It is not the past that matters but the future.
In history, we are concerned with what has been and what is; in philosophy, however, we are concerned not with what belongs exclusively to the past or to the future, but with that which is, both now and eternally — in short, with reason.
I figured something out. The future is unpredictable.
However ignorant man may be, he still feels within him his immortal spirit yearning after the unknown future.
Futurity is before me Like a dark lamp.
Even people capable of living in the past don’t really know what the future holds.
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.[Buddhist quote on Ellen’s bathroom mirror]
Did you know that for pretty much the entire history of the human species, the average life span was less than thirty years? You could count on ten years or so of real adulthood, right? There was no planning for retirement. There was no planning for a career. There was no planning. No time for planning. No time for a future. But then the life spans started getting longer, and people started having more and more future, and so they spent more time thinking about it. About the future. And now life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future—you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get a nice house so you can afford to send your kids to college so they can get a good job so they can get a nice house so they can afford to send their kids to college.
All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist.
A man is as much affected pleasurably or painfully by the image of a thing past or future as by the image of a thing present.
A long future requires a long past.
A coward is a man who can foresee the future. A brave man is almost always without imagination.
