PAST QUOTES III
quotations about the past
Over the trackless past, somewhere,
Lie the lost days of our tropic youth,
Only regained by faith and prayer,
Only recalled by prayer and plaint,
Each lost day has its patron saint!
BRET HARTE
"The Lost Galleon"
The past is funny ... it never seems to let things lie, finished. It never seems to stay in place as it should.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.
DOUG LARSON
attributed, Quotable Quotes
Life would be no better than candlelight tinsel and daylight rubbish if our spirits were not touched by what has been.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends.
MAX BEERBOHM
Lytton Strachey
It is yesterday that makes tomorrow so sad.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.
JODI PICOULT
The Storyteller
We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.
RICK WARREN
The Purpose Driven Life
The past is a towering mansion.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?
ALAN LIGHTMAN
Einstein's Dreams
Men's memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Blood Meridian
The reverberation often exceeds through silence the sound that sets it off; the reaction occasionally outdoes by way of repose the event that stimulated it; and the past not uncommonly takes a while to happen, and some long time to figure out.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
The past is a mist.
HAROLD PINTER
Moonlight
I've had a lot of sleepless nights. Nights when I was so worried about something that had happened in the past that I let it dictate my future. We've all been there at some point. You're not alone. I'm talking about those times when we just can't shake the past. Whether it's something small, like making a terrible first impression, or saying something you wish you hadn't, to something big, like having to shutdown your business. Harping on negative experiences is painful and, when we hold on to that pain, we can't move on to something more positive. That's why it's important that you let it go and leave the past behind.
JOHN RAMPTON
"8 Steps to Move Away From the Past You Need to Leave Behind", Entrepreneur, March 11, 2016
It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
"Show Mr. and Mrs. F. to Number--"
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
The Great Gatsby
We sometimes condemn the present, by praising the past; and show our contempt of what is now, by our esteem for what is no more.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
The past was but the cemetery of our illusions: one simply stubbed one's toes on the gravestones.
ÉMILE ZOLA
The Masterpiece
A good knowledge of things past is an armour against events to come.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Our most merciless enemy is our past.
MAXIM GORKY
Untimely Thoughts