Past Quotes

I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.

Yesterday is not a milestone that has been passed, but a daystone on the beaten track of the years, and irremediably part of us, within us, heavy and dangerous. We are not merely more weary because of yesterday, we are other, no longer what we were before the calamity of yesterday.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.

We fret ourselves to reform life, in order that posterity may be happy, and posterity will say as usual: “In the past it used to be better, the present is worse than the past.”[Мы хлопочем, чтобы изменить жизнь, чтобы потомки были счастливы, а потомки скажут по обыкновению: прежде лучше было, теперешняя жизнь хуже прежней.]

There comes a certain point in life when you have to stop blaming other people for how you feel or the misfortunes in your life. You can’t go through life obsessing about what might have been.

The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now.

The only saving grace of the present is that it’s too damned stupid to question the past very closely.

Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, in complaining of the present, in fearing future.

Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.

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.

In this great future, you can’t forget your past.

For the majority of us, the past is a regret, the future an experiment.