Popular quotes about Present! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 73
It's the difference between a parable and a pamphlet. A parable discusses things that are relevant in the past, the future, and the present - regardless of the outcome in the present. A pamphlet, on the other hand, is completely concerned with affecting an outcome in the present, the most immediate present.
Guillermo del ToroI really feel concerned about young people within our present culture. Our present culture, we have to change. Change is inevitable and I wasn't raised in our present culture but it has great pressure that as a young person I never had. Material pressure, social pressure, visual pressure, how you look, and I just try to appeal to young people to think for themselves, to be their own person, and to ask questions and also be very attentive to our planet and our environment.
Patti SmithThe present moment is really all that we have. The only place you can really love another person is in the present. Love in the past is a memory. Love in the future is a fantasy. To be really alive, love - or any other experience - must take place in the present.
Jack KornfieldLet each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light is throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.
Blaise PascalWe 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 infinitesimal hairline between a 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 WattsTo me, living in the present means being aware of your conscious choice to focus on the past, present or future - it is not necessarily having to focus on the present.
Robert Foster Bennett...the world has become a photographable present, and the photographed present has been entirely eternalized. Seemingly ripped from the clutch of death, in reality it has succumbed to it.
Siegfried KracauerIn 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 RisoYou can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living.
Ken BurnsI'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 BowieIn reality there is nothing to fear in the present. Fear is projected onto the present by memory.
Deepak ChopraPresent-moment living, getting in touch with your now, is at the heart of effective living. When you think about it, there really is no other moment you can live. Now is all there is, and the future is just another present moment to live when it arrives.
Wayne DyerThe Hawk and the Dove is a wonderful idea for a book, wonderfully carried out. Nicholas Thompson has used illuminating new material to present each of his protagonists in a convincing, respectful, but unsparing way. Even more valuable, he has used the interactions and tensions between Paul Nitze and George Kennan to bring much of American 20th century foreign policy to life, with human richness ever present but with the big issues clear in all their complexity.
James FallowsReal morality is based on a single criterion: right action, appropriate action, in the present moment and present situation.
Brad WarnerThe real honesty is a responsibility to the present moment. It needs tremendous awareness. You have to be honest to the present moment, not to the past, not to the future.
RajneeshOnce you uncover the history of this pattern and trace its roots, you will see that your reaction in the present moment is really a reaction from the past, a shadow character's attempt to protect you from reexperiencing an old emotional wound, which instead sabotages you in the present.
Connie ZweigFirst, an angel is spiritually present at whatever place in physical space happens to be occupied by the body on which it acts. It can be present at that place without leaving Heaven which is its spiritual residence.
Mortimer AdlerFor almost half a century, Fermilab has occupied center stage as physicists have sought to understand the fundamental structure of the universe. The lab deserves a good history, and I'm happy to say that in this book it has one. The authors present a compelling, nuanced, and richly detailed account of the place from its beginnings to the present.
James TrefilThis means that the mind or spirit is present anywhere, because it is nowhere attached to any particular place. And it can remain present because, even when related to this or that object, it does not cling to it by reflection and thus lose its original mobility.
Eugen HerrigelIt's in the present that lies the secret: if you pay attention to the present you will be able to enhance it.
Paulo CoelhoI needed to get into a nightclub and stand up and present the material that way. I needed to present it live.
Dwight YoakamI hope that no one present will suspect me of offering my personal criticism of the Western system to present socialism as an alternative. Having experienced applied socialism in a country where the alternative has been realized, I certainly will not speak for it. The well-known Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the title Socialism; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynThe theory of the earth is the science which describes and explains changes that the terrestrial globe has undergone from its beginning until today, and which allows the prediction of those it shall undergo in the future. The only way to understand these changes and their causes is to study the present-day state of the globe in order to gradually reconstruct its earlier stages, and to develop probable hypotheses on its future state. Therefore, the present state of the earth is the only solid base on which the theory can rely.
Horace-Benedict de SaussureLet's say your past is your present and your present is your cash, So I look forward to the future.
Young JeezyI chose Congo in order to become close to a place that we had turned away from. It isn't present in our imaginations, in the stories we tell each other. Yet it's relevant to our lives and to our worlds, in a practical way. Congo supplies raw materials for the things that we use on a daily basis. We are intimately linked to Congo, economically. We're linked to it through human events that are occurring there, that affect all of us, and yet you don't find narratives of Congo present in our lives.
Anjan SundaramI think being a good parent means that every day is a different challenge. It's about mindfulness and trying to be present. I think life goes really quickly and it's very easy to be tuned out, and not be present. That is what I've learned in my parenting experience, and I continue to be mindful of it.
Matt RossThe present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding.
Ariel DurantIn a world without future, each parting of friends is a death. In a world without future, each loneliness is final. In a world without future, each laugh is the last laugh. In a world without future, beyond the present lies nothingness, and people cling to the present as if hanging from a cliff.
Alan LightmanWhat we have been told is how we men can be drawn into Christ-can become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father-that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. And there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we are drawn in, a great many other things in Nature will begin to come right. The bad dream will be over: it will be morning.
C. S. Lewisthe future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.
C. D. BroadAnother real danger to young men is thoughtlessness and lack of consideration. Lack of thought is one simple reason why thousands of souls are cast away forever. Men will not consider,-will not look forward,-will not look around them,-will not reflect on the end of their present course, and the sure consequences of their present ways,-and awake at last to find they are damned for lack of thinking.
J. C. RyleThe present moment is always full of infinite treasure. It contains far more than you can possibly grasp. Faith is the measure of its riches: what you find in the present moment is according to the measure of your faith. Love also is the measure: the more the heart loves, the more it rejoices in what God provides. The will of God presents itself at each moment like an immense ocean that the desire of your heart cannot empty; yet you will drink from that ocean according to your faith and love.
Jean-Pierre de CaussadeGod 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 BrettWe 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 CoelhoWhy do we not exhaust the heritage of the ages, spiritual and material for our immediate pleasure, and let posterity go hang? So far as simple rationality is concerned, self-interest can advance no argument against the appetite of present possessors. Yet within some of us, a voice that is not the demand of self-interest or pure rationality says that we have no right to give ourselves enjoyment at the expense of our ancestors' memory and our descendants' prospects. We hold our present advantages only in trust.
Russell KirkThere's no time like the present, No present like time. And life can be over in the space of a rhyme. There's no gift like friendship And no love like mine. Give me your love to treasure through time.
Georgia ByngFor 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. BouldingPlants, 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.
AristotleHappy you poets who can be present and so present by a simple flicker of your genius, and not, like the clumsier race, have to laya train and pile up faggots that may not after prove in the least combustible!
Henry JamesIn the West we cling to the past like limpets. In Haiti the present is the axis of all life. As in Africa, past and future are but distant measures of the present, and memories are as meaningless as promises.
Wade DavisIn all the institutions I try to be present and accountable for all I do and leave undone. I know that eventually I shall have to be present and accountable n the presence of God. I do not wish to be found wanting.
Maya AngelouThe answer is, who you are cannot be defined through thinking or mental labels or definitions, because it's beyond that. It is the very sense of being, or presence, that is there when you become conscious of the present moment. In essence, you and what we call the present moment are, at the deepest level, one.
Eckhart TolleSo give up waiting as a state of mind. When you catch yourself slipping into waiting . . . snap out of it. Come into the present moment. Just be, and enjoy being. If you are present, there is never any need for you to wait for anything. So next time somebody says, โSorry to have kept you waiting,โ you can reply, โThat's all right, I wasn't waiting. I was just standing
Eckhart TolleTime is not outside us, but inside. Only we live with past, present, and future, and the present is too brief to experience anyway; it is retained afterward and then it is either codified or it slips into amnesia.
Siri HustvedtIt is not enough for the Church to be engaged with the State in healing social ills, though this is important at times. But when the world can turn around and see a group of God's people exhibiting substantial healing in the area of human relationships in their present life, then the world will take notice. Each group of Christians is, as it were, a pilot plant, showing that something can be done in the present situation, if only we begin in the right way.
Francis Schaeffer