Present Quotes

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

AIDS occupies such a large part in our awareness because of what it has been taken to represent. It seems the very model of all the catastrophes privileged populations feel await them.

Susan Sontag

My mind to me a kingdom is, Such present joys therein I find, That it excels all other bliss.

Sir Edward Dye

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.

Maya Angelou

Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe.

Alfonso the Wise

Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future.

Benjamin Disraeli

Be intent upon the perfection of the present day.

William Law

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

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

Buddha

Angels may be very excellent sort of folk in their own way, but we, poor mortals in our present state, would probably find them precious slow company.

Jerome K. Jerome

Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination. Learning to suspend your imagination and live completely in the very second of the present with no before and no after is the greatest gift a soldier can acquire.

Ernest Hemingway

Men have no right to put the well - Being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands is the care of our own time.

Edmund Burke

We simply rob ourselves when we make presents to the dead.

Publilius Syrus

The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.

Dietrich Bonhoeffe

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

Where fear is present, wisdom cannot be.

Lactantius

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

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

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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

Most successful men have not achieved their distinction by having some new talent or opportunity presented to them. They have developed the opportunity that was at hand.

Bruce Marton

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

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

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

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

William Bolitho

I believe that individuals can make a difference in society. Since periods of change such as the present one come so rarely in human history, it is up to each of us to make the best use of our time to help create a happier world.

The Dalai Lama, 1992 Speech

Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.

Albert Einstein

Beauty is the first present nature gives to women and the first it takes away.

Mere

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.

Antoine De Saint - Exupery

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.

Buddha

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

Quality is never an accident. It represents the wise choice of many alternatives.

Willa Foste