Motivational Quotes

Past

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

- Ovid

Best Quotes about Past

The past should be a springboard, not a hammock.

Ball, Ivern

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

Fredrich

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

Look to the past for guidance into the future.

Goodkin, Robert Jacob

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

The past itself, as historical change continues to accelerate, has become the most surreal of subjects --making it possible... to see a new beauty in what is vanishing.

Sontag, Susan

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

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

Sidney, Sir Philip

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

10.

Posterity will pay everyone their due.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

11.

Mr. Meant-to has a friend, his name is Didn't-Do. Have you met them? They live together in a house called Never-Win. And I am told that it is haunted by the Ghost of Might-have-Been.

Collins, Marva

12.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

13.

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

14.

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

15.

I love my past, I love my present. I am not ashamed of what I have had, and I am not sad because I no longer have it.

Colette, Sidonie Gabrielle

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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.

19.

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

Friel, Brian

20.

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

Auchincloss, Kenneth

21.

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

Barzan, Gerald

22.

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

Dickson, Paul

23.

Those who do remember it will find new ways to screw it up.

Wolfe, Charles

24.

I never look back, I look forward.

Graf, Steffi

25.

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

26.

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

Horace

27.

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

La Farge, John

28.

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

Eliot, T. S.

29.

They spend their time looking forward to the past.

Osborne, John

30.

A lot of people go through life like they are rowing a boat. They look at where they have been (the PAST) rather than where they are going (the FUTURE).

31.

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

Guare, John

32.

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

33.

It's linkage I'm talking about, and harmonies and structures, And all the various things that lock our wrists to the past.

Wright, Charles

34.

If you look back too much, you will soon be headed that way

35.

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

36.

There is nothing new, but what has become antiquated.

Proverb, French

37.

The past is all holy to us; the dead are all holy; even they that were wicked when alive.

Carlyle, Thomas

38.

It's very expressive of myself. I just lump everything in a great heap which I have labeled the past, and, having thus emptied this deep reservoir that was once myself, I am ready to continue.

39.

The moments of the past do not remain still; they retain in our memory the motion which drew them towards the future, towards a future which has itself become the past, and draw us on in their train.

Proust, Marcel

40.

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

Raddal, Thomas H.

41.

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

Barnard, Charlotte

42.

The past always looks better than it was because it isn't here.

Dunne, Finley Peter

43.

Many are always praising the by-gone time, for it is natural that the old should extol the days of their youth; the weak, the time of their strength; the sick, the season of their vigor; and the disappointed, the spring-tide of their hopes.

Bingham, Caleb

44.

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.

45.

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

Ovid

46.

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

47.

The free world must not prove itself worthy of its own past.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

48.

One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it. To remain in touch with the past requires a love of memory. To remain in touch with the past requires a constant imaginative effort.

Bachelard, Gaston

49.

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

Rich, Adrienne

50.

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.