Quotes about the past

To grasp the meaning of the world of today we use a language created to express the world of yesterday. The life of the past seems to us nearer our true natures, but only for the reason that it is nearer our language.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The past is not dead. Indeed, it is often not even past.

Will Durant

You create your luck by being healthy and not regretting the past or being anxious about the future.

James Altucher

How sweet to remember the trouble that is past.

Euripides

The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding.

Will Durant

Not only our experiences, but all we have done, whatever great thoughts we may have had, and all we have suffered, all this is not lost, though it is past; we have brought it into being. Having been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind.

Viktor Frankl

If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion and peace.

Eckhart Tolle

Any material form, or thought, or feeling, past or present, should be regarded as, ‘This is not mine, this is not what I am, this is not my self.’

Buddha

All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

George Orwell

I prefer women with a past. They’re always so damned amusing to talk to.

Oscar Wilde