Present Quotes
If there were a verb meaning to believe falsely, it would not have any significant first person, present indicative.Ludwig Wittgenstein
Where fear is present, wisdom cannot be.Lactantius
I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.Alan Watts
Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.Charles Dickens
We live in the present, we dream of the future, but we learn eternal truths from the past.Madame Chiang
We think very little of time present; we anticipate the future, as being too slow, and with a view to hasten it onward, we recall the past to stay it as too swiftly gone. We are so thoughtless, that we thus wander through the hours which are not here, regardless only of the moment that is actually our own.Blaise Pascal
Thanks to his constant habit of shaking the bottle in which life handed him the wine of experience, he presently found the taste of the lees rising as usual into his draught.Henry James, "The Ambassadors", Book Fourth, Chapter 2
Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with it apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.Norman Podhoretz
Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe.Alfonso the Wise
We simply rob ourselves when we make presents to the dead.Publilius Syrus
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
In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman.David M. Ogilvy
If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self - Direction, and for self - Initiated learning.Carl R. Rogers
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.Bertrand Russell, Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 14
It is the contention of this observer that few homicides due to shooting could be avoided merely if a firearm were not immediately present, and that the offender would select some other weapon to achieve the same destructive goal.Marvin E. Wolfgang
Men are so stupid and concerned with their present needs, they will always let themselves be deceived.Machiavelli, The Prince
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.Louis D. Brandeis
I consider it useless and tedious to represent what exists, because nothing that exists satisfies me. Nature is ugly, and I prefer the monsters of my fancy to what is positively trivial.Charles Baudelaire
Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy.Sarah Ban Breathnach
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
To live in the past or in the future may be less satisfying than to live in the present, but it can never be as disillusioning.R. D. Laing
The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.Seneca
Most people live ninety percent in the past, seven percent in the present, and that only leaves three percent for the future.John Steinbeck, The Winter of our Discontent
I am treating you as my friend asking you share my present minuses in the hope I can ask you to share my future pluses.Katherine Mansfield
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.Buddha
Our religious faith gives us the answer to the false beliefs of Communism... I have the feeling that God has created us and brought us to our present position of power and strength for some great purpose.President Harry Truman, Public Papers of the President of the United States: Harry S. Truman - 1951 U. S. Gov. 1966 pp548 - 549
We are living the events which for centuries to come will be minutely studied by scholars who will undoubtedly describe these days as probably the most exciting and creative in the history of mankind. But preoccupied with our daily chores, our worries and personal hopes and ambitions, few of us are actually living in the present.Lawrence K. Frank
There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.Aeschylus
Life is divided into three terms - That which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present to live better in the future.William Wordsworth
My mind to me a kingdom is, Such present joys therein I find, That it excels all other bliss.Sir Edward Dye
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, 200 A. D.
The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.Robert Green Ingersoll
It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes in The Copper Beeches
As the same fire assumes different shapes When it consumes objects differing in shape, So does the one Self take the shape Of every creature in whom he is present.Maitri Upanishads
As we look deeply within, we understand our perfect balance. There is no fear of the cycle of birth, life and death. For when you stand in the present moment, you are timeless.Rodney Yee
The only difference between a genius and one of common capacity is that the former anticipates and explores what the latter accidentally hits upon; but even the man of genius himself more frequently employs the advantages that chance presents him; it is the lapidary who gives value to the diamond which the peasant has dug up without knowing its value.Abbe Guillaume Raynal
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer Present or Not Guilty.Theodore Roosevelt
