals than in others, being most varied in those to whose share has fallen not mere life but life of high degree. Now such an animal is man.
AristotleI got my dad a great father's Day present. He called to say: 'Ach. Zis present is so good I now think it vas almost vorth having children.
Johann Hari