Quotes and passages on the past

the future - today - now

We should have no regrets. We
should never look back. The past
is finished. There is nothing to
be gained by going over it.

Rebecca Beard

Living in the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles, causes you to bump into people not going your way. Edna Ferber You cannot be a prisoner of your past against your will. Because you can only live in the past inside your mind. Augusten Burroughs

People are all over the world telling their one dramatic story and how their life has turned into getting over this one event. Now their lives are more about the past than their future. Chuck Palahniuk Invisible Monsters

Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real. Cormac McCarthy All the Pretty Horses

How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them? R.A. Salvatore Streams of Silver

Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it
tugging up your back and running its fingers up your spine,
the best thing to do--the only thing--is run.

Lauren Oliver
Delirium

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I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even
though some are painful. I don't understand people who
hide from their past. Everything you live through helps
to make you the person you are now.

Sophia Loren

Today expect something good to happen to you no matter what
occurred yesterday. Realize the past no longer holds you captive.
It can only continue to hurt you if you hold on to it. Let the
past go. A simply abundant world awaits.

Sarah Ban Breathnach
Simple Abundance

My past has not defined me, destroyed me, deterred me,
or defeated me; it has only strengthened me.

Steve Maraboli

The past can teach us, nurture us, but it cannot sustain us. The essence
of life is change, and we must move ever forward or the soul will wither and die.

Susanna Kearsley
Mariana

If you have a past with which you feel dissatisfied, then forget it, now.
Imagine a new story for your life and believe in it. Focus only on the
moments when you achieved what you desired, and that strength
will help you to get what you want.

Paulo Coelho
The Fifth Mountain

We have a choice. We can live in the past and be miserable and
unhappy, or we can pick ourselves up and move ahead in life. When
we choose to focus forward, we can find the energy and ability to
remove any obstacles that may appear to be hindering our smooth
progression. If you take stock of yourself and find you may be
spending time frequently reliving unhappy experiences of the past,
make the decision to rid yourself of the ties
that bind you to a former way of life.

John Marks Templeton
Worldwide Laws of Life

Our past may explain why we're suffering but we must not
use it as an excuse to stay in bondage.

Joyce Meyer
Battlefield of the Mind

The past is to be respected and acknowledged, but not
worshipped; it is our future in which we will find our greatness.

Pierre Trudeau

You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the
door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you
don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy,
or any of your time, or any of your space.

Johnny Cash

Why should you make yourself miserable by living in the past, by
dwelling upon your past mistakes, regretting your failure to seize
the opportunities which you think would have made you rich, or
blaming yourself for things that have injured you? I have never
known a person to accomplish anything worth while who was
always lashing him- or herself, criticizing their past and lamenting
blunders, mistakes, and other things that had already happened.

Orison Swett Marden
The Joys of Living

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana

What happened in the past that was painful has a great deal to do with
what we are today, but revisiting this painful past can contribute
little or nothing to what we need to do now.

William Glasser

We cannot change our past. We can not change the fact that people act
in a certain way. We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can
do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.

Charles Swindoll

the future - today - now

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

Leslie Poles Hartley

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your whole past is simply a point of reference for the decisions
you can make today. If you decide today to change your life, you
don't need all the garbage of the past. One of the biggest tools you
can use is to forgive and forget that past, because it is not true. It's
not real. Only what you are doing in the present moment is real and true.

Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
Little Book of Wisdom

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The past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays,
nor just for tomorrow, but in the here and now.
Keep moving and forget the post-mortems.

Carl Sandburg

Look not sorrowfully into the past; it comes not back again. Wisely
improve the present; it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy
future without fear, and with a sturdy heart.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In examining our own lives, we might be able to spot the heavy
weight of yesterday's deeds that we persist in carrying around with
us. We might be carrying bitterness and resentment because we may
have felt betrayed by a friend. We might be carrying anger and a
feeling of injustice because we lost out on something we really wanted
while someone else got it. We might be carrying hurt feelings because
someone we liked criticized us. But continuing to carry harsh and
negative feelings from the past can be like picking up a pebble in
your shoe while you are out walking. You can stop and remove the
pebble, or you can continue to walk and let the pebble irritate your foot
and cause pain. The choice is yours. You can release your anger and
hurt feelings, just as you can remove the pebble from your shoe.

John Marks Templeton
Worldwide Laws of Life

We can never live in the past as if it were our true home. . . . And it is
a good thing that God draws this veil over the past even without our
asking. In so doing, he allows us to live to-day for to-morrow
with just the few memories we need of what was.

Karl Barth

There is nothing you can do about the past except forget it. There is a
great deal, however, that you can do about the present and the future.

Joel Goldsmith

We live in the present, we dream of the future,
but we learn eternal truths from the past.

Lucy Maud Montgomery

Too many people live with mistakes they've made in their pasts.
They stay locked in the same unsatisfying jobs, marriages, friendships
and habits they developed at a time when they might not
have had an idea what was best for them.

Lois Wolfe Morgan

The person who broods over the past can never master the difficulties
of today. Every wise person learns to forget and does not allow him
or herself to become a slave to his or her memory.

Herbert Casson

It is when a person begins to live in the past, the good old days, that the
boat begins to drift downstream, eventually coming to rest in stagnant waters.

Frank Case

One faces the future with one's past.

Pearl S. Buck

We are never divorced from our past. We are in company with it
forever, and it acquaints us with the present. Our responses today
reflect our experiences yesterday. And those roots lie in the past.

Karen Casey

Most of us walk without chains, yet we aren't free. We're tethered
to regret and sorrow from the past. We return to the past and
continue to suffer. The past is a prison. But now you have the key
to unlock the door and arrive in the present moment. You breathe
in, you bring your mind home to your body, you make a step, and you
arrive in the here and the now. There is the sunshine,
the beautiful trees, and the songs of the birds.

Thich Nhat Hanh
How to Walk