Look Into The Past To See The Future Quotes & Sayings

The source calls to you. Find a quiet place and listen for the voice of creation. Look upon the horizon and see the future of your new life, where you are again a natural soul living in joy and peace. — Bryant McGill

If it was scandalous for girls in the 1960s to wear pants to school, what else will we look back on & shake our heads at? What else can't we see in the future? And at that, what else can we dream up? — Lisa Factora-Borchers

It was only when we brought Will back home, once the annex was adapted and ready, that I could see a point in making it beautiful again. I needed to give my son something to look at. I needed to tell him, silently, that things might change, grow, or fail, but that life did go on. That we were all part of some great cycle, some pattern that it was only God's purpose to understand. I couldn't say that to him, of course - Will and I have never been able to say much to each other - but I wanted to show him. A silent promise, if you like, that there was a bigger picture, a brighter future. — Jojo Moyes

He was staring down another loss, and, though he had to be logical, though he knew her to be logical, he saw the stricken look of betrayal on her face, and all of those arguments threatened to fly away from him. What was history anyway but the lies of the winning few? Why was it worth protecting, when it forgot the starving child under siege, the slave woman on her deathbed, the man lost at sea? It was an imperfect record written by a biased hand, diluted to garner the most agreement from competing parties. He was tempted to see her point, to imagine that she could realign the past and present and future into something beautiful. God, if anyone was capable of it, it would be her. — Alexandra Bracken

I can look back at my own life and see where a few words of praise have sharply changed my entire future. Can't you say the same thing about your life? — Dale Carnegie

Bruce is still my friend. We don't talk much. We don't have to. He is great and in his own league. I'm not him and he is not me. But we are on similar paths, writing and singing out own kind of songs around the world, along with Bob and a few other singer/songwriters. It is a a silent fraternity of sorts, occupying this space in people's souls with our music. Last year, I lost my right-hand man, the pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith. This year Bruce lost his right-hand man, the saxophonist Clarence Clemons. It's time for another talk; friends can help each other just by being there. Now both of us will look to our right and see a giant hole, a memory, the past and the future. I won't play with another steel player trying to recreate Ben's parts, and I know Bruce won't play with another sax man trying to play Clarence's. Those parts are not going to happen again. They already did. That takes a lot out of our repertoires. — Neil Young

It was so hard to see what the future held because to perform at this game, you have to be "in the mud," obsessed with the task at hand. Perspective is neutralized, stunted so that you can capture only the most relevant, time-sensitive data that will determine how to approach your opponent that day. Then you look up and realize your 20-year career has been a collection of days where you couldn't see tomorrow. — Doug Glanville

If we would see the color of our future, we must look for it in our present; if we would gaze on the star of our destiny, we must look for it in our hearts. — Frederic Farrar

If we stop and look over the past and then into the future, we can see that the possibilities are growing greater and greater every day; that we have scarcely begun to reach the proper results from the field we have before us. — David H. McConnell

Among you boys you have a game: you stand a row of bricks on end a few inches apart; you push a brick, it knocks its neighbor over, the neighbor knocks over the next brick
and so on till all the row is prostrate. That is human life. A child's first act knocks over the initial brick, and the rest will follow inexorably. If you could see into the future, as I can, you would see everything that was going to happen to that creature; for nothing can change the order of its life after the first event has determined it. That is, nothing will change it, because each act unfailingly begets an act, that act begets another, and so on to the end, and the seer can look forward down the line and see just when each act is to have birth, from cradle to grave. — Mark Twain

Our ability to look back on the past, our need or desire to make sense of it, is both a blessing and a curse; and our inability to see into the future with any degree of accuracy is, simultaneously, the thing that saves us and the thing that condemns us. — James Robertson

I can never look at these apparent contradictions between the great laws of nature without a feeling of physical uneasiness which amounts to suffering. Were mankind reduced to the necessity of choosing between two parties, one of whom injures his interest, and the other his conscience, we should have nothing to hope from the future. Happily, this is not the case; and to see Aristus regain his economical superiority, as well as his moral superiority, it is sufficient to understand this consoling maxim, which is no less true from having a paradoxical appearance, "To save is to spend. — Frederic Bastiat

A leader's job is to look into the future and see the organization, not as it is, but as it should be — Jack Welch

When I look at President Obama, I see a leader with a cool head, a caring heart and an open mind, a president who has demonstrated through his demeanor and through his deeds that he is uniquely qualified to heal our divisions, rebuild our nation and lead us to a brighter future together. — Charlie Crist

I love you, and I want to be
with you because you make my life better." He pushed her hair behind her ear. "You asked me once
what I see when I look into my future." He slid his palm down her shoulder and took her hand. "I see
you," he said and kissed her knuckles. — Rachel Gibson

It is comparatively a faint and reflected beauty that is admired, not an essential and intrinsic one. It is because the old are weak, feel their mortality, and think that they have measured the strength of man. They will not boast; they will be frank and humble. Well, let them have the few poor comforts they can keep. Humility is still a very human virtue. They look back on life, and so see not into the future. The prospect of the young is forward and unbounded, mingling the future with the present. — Henry David Thoreau

Don't you see?" She addressed the entire room. "We either fight here and win, or die trying, because there won't be anything left if we fail. This is the moment. This is the crucial point where the future of yet unborn generations will be decided either by our action or inaction. For centuries to come, people will look back at this time and rejoice at our courage or curse our weakness." She looked directly at Royce now. "For we have the power. Here. Now. In this place. We have the power to alter the course of history and we will be forever damned should we not so much as try! — Michael J. Sullivan

You haven't met your Way yet. It hasn't so much as kissed your hand! You haven't even at the door of the hall where your Way dances. But look here, look see, I've got them, I've caught them up just for you, a big bouquet of anywhere you want to go. Just pick a bloom, my girl, hold it to your pretty nose. — Catherynne M Valente

Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out. You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go. — Randall Munroe

Chief Marilyn Slett, president of Coastal First Nations, is well aware of the forest's importance: "Our leaders understand our well being is connected to the well being of our land and waters...If we use our knowledge and our wisdom to look after [them], they will look after us into the future." The Kichiwa of Sarayaku, Ecuador, see their forest as "the most exalted expression of life itself. — Peter Wohlleben

Sure my rose-colored glasses don't let me see the world for what it is NOW but what they allow is the chance to see what the world would look like if people cared enough to plant more roses — Matthew Goldfinger

I looked down mostly but when I dared look at a person, I could see their ancestors and descendants. I could see events in their past and their future. I could see their infinity, I guess. — A.S. King

Take your thoughts off.
The invading
thoughts you have. Push them aside. See your future in a
bright way. Don't struggle with the past. It is gone. Look
for the future. Look for the future. — Sandra Harner

Today, I look forward and I see a future in which games once again are explicitly designed to improve quality of life, to prevent suffering, and to create real, widespread happiness. — Jane McGonigal

If you wanted to see into the future, you just had to look to the past. Reaching — Matthew Mather

A man who let himself decline because he could not see any future goal found himself occupied with retrospective thoughts. In a different connection, we have already spoken of the tendency there was to look into the past, to help make the present, with all its horrors, less real. But in robbing the present of its reality there lay a certain danger. It became easy to overlook the opportunities to make something positive of camp life, opportunities — Viktor E. Frankl

One does not have to be a 'climate change denier' to see that a degree of skepticism about the present consensus might be in order ... Most likely, now - as in the past - many analysts have become carried away by the results of their models, which purport to look into a far distant future, and have convinced themselves that they must embark on a crusade to enlighten others. — Colin Robinson

I have hope, Beth, hope that we'll get past it. Hope that one day you'd be able to look into my eyes and see our future in there. Hope that one day you'd be ready to love me the way I love you, ready to bear my touch and feel nothing but pleasure. Hope, that you'll trust me enough to let go, and we'll lose control together. I have hope that you'll one day sleep in my arms and trust me to take care of you, to let me chase away the nightmares, to let me love you, sooth you, cherish you the way I want to, the way you deserve, and you'll look at me with all the love you feel, and no regret. — Zara Santaf

Past, present, and future, the symbiosis of our lives," the old man continued quietly, gently. "Our birth, our life, our death, all tied into a single package that we spend our time on this earth unwrapping. Sometimes we see clearly what it is we are looking at. Sometimes we do not. Sometimes things happen to distract or deceive us, and we must look more carefully at what it is we hold. — Terry Brooks

I look into the future and see my brother's face, impossibly middle-aged. His daughter has rejected all of his values, and stands now on the dais of a major university, the valedictorian preparing to deliver her commencement speech. What will she think when her dad stands in the aisle, releasing a hog call and raising his T-shirt to reveal the jiggling message painted upon his bare stomach? Will she turn away, as my father predicts, or might she remember all the nights she awoke to discover him: this slob, this lump, this silly drooling toy asleep at her feet. — David Sedaris

The sky was black and strewn with stars. I felt alone on the planet. I was so scared I could hardly breathe. I didn't know where I was headed. I didn't know what to do with my life. I strained to look into my future, trying to picture the road ahead of me, searching for a glimpse of who I would become.
All I could see was the night sky and the stars above me. — Leslie Feinberg

I always think incipent miracles surround us, waiting only to see if our faith is strong enough. We won't have to understand it; it will just work, like a beating heart, like love. Really, no matter how frightened and discouraged I may become about the future, I look forward to it. In spite of everything I see all around me every day, I have a shaky assurance that everything will turn out fine. I don't think I'm the only one. Why else would the phrase "everything's all right" ease a deep and troubled place in so many of us? We just don't know, we never know so much, yet we have such faith. We hold our hands over our hurts and lean forward, full of yearning and forgiveness. It is how we keep on, this kind of hope. — Elizabeth Berg

I see a future when I look at you. I see hope for something more. I see a glimmer where there was only darkness. I will be your hiding place, you don't have to hide by yourself - just keep being my light. As long as I can see the light, I know I can make it. — Lila Felix

She was like defenceless Nature, that withers in the blast because it has shelter neither of God nor of men; human beings do not give one another shelter; and God? We shall see, when in the end we are dead of consumption. Perhaps the Almighty had made a note of all that she had had to suffer. All the same she felt that evening that she was not too old once more to view the future in a dream; in a new dream. To be able to look forward is to live. — Halldor Laxness

To look is important. We look to immediate things and out of immediate necessities to the future, coloured by the past. Our seeing is very limited and our eyes are accustomed to near things.
Our look is as bound by time-space as our brain. We never look, we never see beyond this limitation; we do not know how to look through and beyond these fragmentary frontiers. But the eyes have to see beyond them, penetrating deeply and widely, without choosing, without shelter; they have to wander beyond man-made frontiers of ideas and values and to feel beyond love. Then there is a benediction which no god can give. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

When I turned 25, something changed in me. I see children in my future 100%. Soon. I started thinking I want my kids to look back and say, 'Wasn't Mummy amazing?' I've really started thinking about what I'm leaving for them. — Jessie J.

You look boldly ahead; isn't it only that you don't see or divine anything terrible in the future; because life is still hidden from your young eyes. — Anton Chekhov

You will attract the younger generation and they might well prove tougher than the older generation. What we are trying to do is to look at the future and see what we can do to bring some stability back to people's lives. — Ian Botham

Never, never marry, my friend. Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could, and until you've stopped loving the woman you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing ... Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost. It will all go on trifles. Yes, yes, yes! Don't look at me with such astonishment. If you expect something from yourself in the future, then at every step you'll feel that it's all over for you, it's all closed, except the drawing room, where you'll stand on the same level as a court flunkey and an idiot ... — Leo Tolstoy

I think there was always some scrawny dreamer sitting at the edge of the firelight, who had the ability to imagine dangers, to look into the future in his imagination and see possibilities, and therefore survived to pass his genes on to the next generation. — Christopher Moore

With one eye on the past,
some see which they cannot see,
whilst others in the future see
that which cannot be seen.

Why go so far, look closer!
What is freedom? The day is here!
This is the hour, the moment;
and this moment is who we are and that is that.

Forever flowing, the eternal hour
reveals our insignificance.
In a single gasp we live and die, so size the day,
for the day is simply who you are. — Ricardo Reis

When I met your father, it was magic. Not for him - not then - but for me. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you can look into a pair of eyes and see your whole future. — Kristin Hannah

When I look back, no matter how hard I try I can see clear break between one phase and another. It is a seamless flow - although flow is too strong a word. More a sort of busy stasis, a sort of running on the spot. Even that was too fast for me, however, I was always a little way behind, trotting in the rear of my own life. In Dublin I was still the boy growing up at Coolgrange, in America I was the callow young man of Dublin days, on the islands I became a kind of American. And nothing was enough. Everything was coming, was on the way, was about to be. Stuck in the past, I was always peering beyond the present towards a limitless future. Now, I suppose, the future may be said to have arrived. — John Banville

If you dread tomorrow it's because you don't know how to build the present, and when you don't know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it's a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up being today don't you see ... We have to live with the certainty that we'll get old and that it won't look nice or be good or feel happy. And tell ourselves that it's now that matters: to build something now at any price using all our strength. Always remember that there's a retirement home waiting somewhere and so we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying. Climb our own personal Everest and do it in such a way that every step is a little bit of eternity. That's what the future is for: to build the present with real plans made by living people. — Muriel Barbery

I always look for a woman who has a tattoo. I see a woman with a tattoo, and I'm thinking, okay, here's a gal who's capable of making a decision she'll regret in the future. — Richard Jeni

The first time you sit in comfortable silence;
The first time you realize you enjoy his company more than anyone else's;
The first time you look like hell and he couldn't care less;
The first time you talk until dawn;
The first time you bring him home to meet the family;
The first time you're naked together and you don't feel a shred of insecurity;
The firt time you realize that you don't want anyone else but him;
The first time you see a future with him;
The first time you take a trip together;
The first big blowup fight;
The first time you realize he's your home;
The first time you realize taht he loves you as much as you love him. — Katy Regnery