Quotes About The Present

PRESENT, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope. ~ The Devil's Dictionary by by Ambrose Bierce

Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other - it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Philosophy triumphs easily over past, and over future evils, but present evils triumph over philosophy. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Strong souls, within the present live,
The future veiled, the past forgot;
Grasping what is, with hands of steel,
They bind what shall be, to their own will.
~ Lewis Morris

Sorrows remembered sweeten present joy. ~ Robert Pollock

No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope and fear;
But, grateful, take in the good I find,
The best of now and here.
~ John G. Whittier

History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that's worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today. ~ Henry Ford, quoted in Famous Quotes on Living in the Present

The Present, the Present is all thou hast
For thy sure possessing;
Like the patriarch's angel hold it fast
Till it gives its blessing.
~ Whittier, My Soul and I

We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present. ~ Adlai E. Stevenson

Bear the burden of the present,
Let the morrow bear its own;
If the morning sky be pleasant,
Why the passing night bemoan?
~ Thomas Mackellar

Trust no future howe'er pleasant;
Let the dead past bury its dead;
Act,—act in the living present,
Heart within and God o'erhead! ~ Longfellow

The future works out great men's destinies;
The present is enough for common souls. ~ James Russell Lowell

The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already the cause. ~ Henri Bergson

Whenever a mind is simple and receives an old wisdom, old things pass away,—means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into present hour. All things are made sacred by relation to it,—one as much as another. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is really momentous and all-important with us is the present, by which the future is shaped and colored. ~ John Greenleaf Whittier

Present fears are less than horrible imaginings. ~ William Shakespeare, from Macbeth

Carpe diem (Enjoy the present day, seize the opportunity) ~ Latin Proverb

The present joys of life we doubly taste, By looking back with pleasure on the past. ~ Martial