Only Yesterday Quotes & Sayings

I wonder if all mothers feel like this the moment they realize their daughters are growing up- as if it is impossible to believe that the laundry I once folded for her was doll-sized; as if I can still see her dancing in lazy pirouettes along the lip of the sandbox. Wasn't it yesterday that her hand was only as big as the sand dollar she found on the beach? That same hand, the one that's holding a boy's; wasn't it just holding mine, tugging so that I might stop and see the spiderweb, the milkweed pod, any of a thousand moments she wanted me to freeze? Time is an optical illusion- never quite as solid or strong as we think it is. You would assume that, given everything, I saw this coming. But watching Kate watch this boy, I see I have a thousand things to learn. — Jodi Picoult

If we look at the works of JS Bach ... on each page we discover things which we thought were born only yesterday, from delightful arabesques to an overflowing of religious feeling greater than anything we have since discovered. — Claude Debussy

Much as we wish, not one of us can bring back yesterday or shape tomorrow. Only today is ours, and it will not be ours for long, and once it is gone it will never in all time be ours again. Thou only knowest what it holds in store for us, yet even we know something of what it will hold. The chance to speak the truth, to show mercy, to ease another's burden. The chance to resist evil, to remember all the good times and good people of our past, to be brave, to be strong, to be glad. — Frederick Buechner

Not only don't I know what tomorrow will bring, I'm still not entirely certain what yesterday brought? — Ashleigh Brilliant

You mean he thinks I'm going to get MORE offers?" Kim said, appalled.
"He doesn't seem to be the only one that thinks so." Mairelon said. "Aunt Agatha mentioned it to me yesterday afternoon. Is there anyone, or would you rather I turn the lot of them away?"
Kim shook her head. "There isn't anyone."
Except you. — Patricia C. Wrede

There are only two things in life you can't change - yesterday and tomorrow. But there's nothing you can't do today. — Abigail Strom

I
I alone know how to mourn for him as he deserves.' But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not the playthings of Time. For her he had died only yesterday. And, by Jove! the impression was so powerful that for me, too, he seemed to have died only yesterday
nay, this very minute. I saw her and him in the same instant of time
his death and her sorrow
I saw her sorrow in the very moment of his death. Do you understand? I saw them together
I heard them together. — Joseph Conrad

Yesterday, there was a Tzar and there were slaves. Today, there is no Tzar, but the slaves are still here. Tomorrow there will be only Tzars. We walk forward in the name of the free man of tomorrow, the Tzar of tomorrow. We have gone through the epoch when the masses were oppressed. We are now going through the epoch when the individual is oppressed in the name of the masses. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

I am almost ashamed to answer,' she said. 'As I have said before, Emily
Fox-Seton has become the lodestar of my existence. I cannot live without
her. She has walked over to Maundell to make sure that we do not have a
dinner-party without fish to-night.'
'She has _walked_ over to Maundell,' said Lord Walderhurst
'after
yesterday?'
'There was not a pair of wheels left in the stable,' answered Lady
Maria. 'It is disgraceful, of course, but she is a splendid walker, and
she said she was not too tired to do it. It is the kind of thing she
ought to be given the Victoria Cross for
saving one from a dinner-party
without fish.'
The Marquis of Walderhurst took up the cord of his monocle and fixed the
glass rigidly in his eye.
'It is not only four miles to Maundell,' he remarked, staring at the
table-cloth, not at Lady Maria, 'but it is four miles back. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

JOE HELLER

True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.

I said, "Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel 'Catch-22'
has earned in its entire history?"
And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."
And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"
And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."
Not bad! Rest in peace! — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Next time you're selling yourself, don't fixate only on what you achieved yesterday. Also emphasize the promise of what you could accomplish tomorrow. - 141 — Daniel H. Pink

I enjoy meeting not only contemporary children, but yesterday's children as well. It's nice to talk about the experiences we shared, they tell me, 'You were a good friend.' That's the warmest part. — Bob Keeshan

I've learned that you should only try to be better than who you were yesterday. — Kacy Catanzaro

On the street there is no tomorrow. There is only here and now and nothing else. And yesterday is just another day you're trying to forget. - excerpt from: freefalling — Darlenne Susan Girard

Would the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God have sent his only-begotten son to save those beetles and their household mites, Jared?" "No." "But the god of this place has as great a care for them as for any other creature in the world. This is why I knew you could benefit from seeing those beetles yesterday. Those beetles are a manifestation of the gods' unending abundance and a sign to be read by those who have eyes to read. I wanted you to see how the gods lavish care without stint on every thing: no less upon a beetle whose supreme achievement is burying a mouse than upon the brain of Einstein, no less upon a mite whose favorite dish is a fly's egg than upon the eye of Michelangelo. — Daniel Quinn

What's the matter with me
I don't have much to say ...
People disagreeing on all just about everything, yeah
Makes you stop and all wonder why
Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street
Who just couldn't help but cry
Oh, this ol' river keeps on rollin', though
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does I'll just sit here
And watch the river flow
People disagreeing everywhere you look
Makes you wanna stop and read a book
Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street
That was really shook
But this ol' river keeps on rollin', though
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does I'll just sit here
And watch the river flow. — Bob Dylan

After Mrs. Culpepper, Max probably knew more about her than any other person in her life. They were the only two people who knew of her dream to buy a country cottage. And he was the only one to know of her silly wish for a hound.

Which, now that she thought on it, was a sad state of affairs, indeed. She had no better claim to friendship outside of Mrs. Culpepper than a man with whom she'd spent such a nominal amount of time? And who had been read to toss her bodily from Caldwell Manor only yesterday?

Surely she had more depth of character than what could be mined in the course of an evening. She did not begin and end with her dreams of a thousand pounds, a hound, and a home. She was vastly more complex, far more interesting than that. She had to be. The alternative was too depressing to entertain. Almost as depressing as never having known a friend who'd not been paid to keep her company. But that, at least, could be changed. — Alissa Johnson

My favorite cartoon character, Charlie Brown, displayed an attitude with which many of us can identify. He and Linus were talking about their problems. Linus said, "I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think only about today." Charlie Brown replied, "No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get better." What — John C. Maxwell

Our lives consist of a series of internal battles, deep within us, where weapons don't exist and technology is unable to create devices that better the best of yesterday. Our knowledge is our only defense; caution, our only friend. — A.J. Darkholme

Don't compare yourself to others, only to the person you were yesterday. — Karina Halle

What would you have today if you woke up with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?" He wondered — J. Courtney Sullivan

I was saying to him only yesterday: 'You are imprudent, M. le Comte; for when you go to Auteuil and take your servants the house is left unprotected.' 'Well,' said he, 'what next?' 'Well, next, someday you will be robbed."
"What did he say?"
"He quietly said: 'What do I care if I am? — Alexandre Dumas

Look well to this day. Yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well therefore to this day. - Francis — Marie Force

EMMA: We're lovers.
ROBERT: Ah, yes. I thought it might be something like that. Something along those lines.
EMMA: When?
ROBERT: What?
EMMA: When did you think?
ROBERT: Yesterday. Only yesterday. When I saw his handwriting on the letter. Before yesterday I was quite ignorant.
EMMA: Ah. (pause) I'm sorry.
ROBERT: Sorry? (silence) How long?
EMMA: Some time.
ROBERT: Yes, but how long exactly?
EMMA: Five years.
ROBERT: Five years? — Harold Pinter

And you've actually watched it yourself?' I asked. 'Willingly?'
Sure. I had to see it, you know? Besides we should be safe. Only one in twenty viewers actually had a bad reaction. And it was mostly kids who were affected. I mean younger than you guys. I think the average age was about ten.'
That made me feel somewhat better.
But that was a kid's show,' said Jen. 'Maybe it affects everyone, but not that many adults were watching.'
That made me feel less better. I wanted my protective bangs back. — Scott Westerfeld

It is more productive to convert an opportunity into results than to solve a problem - which only restores the equilibrium of yesterday. — Peter F. Drucker

Pedagogy must be oriented not to the yesterday, but to the tomorrow of the child's development. Only then can it call to life in the process of education those processes of development which now lie in the zone of proximal development — Lev S. Vygotsky

I can tell you my heart turned to stone at York," he says to me frankly. "Freezing cold wind and a rain that could cut through you, and the faces of the women like stone itself. They looked at me as if I had personally murdered their only son. You know what they're like - they love Richard as dearly as if he rode out only yesterday. Why do they do that? Why do they cling to him still?" I — Philippa Gregory

To live is to be other. Even feeling is impossible if one feels today what one felt yesterday, for that is not to feel, it is only to remember today what one felt yesterday, to be the living corpse of yesterday's lost life. — Fernando Pessoa

I'm so sorry. I read of it only yesterday. Otherwise, I would have come sooner.' And what good that reassurance was, he had no idea. I would not have come if her were alive, but I would have come at the very moment of his death, had I known of it. Yes, that must be very comforting to her. — Meredith Duran

Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of to-morrow ... In this world - as I have known it - we are made to suffer without the shadow of a reason, of a cause or of guilt ... There is no morality, no knowledge and no hope; there is only the consciousness of ourselves which drives us about a world that ... is always but a vain and floating appearance ... A moment, a twinkling of an eye and nothing remains - but a clot of mud, of cold mud, of dead mud cast into black space, rolling around an extinguished sun. Nothing. Neither thought, nor sound, nor soul. Nothing. — Joseph Conrad

56,000 companies have already benefited from the schemes that we have brought in. If we have taken the advice of the Conservative Party, no money would have been used. As Barack Obama said only yesterday, doing nothing is not an option. — Gordon Brown

Only our love hath no decay;
This no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday,
Running it never runs from us away,
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day. — John Donne

Art- speech is the only truth. An artist is usually a damned liar but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day and that is all that matters. Away with eternal truth. The truth lives from day to day, and the marvelous Plato of yesterday is chiefly bosh today. — D.H. Lawrence

It is essential to release humanity from the false fixations of yesterday which seem now to bind it to a rationale of action leading only to extinction. — R. Buckminster Fuller

I have no regrets. Regrets are meaningless. You can't change yesterday or tomorrow. You can change only this present moment. — Richey Edwards

I often take exercise. Why only yesterday I had breakfast in bed. — Oscar Wilde

Only in words on a page can it still be yesterday. — Naomi Shihab Nye

The future is not in our hands. We have no power over it. We can act only today. We have a sentence in our Constitution that says: 'We will allow the good God to make plans for the future - for yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not yet come and we have only today to make Him known, loved and served.' So we do not worry about the future. — Mother Teresa

Kindness, Peter," said the voice softly, "kindness. That is the first commandment, perhaps the only one. That is why I had to pan that new play, in my column yesterday. That play lacked essential kindness. We must be kind Peter, to everybody around us. We must accept and forgive - there is so much to be forgiven in each one of us. If you learn to love everything, the humblest, the least, the meanest, then the meanest in you will be loved. Then we'll find the sense of universal equality, the great peace of brotherhood, a new world, Peter, a beautiful new world ... . — Ayn Rand

Today has meaning only if it stands between yesterday and tomorrow. — C. G. Jung

For instance, the scientific article may say, 'The radioactive phosphorus content of the cerebrum of the rat decreases to one- half in a period of two weeks.' Now what does that mean?
It means that phosphorus that is in the brain of a rat - and also in mine, and yours - is not the same phosphorus as it was two weeks ago. It means the atoms that are in the brain are being replaced: the ones that were there before have gone away.
So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? Last week's potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a year ago - a mind which has long ago been replaced. To note that the thing I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance, that is what it means when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms of the brain to be replaced by other atoms. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and then go out - there are always new atoms, but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday. — Richard Feynman

My life in this pit will soon enter its fifth year. For more than forty-two months, I have thought hate, have lain down with hate in my heart, have dreamed hate and awakened with hate. I suffocate in the knowledge that I am the prisoner of a horde of vicious apes, and I rack my brain over the perpetual riddle of how this same people which so jealously watched over its rights a few years ago can have sunk into this stupor, in which it not only allows itself to be dominated by the street-corner idlers of yesterday, but actually, height of shame, is incapable any longer of perceiving its shame for the shame that it is. — Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen

If Edgar sounded overeager, even rushed, the race was with his own temperament. He placed a premium on savvy. Yet since you could only obtain new information by admitting you didn't know it already, savvy required an apprenticeship as a naive twit. You had to ask crude, obvious questions ... you had to sit still while worldly-wise warhorses ... fired withering glances as if you were born yesterday.
Well, Edgar was born yesterday for the moment, although his tolerance for being treated liked a simpleton was in short supply. He'd needed to rattle off a multitude of stupid questions before he embraced his next incarnation as an insider. The trouble was that savvy coated your brain in plastic like a driver's license: nothing more could get in. Hence the point at which you decided you knew everything was exactly the point at which you became an ignorant dipshit. — Lionel Shriver

The beautiful journey of today can only begin when we learn to let go of yesterday. — Steve Maraboli

Conspiracy theory, like causality, works fantastically well as an explanatory model but only if you use it backwards. The fact that we cannot predict much about tomorrow strongly indicates that most of the explanations we develop about how something happened yesterday have (like history in general) a high bullshit content. — Peter J. Carroll

There is only forward. Only tomorrow. No yesterday, no going back. And nothing of value is left behind, so nothing is truly lost. — Lesley Livingston

We shall have no more prophets or sages from the ancient quarter, which is why the devotions of today are only the echoing repetitions of yesterday, sometimes ratcheted up to screaming point so as to ward off the terrible emptiness. — Christopher Hitchens

To those who think that all this sounds like science fiction, we point out that yesterday's science fiction is today's fact. The Industrial Revolution has radically altered man's environment and way of life, and it is only to be expected that as technology is increasingly applied to the human body and mind, man himself will be altered as radically as his environment and way of life have been. — Theodore Kaczynski

Don't be amongst those who are trying to build a better Tomorrow. You can have a better tomorrow only if your Today is better than your Yesterday. — R.v.m.

Truth is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. Truth has no need to adapt to the changing times, for it is timeless. Time must adapt to it. What is Truth today, was so long ago and will remain so long from now. Truth does not change, only living beings' understanding of Truth changes. Living beings speak and live according to their own understanding. Yet our understanding is subject to the time in which we live. This is how we may recognize Truth, it is true no matter when it is spoken and no matter who speaks it. — C W Newman

Not yesterday, not tomorrow, only today can be given form. Only this architecture creates. — Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

I can't change what I did yesterday. I can't change what hasn't happened yet tomorrow. I can only work on the today and the right now. — Just Jewel

Yesterday was a dark day in the history of humanity, a terrible affront to human dignity. After receiving the news, I followed with intense concern the developing situation, with heartfelt prayers to the Lord. How is it possible to commit acts of such savage cruelty? The human heart has depths from which schemes of unheard-of ferocity sometimes emerge, capable of destroying in a moment the normal daily life of a people. But faith comes to our aid at these times when words seem to fail. Christ's word is the only one that can give a response to the questions which trouble our spirit. Even if the forces of darkness appear to prevail, those who believe in God know that evil and death do not have the final say. Christian hope is based on this truth; at this time our prayerful trust draws strength from it.

~General Audience, September 12, 2001. — Pope John Paul II

If you're living for today, if you're only dreaming about yesterday, it doesn't work. You got to know that tomorrow is going to be better. Then you're on your way. — Bill Walton

When the mainstay of one's world is taken away, it's only natural to cling to all the rest, to try desperately to keep things as close to the way they were as one can." He shook his head sorrowfully. "But no one can ever go back to yesterday. — Robin Hobb

We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday's burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it. — John Newton

You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday — Jonathan Swift

He sensed that his bride was only a step away from bolting. Fiona's words came back to him - I've yet to meet a lass who could resist a strappin' fellow with a babe in his arms.
In an effort to erase her stricken expression, he thrust his burden into her arms. "My children and I would like to welcome you to Elsinore, my lady."
She eased back the blanket, then stood gazing down at the feathery perfection of the babe's head.
Her eyes were as cool as the ash from yesterday's fire. "No, thank you," she finally said, handing it back to him. "I've already eaten. — Teresa Medeiros

So, Henrik, is the weather good for fishing?" Papa asked cheerfully, and listened briefly. Then he continued, "I'm sending Inge to you today with the children, and she will be bringing you a carton of cigarettes. "Yes, just one," he said, after a moment. Annemarie couldn't hear Uncle Henrik's words. "But there are a lot of cigarettes available in Copenhagen now, if you know where to look," he went on, "and so there will be others coming to you as well, I'm sure." But it wasn't true. Annemarie was quite certain it wasn't true. Cigarettes were the thing that Papa missed, the way Mama missed coffee. He complained often - he had complained only yesterday - that there were no cigarettes in the stores. — Lois Lowry

For everything is history: What was said yesterday is history, what was said a minute ago is history. But, above all, one is led to misjudge the present, because only the study of historical development permits the weighing and evaluation of the interrelationships among the components of the present-day society. — Claude Levi-Strauss

We have, each of us, a story that is uniquely ours, a narrative arc that we can walk with purpose once we figure out what it is. It's the opposite to living our lives episodically, where each day is only tangentially connected to the next, where we are ourselves the only constants linking yesterday to tomorrow. There is nothing wrong with that, and I don't want to imply that there is by saying how much this shocked me
just that it felt so suddenly, painfully right to think that I have tapped into my Long Tale, that I have set my feet on the path I want to walk the rest of my life, and that it is a path of stories and writing and that no matter how many oceans I cross or how transient I feel in any given place, I am still on my Tale's Road, because having tapped it, having found it, the following is inevitable ... — Amal El-Mohtar

There is only one day that you and I have to live for, and that's today. There is nothing we can do about yesterday except repent, and there may be no tomorrow. The thing for us to do when we arise from our beds as God gives us a new day, is to take whatever comes to our hands, and do it to the best of our ability. — Harold B. Lee

There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow. Today is the right day to Love, Believe, Do and mostly Live. — Dalai Lama XIV

Oh, no you don't. You're not heading down to that dock, young man," Babette declares as she clears my plate.
"But Babette, Dr. Felix said I only had to rest yesterday!"
"Yes he did, and I won't make you stay in bed today. But you're going to stay here while I go. I don't think your crutches are able to make it down the path. It's too rough. You'll end up tripping over something."
I scoff. She doesn't know that I'm the guy who not only made it down to the dock, but also did it in the dark WITHOUT falling flat on his back.
"But Babette - "
"No buts, Rylan. You're staying here and that's final"
"Fine," I grumble. — Colleen Boyd

Lilus shivers between two humid sheets. She doesn't know why she's sick. The illness surged without warning, traitorous, like a great wave of solitude. Health is an easily lost object:"But I had it in my hand, only a little while ago I saw it." That is how her illness was:"But only yesterday I was running on the stairway."
Lilus's illness wasn't a cold, nor the flu, nor a stomach ache. She tended to fall ill over something said to her. Upon hearing something unexpected, she became afraid. She wouldn't turn to anyone, nor did she want to be babied. Secretly she embraced her illness. She'd let herself be invaded by the feeling, and it would seem that the whole world penetrated her being. — Elena Poniatowska

My days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of a clock; for I lived like the Puri Indians, of whom it is said that "for yesterday, today, and tomorrow they have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning by pointing backward for yesterday forward for tomorrow, and overhead for the passing day." This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. — Henry David Thoreau

I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow - there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance. — Charlie Haden

When I was teaching basketball, I urged my players to try their hardest to improve on that very day, to make that practice a masterpiece.
Too often we get distracted by what is outside our control. You can't do anything about yesterday. The door to the past has been shut and the key thrown away. You can do nothing about tomorrow. It is yet to come. However, tomorrow is in large part determined by what you do today. So make today a masterpiece. You have control over that.
This rule is even more important in life than basketball. You have to apply yourself each day to become a little better. By applying yourself to the task of becoming a little better each and every day over a period of time, you will become a lot better. Only then will you will be able to approach being the best you can be. It begins by trying to make each day count and knowing you can never make up for a lost day. — John Wooden

My best day ever. Got up. Had breakfast. Came to school. Bored, as usual. Wishing I wasn't there, like usual. Kids ignoring me, suits me fine. Sitting with the other retards - we're so special. Wasting my time. Yesterday was the same, and it's gone, anyway. Tomorrow may never come. There is only today. This is the best day and the worst day. Actually it's crap. — Rachel Ward

The same thing happened today that happened yesterday, only to different people. — Walter Winchell

I personally believe this: We have only today; yesterday's gone and tomorrow is uncertain. That's why they call it the present. And sobriety really is a gift ... for those who are willing to receive it. — Ace Frehley

There are two days in the year that you cannot do anything: YESTERDAY & TOMORROW: Only TODAY you can Be Happy, Smile, Dream, Love, Feel, & Be Thankful ... — Pablo

To transcend limitations and form positive new patterns of life based on who you know you can be rather than who you were yesterday, you must give up the modes of thinking, feeling and behaving that only keep you chained to your past. — Debbie Ford

God, why do You love me?"
BECAUSE I AM LOVE.
"God, when do You love me?"
ALWAYS.
"How do You love me?"
WITH GRACE, PATIENCE, AND FORGIVENESS.
"God, am I good enough for You?"
MY PRECIOUS CHILD, YOU DON'T NEED TO BE.
"Why?"
BECAUSE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH THAT I GAVE MY ONLY SON, AND HE TOOK UPON HIS SHOULDERS THE AFFLICTIONS AND SINS OF THIS WORLD.
"God, when will I get to see You?"
AFTER YOU CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IN ME.
"Then I will know You here, and in Heaven?"
YES, THEN YOU WILL KNOW ME HERE, AND IN HEAVEN.
"I love you, God."
He always replies,
I LOVED YOU YESTERDAY,
I LOVE YOU TODAY,
AND I WILL LOVE YOU TOMORROW.
~ excerpt from "Halo Found Hope" Chapter 21, HOPE FOUND — Helo Matzelle

You are not suffering yesterday or tomorrow. You are only suffering your memory and your imagination. — Sadghuru

And what a story. The first thing that drew me in was disbelief. What? Humanity sins but it's God's Son who pays the price? I tried to imagine Father saying to me, 'Piscine, a lion slipped into the llama pen today and killed two llamas. Yesterday another one killed a black buck. Last week two of them ate a camel. The situation has become intolerable. Something must be done. I have decided that the only way the lions can atone for their sins is if I feed them you.' ... 'Yes, Father, that would be the right and logical thing to do. Give me a moment to wash up'. What a downright weird story. What a peculiar psychology. — Yann Martel

We Catholics have not only to do our best to keep down our own warring passions and live decent lives, which will often be hard enough in this odd world we have been born into. We have to bear witness to moral principles which the world owned yesterday and has begun to turn its back on today. We have to disapprove of some of the things our neighbors do, without being stuffy about it; we have to be charitable towards our neighbors and make great allowances for them, without falling into the mistake of condoning their low standards and so encouraging them to sin. Two of the most difficult and delicate tasks a man can undertake; and it happens, nowadays, not only to priests, to whom it comes as part of their professional duty, but to ordinary lay people...So we must know what are the unalterable principles we hold, and why we hold them; we must see straight in a world that is full of moral fog. — Ronald Knox

Holy Sonnets: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?"

Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste,
I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday;
I dare not move my dim eyes any way,
Despair behind, and death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feebled flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
Only thou art above, and when towards thee
By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour I can myself sustain;
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart. — John Donne

The public only takes up yesterday as a stick to beat today. — Jean Cocteau

Clevinger was a troublemaker and a wise guy. Lieutenant Scheisskopf knew that Clevinger might cause even more trouble if he wasn't watched. Yesterday it was the cadet officers; tomorrow it might be the world. Clevinger had a mind, and Lieutenant Scheisskopf had noticed that people with minds tended to get pretty smart at times. Such men were dangerous, and even the new cadet officers whom Clevinger had helped into office were eager to give damning testimony against him. The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with. — Joseph Heller

I'm on a strict running program. I started yesterday. I've only missed one day so far. — Kevin Nealon

I didn't make it one goddamn block yesterday, Ruby." He swiped an impatient hand through his hair. "Look, we're both stubborn hotheads, and we're going to fight. Early and often. But I will never make it more than one block before I come back. That is my promise to you. And I don't break my promises, either." Hands on hips, he breathed deeply as if attempting to calm himself. "If I let my fear of losing you keep us apart, I get the same damn result. The only way I can fight that fear is if you fight it with me. — Tessa Bailey

I live now and only now, and I will do what I want to do this moment and not what I decided was best for me yesterday. — Hugh Prather

I speak of new cities and new people
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
a sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
only an ocean of tomorrows.
a sky of tomorrows.
I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say
at sundown:
Tomorrow is a day.
- Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers — Carl Sandburg

Break out to go out:

The birds dare to break the egg shell
It does so in order to get out of that Hell
When it finally succeeds, it'll then fly
To its comfort zone it'll say bye
Are you being confined in a small space
How long will you remain at that place?
Before you can explore more territories,
Break away from the former glories.
Yesterday's excellence is today's average
You must strive to be better age after age
Never accept the available mediocrity
As the only preferable opportunity
Decide to grow from below to hero
And make it a point to vacate level zero
Reach out and arise with power
God's blessings on you, will shower
Agree to grow, never attempt to be slow
Be not afraid. Never doubt. You'll flow
The grace of God will be your guide
Taking you along, side by side. — Israelmore Ayivor

Only yesterday a young woman came to me wanting a trap set for a man with a sweet smile and lithe arms. She was a fool, not for wanting him, but for wanting more of him than that. — Patricia A. McKillip

Although she had resisted this knowledge all her life, had lived determinedly in the future focused there by ambition, she understood at last that this was the real condition of humanity: The dance of life occurred not yesterday or tomorrow, but only here at the still point that was the present. This truth is simmple, sel-evident, but difficult to accept, for we sentimentalize the past and wallow in it, while we endure the moment and in every waking hour dream of the future. — Dean Koontz

So if you can look at all things without allowing pleasure to creep in - at a face, a bird, the colour of a sari, the beauty of a sheet of water shimmering in the sun, or anything that gives delight - if you can look at it without wanting the experience to be repeated, then there will be no pain, no fear, and therefore tremendous joy. It is the struggle to repeat and perpetuate pleasure which turns it into pain. Watch it in yourself. The very demand for the repetition of pleasure brings about pain, because it is not the same, as it was yesterday. You struggle to achieve the same delight, not only to your aesthetic sense but the same inward quality of the mind, and you are hurt and disappointed because it is denied to you. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

I keep thinking and worry about life, he says...

I asked him: can you change yesterday?
he said: no..
I asked him: do you know what will happen tomorrow?
he said: no..

If you do not know what will happen tomorrow
and if you can not change yesterday
that means you only have today.

Start living Life while you have it.
Today. — Faruk H.T.

Only a madman would try to market headache medicine today under the name John's Headache Pills. This would be insufficiently techno-marvelous. No, the name must sound like it carne out of a laboratory yesterday ... Zantistat 100, or something like that. — Douglas Wilson

Never be ashamed to admit you were wrong. It only shows you are smarter today than you were yesterday. — Marilyn Taylor Klam

Excellence can be achieved only today - not yesterday or tomorrow, because they do not exist in the present moment. Today is the only day you have to flex your talents and maximize your enjoyment. Your challenge is to win in all aspects of life. To reach that goal, you need to set yourself up for success by winning one day at a time. Procrastination is no match for a champion. — Jim Afremow

america...is the interplay of three hundred million rube goldberg contraptions invented only yesterday — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The only easy day was yesterday! — D.J. Molles

I hadn't understood how days could be both long and short at the same time: long to live through, maybe, but so drawn out that they ended up flowing into one another. They lost their names. Only 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow' still had any meaning for me. — Albert Camus

Yesterday's fairy tale is today's fact. The magician is only one step ahead of his audience. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

There is no yesterday or tomorrow; there is only this moment. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. Three hundred sixty-five days a year. — Philip Toshio Sudo

the car into gear and drives through the gate. Dede closes the gate behind them, taking another look across the street and seeing nothing. "That's the thing, though," she says when she reenters the car. "He wasn't walking. He was just watching us. I mean, I think. With the headlights, I couldn't really see. It could just be my eyes playing tricks." Annie pulls the Beetle onto the grass next to the massive detached garage, hidden from sight. She lets out a sigh. "Good to be home," she says. "There's no place like home. There's no place like - " "Would you shut up?" As they walk toward the back entrance, they see the ladder the hot tool-belt guy used yesterday, broken down and lying in the grass. "Noah was cute," Annie says. "Was he? Was he cute?" Dede throws another elbow. "Now, now, dearest, I only have eyes for you. — James Patterson

[This is] the only period in all human history when people were proud of being modern. For though to-day is always to-day and the moment is always modern, we are the only men in all history who fell back upon bragging about the mere fact that to-day is not yesterday. I fear that some in the future will explain it by saying that we had precious little else to brag about. For, whatever the medieval faults, they went with one merit. Medieval people never worried about being medieval; and modern people do worry horribly about being modern. — G.K. Chesterton