Not Knowing Your Future Quotes & Sayings

I'd heard it all the time, 'Live in the moment.' But if I did that, I'd weigh more than a dump truck. Losing weight wasn't about the moment at all; it was about having faith in the future. It was about knowing there would be another meal in a few hours. — Stephanie Klein

In modern life, people tend to think their bodies belong to them, that they can do anything they want to themselves. But your body is not only yours. Your body belongs to your ancestors, your parents, and future generations. It also belongs to society and to all the other living beings. The trees, the clouds, the soil, and every living thing brought about the presence of your body. We can eat with care, knowing we are caretakers of our bodies, rather than their owners. — Thich Nhat Hanh

There has never been a merging of two lives where significant problems of daily living did not occur. One way or another, your relationship is going to be affected. The only question is how. There's a big difference between knowing and doing. It's not what happens between partners that determines the outcome of a relationship, it's how they handle what happens. If all you deal with in your relationship is problems, then you will have a problem relationship. If you want your pound of flesh with full acknowledgement that you're right, your future will be dim. — Phil McGraw

Our future is like that of the passengers on a small pleasure boat sailing quietly above the Niagara Falls, not knowing that the engines are about to fail. — James Lovelock

That philosophy died yesterday, since Hegel or Marx, Nietzsche, or Heidegger - and philosophy should still wander toward the meaning of its death - or that it has always lived knowing itself to be dying ... that philosophy died one day, within history, or that it has always fed on its own agony, on the violent way it opens history by opposing itself to nonphilosophy, which is its past and its concern, its death and wellspring; that beyond the death, or dying nature, of philosophy, perhaps even because of it, thought still has a future, or even, as is said today, is still entirely to come because of what philosophy has held in store; or, more strangely still, that the future itself has a future - all these are unanswerable questions. By right of birth, and for one time at least, these are problems put to philosophy as problems philosophy cannot resolve. — Jacques Derrida

Perhaps you don't desire poetry as much as you would like to have my torchy knowledge of your possible futures, but I dare say poetry will do you far more good. For knowing the future only makes you timid and complacent by turns, while poetry can shape you into the kind of souls who can face any future with boldness and wisdom and nobility, so that you need not know the future at all, so that any future will be an opportunity for greatness, if you have greatness in you. — Orson Scott Card

14 One should not have blind faith in a holy text.
15 One should not take a holy text as word for word truth.
16 Afterall, it's just a book written by imperfect humans, not by the all- knowing Flying Spaghetti Monster.
17 Though I could be completely wrong about all of this.
18 Future Pastafarians are just gonna have to think for themselves and make up their own minds. — St John The Blasphemist

I reach up and pull my hair back from my face, show him the scar from the accident. Unconsciously, he mimics my gesture, touches the same scar on his own forehead.
"It's just like mine," says my self, amazed. "How did you get it?" "The same as you. It is the same. We are the same."
A translucent moment. I didn't understand, and then I did, just like that. I watch it happen. I want to be both of us at once, feel again the feeling of losing the edges of my self, of seeing the admixture of future and present for the first time. But I'm too accustomed, too comfortable with it, and so I am left on the outside, remembering the wonder of being nine and suddenly seeing, knowing, that my friend, guide, brother was me. Me, only me. The loneliness of it. — Audrey Niffenegger

Can we who have had the joy of knowing that we are not orphans, that we have a Father, be indifferent to this city which asks of us, perhaps even unwittingly, without being aware of it, a hope that will help it look to the future with greater confidence and serenity? We cannot remain indifferent ... Words without witness are hot air. Words do not suffice. It must be the true witness that Paul speaks of. — Pope Francis

The computer is your passport, not only to the future but to knowing what's going around you. — Michael Nutter

You are unnerving the hell out of me, Valkyrie."
"oh" she frowned, petting her bat fitfully " I must have misread the future for the past." she shrugged. "It happens. — Kresley Cole

Step into the future with focus
knowing that the only way to kill your
dream is trying to find another. — Moffat Machingura

Funny," [Antryg] said, "if you're a mage, they always ask you to read the future, as if knowing it will help. I think three-fourths of all prayers prayed are for two and two not to equal four. — Barbara Hambly

I came to Him because I did not know which way to turn. I remained with Him because there is no other way I wish to turn. I came to Him longing for something I did not have. I remain with Him because I have something I will not trade. I came to Him as a stranger. I remain with Him in the most intimate of friendships. I came to Him unsure about the future. I remain with Him certain about my destiny. I came amid the thunderous cries of a culture that has 330 million deities. I remain with Him knowing that truth cannot be all-inclusive. — Ravi Zacharias

Would you like to know your future? If your answer is yes, think again. Not knowing is the greatest life motivator. So enjoy, endure, survive each moment as it comes to you in its proper sequence
a surprise. — Vera Nazarian

I don't think we can build much of a future,' says Shara, 'without knowing the truth of the past. It's time to be honest about what the world really was, and what it is now. — Robert Jackson Bennett

An indigenous culture with sufficient territory, and bilingual and intercultural education, is in a better position to maintain and cultivate its mythology and shamanism. Conversely, the confiscation of their lands and imposition of foreign education, which turns their young people into amnesiacs, threatens the survival not only of these people, but of an entire way of knowing. It is as if one were burning down the oldest universities in the world and their libraries, one after another - thereby sacrificing the knowledge of the world's future generations. — Jeremy Narby

When we move forward into our future, knowing and using the treasures within, then only good lies before us. We can know and affirm that everything that happens to us is for our highest good and greatest joy, truly believing that we can't go wrong. — Louise Hay

I like the comfort in knowing that women are the only future in rock and roll. — Kurt Cobain

You no longer have much in the way of knowing what to do in a big, epic novel about the future, because nobody knows what the hell is going to happen. — Jerry Pournelle

When I do programming in my free time and for my own enjoyment, I really want to have a kind of protection: knowing that when I improve a program those improvements will continue to be available to me and others in future versions of the program. — Linus Torvalds

I have a mantra in my head that there will always be another meal. I can put my fork down, knowing there will be good things in my future! — Gail Simmons

It was all very well to pretend you were not afraid of death, Bea thought, but people only said that because they had not looked death in the eye. They had not understood that it meant everything you have always taken for granted and loved without even knowing it-the world around you, the memories you carry with you, your hopes for the future- all of this being extinguished like a candle flame that is blown out. And afterwards, there would be nothing. Not even emptiness. Not even loneliness. Not even pain. — Brian Keaney

Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It's like the tide going out, revealing whatever's been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fishbodies, bones. This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future. — Margaret Atwood

In a technological world facing many global problems, everyone needs to have a basic understanding of science. And knowing where we came from and helps us to make decisions about the future. — Wyken Seagrave

But Amanda ... " Jadina said, looking past Maylin at the young Fate. "She doesn't ask for anything. She doesn't even try to read the future, it's just there. She ends up blurting things out. Starts talking about the car accident you're going to have in three years, or your baby boy dying in child birth in a few months, or your grandmother's funeral next year. Thing's you can't change even if you know about them. Things you're happier not knowing about. People go through life, happily oblivious. If you start telling them all the horrible things that are coming, they get upset. When those horrible things start coming true, they get scared and blame you. They say you caused it. Label you witch. Even burn you at the stake. She's safer in there. — Crissy Moss

Knowing all the languages in the world could help you to really understand all the jokes you can hear ... from my future Kids' Funny Business. — Ivan Stoikov

When you believe in your way, enlightenment is there. But when you cannot believe in the meaning of the practice which you are doing in this moment, you cannot do anything. You are just wandering around the goal with your monkey mind. You are always looking for something without knowing what you are doing. If you want to see something, you should open your eyes. When you do not understand Bodhidharma's Zen, you are trying to look at something with your eyes closed. We do not slight the idea of attaining enlightenment, but the most important thing is this moment, not some day in the future. We have to make our effort in this moment. This is the most important thing for our practice. — Shunryu Suzuki

Are there not a thousand forms of sorrow? Is the sorrow of death the same as the sorrow of knowing the pain in a child's future? What about the melancholy of music? Is it the same as the melancholy of a summer dusk? Is the loss I was feeling for my father the same I would have felt for a man better-fit to the world, a man who might have thrown a baseball with me or taken me out in the mornings to fish? Both we call grief. I don't think we have words for our feelings any more than we have words for our thoughts. — Ethan Canin

I like knowing that the further back one traces any lineage, the narrower the path grows, to the haunt of just a few shaggy ancestors, with luck on their side, little gizmos in their cells and a future storied with impulses and choices that will ultimately define them. — Diane Ackerman

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

He knows nothing about how this will all end, except that it will surely end. He tries to imagine himself into a future, somewhere past this point, but he cannot. There is nothing to do but to keep on existing, in this exact time and place. This is what hell must be like. Waiting without knowing. Not hell, but purgatory. Worse than hell. — Aminatta Forna

There is no possibility that any perceptible change will happen within our own lifetime. We are the dead. Our only true life is in the future. We shall take part in it as handfuls of dust and splinters of bone. But how far away that future may be, there is no knowing. It might be a thousand years. At present nothing is possible except to extend the area of sanity little by little. We cannot act collectively. We can only spread our knowledge outwards from individual to individual, generation after generation. In the face of the Thought Police, there is no other way. — George Orwell

You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can't wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. — Bob Marley

In your diary, you quoted old Jiko saying something about not-knowing, how not-knowing is the most intimate way, or did I just dream that?
Anyway, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think maybe it's true, even though I don't really like uncertainty. I'd much rather 'know', but then again, not-knowing keeps all the possibilities open. It keeps all the worlds alive. — Ruth Ozeki

Sorry Johnny."
"Sorry for what "
"For shouting at you. It's just that when I think about the future I keep panicking. It's like falling from the top of the stairs in the dark not knowing where I'll end up."
He put his arm around my shoulders. "I understand. Life is precarious for most of us but more so for you. What you forget is what most of your friends see in you."
"What's that "
"The ability to beat the odds ... "
"And fall on my feet "
He nodded.
"I just hope that lasts."
"It will Catkin it will. It wouldn't dare fail you. — Julia Golding

Sir, be proud: today you came close to a happy death; and behave in the future with the same nonchalance, knowing that the soul dies with the body. Go then to death after having savored life. We are animals among animals, all children of matter, save that we are the more disarmed. But since, unlike animals, we know we must die, let us prepare for that moment by enjoying the life that has been given us by chance and for chance. — Umberto Eco

Unclear goals create unclear results. You need to know where you're going, and have faith that you will get there. Your intuition has been nagging at you to get moving on your goals. It's time to listen and obey your intuition, because that's how you'll get the joy, freedom, and security you want and deserve. Everyone has goals, because everyone has a divine assignment. You'll clearly understand your divine assignment by listening to and obeying your intuition. You are very, very qualified to fulfill your divine assignment. These assignments are never given by mistake or accident. Every time you finish one step of your intuitive instructions, you will be given another set of them. Don't fret about not knowing what to do in the future; you will be guided every day of your life. — Doreen Virtue

He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him, said Dumbledore. And notice this, Harry. He chose, not the pureblood (which, according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing), but the half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you before he had ever seen you, and in marking you with that scar, he did not kill you, as he intended, but gave you powers, and a future, which have fitted you to escape him not once, but four times so far - something that neither your parents, nor Neville's parents, ever achieved. — J.K. Rowling

It is not lies or a lack of loyalty that ends a relationship. It is the agonizing truth that one person feels in their heart on a daily basis. It is realizing that you are coping and not living. It is the false belief that there is a verse, quote, phrase or talk that will magically make you feel content, complete or not care. However, it doesn't last longer than a few days, before your mind and heart goes back to what it wants. It is the moment you realize that you left without ever leaving. It is the moment you realize that fear, shame or guilt is the only thing standing in the way of the life God meant for you to live. — Shannon L. Alder

Don't talk yourself into falling in love with someone. Either, you are in love or you are not. True love is not a choice. It is something you know in your heart when all guilt, doubt and fear are removed. — Shannon L. Alder

Of course it may be argued that this is a fairly bleak view of life. It means, for instance, that we can stand in a room full of dear friends, knowing that nine-tenths of them, if the pack demands it, will become your enemies-will, as it were, throw stones through your window. It means that if you are a member of a close-knit community, you know you differ from this community's ideas at the risk of being seen as a no-goodnik, a criminal, an evil-doer. This is an absolutely automatic process; nearly everyone in such situations behaves automatically.
But there is always the minority who do not, and it seems to me that our future, the future of everybody depends on this minority. And that we should be thinking of ways to educate our children to strengthen this minority and not, as we mostly do now, to revere the pack. — Doris Lessing

Do you see, Harry? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen into the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, that I must avoid."
"I don't - "
"I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore simply. "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act.
"Is there a defense? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have - and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined - not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands. — J.K. Rowling

Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you were wrong? Maybe, you only saw your point of view and you never once put yourself in the other person's shoes. Maybe, walking away from the senseless drama and spiteful criticism isn't the best thing to do. Maybe, for just once in your life you could wear another person's confusion, pain or misunderstanding. Maybe, your future doesn't require explaining yourself or offering an explanation for your indifference, but your character and reputation does. What if one day you find out that you didn't have all the information you thought you did? What if you find out that your presence was needed for healing? What if you only knew half of it and the other half was just your fear and anger translating everything you experienced? What if you were wrong? What if the same thing happened to you? — Shannon L. Alder

Winning a war such as this was not about planting flags or defending territory or building fancy villas. It was not about titles or promotions or offices. It was not about democracy or jihad, freedom or honor. It was about resisting the categories chosen for you; about stubbornness in the face of grand designs and schemas. About doing what you had to do, whether they called you a terrorist or an infidel. To win a war like this was to master the ephemeral, to plan a future while knowing that it could all be over in an instant. To comfort your children when the air outside throbs in the middle of the night, to squeeze your spouse's hand tight when your taxi hits a pothole on an open highway, to go to school or the fields or a wedding and return to tell about it. To survive. — Anand Gopal

Your external circumstances may change, toil may take the place of rest, sickness of health, trials may thicken within and without. Externally, you are the prey of such circumstances; but if your heart is stayed on God, no changes or chances can touch it, and all that may befall you will but draw you closer to Him. Whatever the present moment may bring, your knowledge that it is His will, and that your future heavenly life will be influenced by it, will make all not only tolerable, but welcome to you, while no vicissitudes can affect you greatly, knowing that He who holds you in His powerful hand cannot change, but abideth forever. — Jean Nicolas Grou

The responsible left came to embrace legislative Republicanism single-mindedly, not out of fear but out of wisdom - knowing that the only way to maintain the real revolution was to accept in permanence the truth that rejecting the legitimacy of the opposition could end only in violence, real liberal republicanism being no more than the understanding that there are legitimate ideas about shaping the future of the nation other than your own. — Anonymous

He took comfort in not knowing about the future. — Gloria Steinem

Back then they had the freedom of barely knowing each other at all; the were in gleeful possession of a leisurely future with all the doors still open and all promises still redeemable. — A.S.A Harrison

However, at the moment, I believe the more important thing that can be done with the platform I have been given is to try to convince the American populace that we are not one another's enemies even if a (D) is by some of our names and an (R) by the names of others. Knowing that the future of my grandchildren and everyone else's is put in jeopardy by a continuation of reckless spending, godless government, and mean-spirited attempts to silence critics leaves me with little choice but to continue to expound on the principles outlined in my prayer breakfast speech and to fight for a bright future for America. — Ben Carson

Great and good men and women stirred sugar into their coffee knowing that it had been picked by slaves. Kind, good ancestors of all of us never questioned hangings, burnings, tortures, inequality, suffering and injustice that today revolt us. If we dare to presume to damn them with our fleeting ideas of morality, then we risk damnation from our descendants for whatever it is that we are doing that future history will judge as intolerable and wicked: eating meat, driving cars, appearing on TV, visiting zoos, who knows? — Stephen Fry

These poor deluded and amiable creatures, who have no notion of who they themselves are and are therefore incapable of making their own future. If they really get around to knowing who they are and why they are, maybe one day they will be able to assume the reins of their own collective destiny. — Americo Castro

The past stands in the path of the future, knowing it will be crushed. — Alaya Dawn Johnson

I don't want my life to not be the way I expected.
I may not be scared of crowds. Or the dark. Or small spaces. But I am afraid.
I am afraid of responsibility; I am afraid of not living up to expectations, of the changing future, of growing up, not knowing, sex, relationships, hardship, secrets, grades, judgement, falling short, loneliness, change, confusion, arguments, curiosity, love, hate, losing, pressure, differences, honesty, lies.
I am afraid of me.
Yet, despite this, I know I am brave. I know I am brave because I've accepted my invisible fears and haven't let them overcome me.
I want you to know that you're brave because you know your fears. You're brave because you introduced yourself. You're brave because you said 'No, I don't understand.' You're brave because you are here. — Emily Trunko

Live in the mysterious. Accepting and being fully at peace with not knowing what's going to happen in the future will allow us to be fully present and more peaceful in the present. — Matthew Donnelly

It's not always easy to get over some of those bumps in the road, those disillusionments and disappointments. It's going to take a strong will. Sometimes, it may take courage. Sometimes nothing but faith in God and say, I refuse to be trapped in the past. I'm not going to let the past destroy my future. I'm pressing on. I'm straining forward, knowing that God has great things in store for me. — Joel Osteen

Please love me the way I smile when you enter the room
A dumb grin that feels no pain
Unafraid of the future,
Not thinking of the past
Who I was, who I will be
But who I am in this very moment
Please love me for what's in me now
What's filling my heart
An overflowing into your open palms
Sinking in your skin
And melting into your heart
Please love me knowing I'm growing
And far away from the woman I will be
The woman who will keep loving you
And hope that you love me too. — Beverly Tan

Both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective ... That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporary suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say 'Let me but have this and I'll take the consequences': little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. — C.S. Lewis

The future, vague and sad, did not frighten me half as much as knowing that it was not carved in stone. — Jincy Willett

This isn't a matter for the eyes, it is a matter for the heart. Many signs point to a growing historical consciousness among the American people. I trust this is so. It is useful to remember that history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. As persons deprived of memory, they become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they are going. So a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future. When I'm depressed, I ascribe our behavior to stupidity, the stupidity of our leadership, the stupidity of our culture. — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

Before I sleep I normally lie awake and think of the future. I've resolved I can't understand life the way I can understand an equation or formula. For so long I've wanted to find concrete answers or die trying. It's hard at first to find comfort in not knowing or to make peace with it. But I think it is the only way to make it in this life. Getting stuck on a question only makes me estranged from the world. — Shane Crash

There's a certain language, a dying language, and I can't remember who speaks it or where in the world they are, but in that language the future is referred to as being behind us. It must be behind us, since we can see the past. We walk backwards, blind, into the future, only knowing where we've already been. — Andra Brynn

There's a version of the future in my head where I stay here forever....Bleak, I know. But, still, there's a lot of comfort that comes with knowing how your life is going to turn out. I've never had a surprise turn out in my favor. — Julie Murphy

We came from some place and we are trending in a particular direction. Without memories, we do not know where we come from, and we cannot project our future trajectory. Without a keen awareness of our history, we cannot pose any meaningful hypothesis or engage in any useful speculation regarding the future of humankind. Without knowing where humankind came from and failing to contemplate where humankind is going, we could never touch upon a comprehensive understanding of the mythology and mystery of human nature. Such a spectacle would preclude us from comprehending what it truly means to be human. Melodious memories assist us to feel in our bones what being actually entails in its full aesthetic splendor. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The future is beyond knowing, but the present is beyond belief. — William Irwin Thompson

It will take faith, to go forward together without knowing exactly what the future brings. — Katy Regnery

My heartbeat accelerates. I am in the here, in the now. I am also in the future. I am holding her and wanting and knowing and hoping all at once. We are the ones who take this thing called music and line it up with this thing called time. We are the ticking, we are the pulsing, we are the underneath every part of this moment. And by making this moment our own, we are rendering it timeless. There is no audience. There are no instruments. There are only bodies and thoughts and murmurs and looks. It's the concert rush to end all concert rushes, because this is what matters. When the heart races, this is what it's racing toward. — David Levithan

The lack of historical memory is a serious shortcoming in our society. A mentality that can only say, "Then was then, now is now", is ultimately immature. Knowing and judging past events is the only way to build a meaningful future. Memory is necessary for growth. — Pope Francis

KNOWING SELF SOUL GOD CREATIVE ESSENCE TASTE LEADS TO MATURED GLANCE OF MYSTERIES OF NATURE AND UNIVERSAL FUTURE ACTIVITY NEXT. — Various

Life, in both its knowing and its doing, has become today a "free fall," so to say, into the next minute, into the future. So that, whereas, formerly, those not wishing to hazard the adventure of an individual life could rest within the pale of a comfortably guaranteed social order, today all the walls have burst. It is not left to us to chooseto hazard the adventure of an unprecedented life: adventure is upon us, like a tidal wave. — Joseph Campbell

You made a choice - a single choice.
How neat to think you may have opened the door to a wondrous future without knowing. — Richelle E. Goodrich

For most things in life, you need time: to learn a new skill, build a house, become an expert, make a cup of tea ... Time is useless, however, for the most essential thing in life, the one thing that really matters: self-realization, which means knowing who you are beyond the surface self - beyond your name, your physical form, your history, your story.
You cannot find yourself in the past or future. The only place where you can find yourself is in the Now.
Spiritual seekers look for self-realization or enlightenment in the future. To be a seeker implies that you need the future. If this is what you believe, it becomes true for you: you will need time until you realize that you don't need time to be who you are. — Eckhart Tolle

THE POWER OF A COMPELLING CAUSE RESTS IN THE SOUL OF ITS CREATOR, because a cause springs from the soul. It is a spiritual statement from one soul that cannot be the result of many. It comes from a deep place of knowing, some conviction that a richly imagined future could in some way, dramatically and positively, change the world. — Lance Secretan

A moment of clarity

I realise that I stress so much about the past, because I am scared of the future.
It is easier for my mind to occupy itself with troubles of long-ago; rather than greet fears of the unknown tomorrow.
The goal is to be alive now and live in the moment. But there are days when I find this almost impossible to achieve.
Yet knowing this is liberating.

Jane Yates 02/02/2016 — J. Yates

I had the luxury of knowing what I wanted to do. So I just sat on the bed and came up with a plan for myself:
"I have to go to the Edinburgh Fringe. But I don't have the confidence to do a production there because I've never gone before, and I don't even know how to get there or what to do once I get there. So I will just act as if I do have the confidence to go to the Edinburgh Fringe. I'll just borrow confidence from a future version of myself. Once I've been to the Edinburgh Fringe and performed a show there, then I will have the confidence to go to the Edinburgh Fringe. I will go to the bank manager of confidence (in some part of my brain) and I will borrow that confidence from the future, and then I can wear it like a cloak, and I will talk to everyone with this confidence."
It was out there as a concept, but it worked. — Eddie Izzard

The only way for you to know that you can really make a change is by knowing the future. — Toba Beta