Motivational Quotes

Past

It is not the literal past, the facts of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.

- Friel, Brian

Best Quotes about Past

The past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying.

Berger, John

You must never regret what might have been. The past that did not happen is as hidden from us as the future we cannot see.

Stern, Richard Martin

It is one thing to learn about the past; it is another to wallow in it.

Auchincloss, Kenneth

It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.

Steiner, George

If you must cry over spilled milk then please try to condense it

The rewards in life go to those who are willing to give up the past

There is a way to look at the past. Don't hide from it. It will not catch you -- if you don't repeat it.

Bailey, Pearl

What is past is prologue.

Shakespeare, William

Man... cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

10.

The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again.

Benjamin, Walter

11.

If the only new thing we have to offer is an improved version of the past, then today can only be inferior to yesterday. Hypnotized by images of the past, we risk losing all capacity for creative change.

Hewison, Robert

12.

I never look back, I look forward.

Graf, Steffi

13.

Nothing is as new as something which as been long forgotten.

Proverb, German

14.

Your past is important, but it is not nearly as important to your present as the way you see your future.

Campolo, Tony

15.

May you look back on the past with as much pleasure as you look forward to the future.

Dickson, Paul

16.

I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays, no just for tomorrow, but in the here and now. Keep moving and forget the post mortems; and remember, no one can get the jump on the future.

Sandburg, Carl

17.

As lousy as things are now, tomorrow they will be somebody's good old days.

Barzan, Gerald

18.

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

King Jr. Martin Luther

19.

Fearfulness, contrary to all other vices, maketh a man think the better of another, the worse of himself.

Sidney, Sir Philip

20.

That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.

Wordsworth, William

21.

Clogged with yesterday's excess, the body drags the mind down with it.

Horace

22.

The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth.

Buffett, Warren

23.

We live in a world where amnesia is the most wished-for state. When did history become a bad word?

Guare, John

24.

The past, though it cannot be relived, can always be repaired.

La Farge, John

25.

There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternally new now that builds and creates itself out of the Best as the past withdraws.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

26.

I cannot sing the old songs, Or dream those dreams again,

Barnard, Charlotte

27.

The good of other times let people state; I think it lucky I was born so late.

Ovid

28.

Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false namings of real events.

Rich, Adrienne

29.

Look to the past for guidance into the future.

Goodkin, Robert Jacob

30.

If the past cannot teach the present and the father cannot teach the son, then history need not have bothered to go on, and the world has wasted a great deal of time.

Hoban, Russell

31.

We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.

Douglass, Frederick

32.

If you are carrying strong feelings about something that happened in your past, they may hinder your ability to live in the present.

Brown, Les

33.

The past should be a springboard, not a hammock.

Ball, Ivern

34.

While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.

Reagan, Ronald

35.

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

36.

Don't brood on the past, but don't forget it either.

Raddal, Thomas H.

37.

To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.

Colton, Charles Caleb

38.

The past does not equal the future.

Robbins, Anthony

39.

The beauty of the past is that it is the past. The beauty of the now is to know it. The beauty of the future is to see where one is going.

40.

The historian looks backward. In the end he also believes backward.

Fredrich

41.

Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it.

Eliot, T. S.

42.

Yesterday is a canceled check: Forget it. Tomorrow is a promissory note: Don't count on it. Today is ready cash: Use it!

Bliss, Edwin C.

43.

What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.

Moon, William Least Heat

44.

Who so desireth to know what will be hereafter, let him think of what is past, for the world hath ever been in a circular revolution; whatsoever is now, was heretofore; and things past or present, are no other than such as shall be again: Redit orbis in orbem.

Raleigh, Sir Walter

45.

Because men really respect only that which was founded of old and has developed slowly, he who wants to live on after his death must take care not only of his posterity but even more of his past.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

46.

Nostalgia is a seductive liar.

Ball, George W.

47.

Posterity will pay everyone their due.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

48.

Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost.

Schuller, Robert H.

49.

The past is only the present become invisible and mute; and because it is invisible and mute, its memorized glances and its murmurs are infinitely precious. We are tomorrow's past.

Webb, Mary

50.

We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4am of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.

Didion, Joan