Present Quotes

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

Joseph Addison

All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.

Benjamin Franklin

Those who misrepresent the normal experiences of life, who decry being controversial, who shun risk, are the enemies of the American way of life, whatever the piety of their vocal professions and the patriotic flavor of their platitudes.

Henry M. Wriston

Experience is the worst teacher it gives the test before presenting the lesson.

Vernon Law

Present your religion to a little child, set him in the midst of those who profess it. If it frightens him, and freezes the smiles on his lips, then whatever sort of religion it is, it is not Christianity.

Unknown

My past is my wisdom to use today... my future is my wisdom yet to experience. Be in the present because that is where life resides.

Gene Oliver, Life and the Artistry of Change

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.

Denis Diderot

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

George Orwell

In this present moment we are either smaller than we once were or else are on our knees.

Alan Moore, Birth Caul

Each present joy or sorrow seems the chief.

William Shakespeare

Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

Be intent upon the perfection of the present day.

William Law

Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Albert Einstein

Men are so stupid and concerned with their present needs, they will always let themselves be deceived.

Machiavelli, The Prince

Taxation without representation is tyranny.

James Otis

It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us.

Clive Staples Lewis

I know patriotism exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest. But a great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward.

George Washington

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.

Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, 1954

As the representatives of the people we are here to declare that our resolve has not been weakened by these horrific and cowardly acts. referring to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Tom Daschle

The future is much like the present, only longer.

Don Quisenberry

Memory is a giggling sprite and will not be tamed. She takes flight the moment the present becomes the past.

Real Live Preacher, weblog, 04 - 29 - 04

It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.

Jim Bishop

Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present - which seldom happens to us.

Jean De La Bruyere

You need more fact in the dangerous art of giving presents than in any other social action.

William Bolitho

Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present.

Roger Babson

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words And this, too, shall pass away.

Abraham Lincoln

For health and the constant enjoyment of life, give me a keen and ever - Present sense of humor it is the next best thing to an abiding faith in providence.

George Barrell Cheeve

I was born old and get younger every day. At present I am sixty years young.

Herbert Beerbohm Tree

We live in an age when to be young and indifferent can no longer be synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.

Benjamin Disraeli

If the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought.

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

I came into the world either too early or too late at present, I am good for nothing.

Prince Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternich

Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

There is no longer a way out of our present situation except by forging a road toward our objective, violently and by force, over a sea of blood and under a horizon blazing with fire.

Gamal Abdel Nasse

We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.

R. D. Laing

For there is no greater pain, than to remember in present grief, past happinesses.

Dante, The Divine Comedy

Real generosity toward the future consists in giving all to what is present.

Albert Camus

Men moving only in an official circle are apt to become merely official - - Not to say arbitrary - - In their ideas, and are apter and apter with each passing day to forget that they only hold power in a representative capacity.

William Adams