Quotes & Sayings About Thinking About The Past

I'm not someone who thinks about the past. I'm so busy thinking about what I'm going to do today. — Maggie Tabberer

A lot of the time I'm in the present, and I'm thinking about the past or scheming about the future and missing every present moment, instead of actually partaking of the sacrament of every present moment. — R.D. Laing

How ironic it is then, to realize how many of we humans are masochists! That even when we are placed in paradise, the majority of us would, by choice, focus on everything outside the present moment and make ourselves suffer by thinking about Dis-Ease! Too many of us would dwell on a past that no longer exists while everything in the present moment is wonderful. What great paradoxes we as humans are capable of! — Alaric Hutchinson

Critical voices have to care about history. We have to care about the way in which things get controlled in the past because that's when the damage gets done and if we don't keep that historical memory, we will allow them to do it again next time. — Martin Baker

None of my mental activities for the past twenty-four hours might be called thinking. I had allowed my body to take charge. It knew far more about escaping and healing than I did. — Geoffrey Household

The faces you clutch at desperately slip away; it's when you're not thinking about them that their features flash past. It can happen on a street corner, at the turn of a staircase, because somebody said a word, because some image, an image has passed. Then the face is there for a split second, very fragile. One mustn't grasp at it, or it whisks away. One might as well try and catch a cloud. It was a cloud. — Francois Maspero

Alice, winning means manipulation. It means taking people - people who may have helped you in the past, even people you care about - and using them without hesitation or regret. It means making decisions that would be viewed by any normal-thinking human being as cynical at best and dishonorable at worst — Elle Lothlorien

I learned from my past, and I now employ those lessons going forward, looking to the future - don't you think it's about time our government did, too? — Ian Somerhalder

Thinking about the way you remembered your past. What you remembered, she said, was a string of events and years stretching back from the point where you now found yourself. In other words, a line of time. This might be coloured differently, depending upon what had happened to you. For example, if you had lost someone then it would be black. Other spots might be lighter. On some sections of the line time would have passed quickly, on other sections more slowly. But, for a long way back, it would still be a line. — Peter Hoeg

When I think of competition it's like I try to create against the past. I think about Michelangelo and Picasso, you know, the pyramids. — Kanye West

What sustains and gives continuity to the fear of the past and also to the fear for the future? Surely it is thought - thought of what one has done in the past, or of how a particular disease has given pain and one is afraid of the future repetition of that pain. Fear is sustained by memory, by thinking about it.
Thought, in thinking about past pain or pleasure, gives a continuity to it, sustains and nourishes it. Pleasure or pain in relation to the future is the activity of thought. I am afraid of something I have done, its possible consequences in the future. This fear is sustained by thought. That is fairly obvious. So thought is time - psychologically. Thought brings about psychological time as distinct from chronological time. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

For the first time, Duroy thought of all that was hidden in her past and began to speculate. Obviously she'd already had lovers, but what sort were they and what kind of society did they come from? A vague jealousy, a sort of hostility against her, stirred in him, an hostility directed against everything that he did not know about her, all that part of her feelings and life which did not belong to him. He looked at her, irritated by the secrets hidden in that pretty, silent little head, which perhaps at that very moment was thinking with regret of another man, of other men. How he would have liked to peer into her memories, explore them and learn all there was to know about them! — Guy De Maupassant

I can be a fairly hands-on editor, and when I'm editing someone I feel intensely invested in that writer and her work. I love helping to shape a book, and I feel very privileged to get to do that with writers I'm excited about. I think doing that work for the past six years has changed me, and it better prepared me for the questions and suggestions. — Danielle Dutton

If I'm away from you for more than an hour, I can't stop thinking about you. I carry you in my spirit. I pray for you more than I pray for myself ... I know you don't believe in fairy tales. But, if you did, I'd want to be your knight in shining armor. You've been through so much. I don't want to see you hurt anymore. Now I may not be able to give you all that your used to. But I do know I can love you past your pain. I don't want you to worry about anything. You just wake up in the morning, that's all you have to do and I'll take it from there ... There's one condition ... You have to be my wife — Tyler Perry

I took the thin magazine from the pouch in front of me and began to thumb through it. I felt self-conscious, as if I shouldn't be there. My mind began to wander, as I knew it would, back to the boonies. I was on patrol again. Monaco was on point. Peewee and Walowick followed him. Lobel and Brunner were next, then Johnson, the sixty cradled in his arm as if it were a child. We were walking the boonies, past rice paddies, toward yet another hill. I was in the rear, and for some reason I turned back. Behind me, trailing the platoon, were the others. Brew, Jenkins, Sergeant Dongan, Turner, and Lewis, the new guys, and Lieutenant Carroll.
I knew I was mixing my prayers, but it didn't matter. I just wanted God to care for them, to keep them whole. I knew they were thinking about me and Peewee. — Walter Dean Myers

We are wolves, which are wild dogs, and this is our place in the city. We are small and our house is small on our small urban street. We can see the city and the train line and it's beautiful in its own dangerous way. Dangerous because it's shared and taken and fought for.
That's the best way I can put it, and thinking about it, when I walk past the tiny houses on our street, I wonder about the stories inside them. I wonder hard, because houses must have walls and rooftops for a reason. My only query is the windows. Why do they have windows? Is it to let a glimpse of the world in? Or for us to see out? — Markus Zusak

I drift along, thinking about the past a great deal. The past is so reliable, so delightful, and the best place to live. I end up there quite often, you know; it's very comfortable and dependable. — Barry Humphries

I don't think about the past, I only think about the present because what I do today sets me up for the future. — Vernon Davis

walked on, thinking about the newspaper article I'd recently come across about three women in California - each one had been killed by a mountain lion on separate occasions over the past year - and — Cheryl Strayed

Right now people are interested in genetic engineering to help the human race. That's a noble cause, and that's where we should be heading. But once we get past that - once we understand what genetic diseases we can deal with - when we start thinking about the future, there's an opportunity to create some new life-forms. — Jack Horner

But a lot of our thinking is caught up in dwelling on the past, trying to control the future, generating misperceptions, and worrying about what others are thinking. — Thich Nhat Hanh

When Bill Clinton chose Al Gore in 1992 - from the same generational, ideological, and geographical background as his - it underscored his campaign's central argument that this was a clash between the past and the future, that 'Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow' was indeed the campaign's anthem. — Jeff Greenfield

What I really love about them ... is the fact that they contain someone's personal history ... I find myself wondering about their lives. I can never look at a garment ... without thinking about the woman who owned it. How old was she? Did she work? Was she married? Was she happy? ... I look at these exquisite shoes, and I imagine the woman who owned them rising out of them or kissing someone ... I look at a little hat like this, I lift up the veil, and I try to imagine the face beneath it ... When you buy a piece of vintage clothing you're not just buying the fabric and thread - you're buying a piece of someone's past. — Isabel Wolff

Most of the time we are trying to make the good things last, or we are thinking about replacing them with something even better in the future, or we are sunk in the past, reminiscing about happier times. Ironically, we never truly appreciated the experience for which we are nostalgic because we were too busy clinging to our hopes and fears at the time. — Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

Every era of coaches has their own set of problems and challenges. Today's player is different, but some things (about them) are better than they were in the past. I don't think (coaching today's players) is any tougher. I think we're a little too hard on the current day player because he's different. — Avery Johnson

I realize I have stopped thinking about political divides, about freedom fighters or terrorists, about dictators and armies. I am thinking only of the fragility of civilization. The lives the refugees had were our lives: they owned corner shops and sold cars, they farmed or worked in factories or owned factories or sold insurance. None of them expected to be running for their lives, leaving everything they had because they had nothing to come back to, making smuggled border crossings, walking past the dismembered corpses of other people who had tried to make the crossing but had been caught or been betrayed. — Neil Gaiman

Jesus brings a kingdom ruled by the crucified one and populated by the unclean and always found in the unexpected. I'd expected to look at the past and see only mistakes that I'd moved on from, to see only damage and addiction and tragic self-delusion. But by thinking that way, I'd assumed that God was nowhere to be found back then. But that's kind of an insult to God. It's like saying, 'You only exist when I recognize you.' The kingdom of heaven, which Jesus talked about all the time, is, as he said, here. At hand. It's now. Wherever you are. In ways you'd never expect. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

I remember sitting back, on a local beach I called home; thinking about the wild storms I had already faced, the chaotic thunder I somehow learnt to dance through. This time, remembering it, was different. I had no emotional attachment, I felt free of the past and could quietly seperate who I was with who I am now and this moment was empowering , because had I not faced the greatest disasters with courage, I wouldn't have learnt the mastery of life. My self awakening. — Nikki Rowe

Don't just think about what you missed! Don't continue to dwell on your past mistakes. You shall also miss something in life, consciously or unconsciously! You shall never be able to do all things excellently in life though you must try to! The lesson from what you missed and its application for a better tomorrow is what matter! Move your thought! Move your body! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Bluntly and quietly, in a series of simple, forthright sentences, she dismantled the architecture of unhappiness that had been growing up around us for the past several days. She was calling from the office she said, and had to talk in a low voice, 'but if you can hear me, Sid' she began, 'there are four things I want you to know. First, I haven't stopped thinking about you since I left the house this morning. Second, I've decided to have the baby, and we're never going to use the word "abortion" again. Third, don't bother to make dinner. [ ... ] Fourth, make sure Mr. Johnson's ready for action. I'm going to attack you the minute I walk in the door, my love, so be prepared. — Paul Auster

Wow," the empty air finally said. "Wow. That puts a pretty different perspective on things, I have to say. I'm going to remember this the next time I feel an impulse to blame myself for something. Neville, the term in the literature for this is 'egocentric bias', it means that you experience everything about your own life but you don't get to experience everything else that happens in the world. There was way, way more going on than you running in front of me. You're going to spend weeks remembering that thing you did there for six seconds, I can tell, but nobody else is going to bother thinking about it. Other people spend a lot less time thinking about your past mistakes than you do, just because you're not the center of their worlds. I guarantee to you that nobody except you has even considered blaming Neville Longbottom for what happened to Hermione. Not for a fraction of a second. You are being, if you will pardon the phrase, a silly-dilly. Now shut up and say goodbye. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Even today, some opt for the comforts of mystification, preferring to believe that the wonders of the ancient world were built by Atlanteans, gods, or space travelers, instead of by thousands toiling in the sun. Such thinking robs our forerunners of their due, and us of their experience. Because then one can believe whatever one likes about the past - without having to confront the bones, potsherds, and inscriptions which tell us that people all over the world, time and again, have made similar advances and mistakes. — Ronald Wright

As I walked past the houses, I was sure my neighbors were thinking about summer vacation plans, bills, or what baseball game they were going to watch that night. It struck me how wide the chasm was between what was going on in Afghanistan and what was happening at home. I knew my neighbors cared and supported the troops, but they had no idea what it was — Mark Owen

I had wanted to call him.
There were so many things I wanted to talk to him about.
And that I wanted to ask him about. But ... I kind of hated myself ... for feeling that way.
Because ... thinking about Nomiya-san ... felt like a betrayal of myself, of everything I'd felt for the past six years.
It made my feelings for Mayama seem like a lie.
Other people might think it's pathetic.
That I'm pathetic.
But my feelings for Mayama ...
My love for him ...
Was the only thing I had.
It was my treasure. My cold, bright treasure.
Dear God. I never wanted to be saved. I wanted to stay miserably in love with Mayama forever.
I wanted to stay in love with him for ten years, twenty years, so he would know just how strong my love was.
... Even though I knew that would be totally meaningless. — Chica Umino

People are looking for certainty. The more complex the world becomes, the more people look for people to give them certainty and tell them what to do. During the past few years of actively thinking about this, there is one thing that I have accepted: certainty is not out there. There is not one strategy to follow, and that's OK. — Noreena Hertz

I have in the past tended to overestimate the amount of change I can affect in the short run and then not fully appreciate the change I can affect in the long run. And so I've learned that it's critical to think carefully about the pace of change, and it's something that I've learned the hard way. — Harry West

The first step to thinking clearly is to question what we think we know about the past. — Peter Thiel

Past is gone and there's no way to travel in time. Future is unforeseeable and there's no guarantee what will happen next. So why losing now. Thinking about past memories & events would mostly causes you sadness. Thinking of future and what may happen would causes you anxiety. Present is the time you're living in and you can do anything right Now. So think about it, what have you done? What will you do? Or what to do now? — Russ

People should learn to live in the now. They spend all their time thinking about past glories and worrying about the future. Meanwhile all the moments of spontaneity and beauty they'll ever have in their lives are flitting from future into past without being noticed. That's why there are so many grumpy assholes in the world — William Meikle

I think that, in a sense, there's something about photography in general that we could associate with memory, or the past, or childhood. — Gregory Crewdson

If you really want to seriously think about life, and therefore take painting very seriously ... and take seriously the joys that it can bring to one, then you want to go to museums. You want to study the great of the past ... — Nelson Shanks

You think about every piece of idiomatic speech adopted by white men over the past ten or twenty years; virtually all of it comes from hip-hop. — Jess Row

Don't think about the past. Just be here now. — Ram Dass

I just wanted to tell you, how beautiful you were; that day, that night, that life. — Anthony Liccione

For me, the new pictures are what I'm thinking about every day. The past is the past, no? Every day is a new challenge. — Patrick Demarchelier

Amy might not have had the most exciting life over the past few years, up here in her room, but she must have been fighting death to the very end. Sara could understand why she had been in denial or so long. It must have been a frightening realization: so many books she would never get to pick up, so many stories that would happen without her, so many authors she would never get to discover.

That night, Sara sat in Amy's library for hours, thinking about how tragic it was that the written word was immortal while people were not, and grieving for her, the woman she had never met. — Katarina Bivald

We are often wrong about the past, but at least with the past you can change your thinking. We can't do that with the future. — Chuck Klosterman

I suddenly felt that it was all the same to me whether the world existed or whether there had never been anything at all: I began to feel with all my being that there was nothing existing. At first I fancied that many things had existed in the past, but afterwards I guessed that there never had been anything in the past either, but that it had only seemed so for some reason. Little by little I guessed that there would be nothing in the future either. Then I left off being angry with people and almost ceased to notice them. Indeed this showed itself even in the pettiest trifles: I used, for instance, to knock against people in the street. And not so much from being lost in thought: what had I to think about? I had almost given up thinking by that time; nothing mattered to me. If at least I had solved my problems! Oh, I had not settled one of them, and how many there were! But I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

He had learned in the past four years to speak only when he knew that which he was speaking about. Moreover, he had learned that silence can sometimes relax a listener into thinking that one might be intelligent. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Thinking about the past is like digging up graves — Nathan Filer

Worrying about the future is a thing of the past. I don't think about it. — Pat Paulsen

Most power is lost in one's own mind by thinking negative thoughts, by worrying about the future, by focusing on the past, as opposed to thinking positive, strong, and happy thoughts. — Frederick Lenz

Reminiscing is when one is thinking about the past. What you are dreaming about never happened. The word for that is fantasizing. — Wesley Chu

We did I think talk about your feeling of it's fun to be square, and while I'll go along with the Borges-like ramifications, I don't think I was the one who thought it up. In the past my justification for my self-conscious oddness of appearance (by now I figure this is the way I look, and it would not only be more self-conscious but also uncomfortable to change) was that people would think their impression of oddity came simply from the way I looked, and eventually become (hopefully) pleasantly surprised that I was not nearly as much of a nut as I looked, and was really quite ordinary, which is also true I think. It seemed preferable to people thinking 'Well, he looked perfectly ordinary and then it became apparent there was something wrong with his head ... ' Of course now practically everybody to my middle aged way of thinking looks too peculiar for words, and only very infrequently attractive at the same time. — Edward Gorey

History is what we read, write and think about the past. — Michael Howard

When you start thinking about what your life was like 10 years ago
and not in general terms, but in highly specific detail
it's disturbing to realize how certain elements of your being are completely dead. They die long before you do. It's astonishing to consider all the things from your past that used to happen all the time but (a) never happen anymore, and (b) never even cross your mind. It's almost like those things didn't happen. Or maybe it seems like they just happened to someone else. To someone you don't really know. To someone you just hung out with for one night, and now you can't even remember her name. — Chuck Klosterman

I smile when I think of the past and get excited about the future. — Julie Murphy

In retrospect, I think that I've been given quite a few scripts over the years that had dark elements to them but most of them took place in the countryside with a haunted house. I think I've probably had that script about six to 10 times over the past few years. Or it was something to do with the supernatural. — Gillian Anderson

I don't know about you, but I don't feel that it's my vehicle that is essential. I don't know about you, but I don't feel that it's my education that is essential. I don't think what is essential about me is my house or my car or my clothes. What is essential about me? Well, I think what is essential is that I live and embrace life right now, wherever I am. I grab it in my arms! Don't spend time crying about yesterday-yesterday is over with! I forgive my past. I forgive the people who've hurt me. I don't want to spend the rest of my life blaming and pointing a finger. — Leo Buscaglia

I've been thinking about Skinny Dave. I wonder if he's in heaven, up past the glittery constellations, in some paradise-shaped other dimension. I want him to be there, far away from the demons that betrayed him. — Carrie Firestone

If you leave the church service thinking about how good the pastor was, he has missed the mark. If you leave consumed with Christ, the pastor has been used by the Lord. — Howard G. Hendricks

Your life right now is a reflection of your past thoughts. That includes all the great things, and all the things you consider not so great. Since you attract to you what you think about most, it is easy to see what your dominant thoughts have been on every subject of your life, because that is what you have experienced. Until now! — Rhonda Byrne

I was a history major in school. I review the past a lot and think about music history and how culture unfolds. — Bruce Pavitt

It was sinister, overpowering; it was like a troubled dream conjured by the evil thoughts of a past day. There was no suggestion of ultimate hope, and no possibility of escape. It was a terrible place. I sat up on the deck with my chin in my hands, looking in front of me thinking of nothing, my heart heavy, longing for some nameless thing that I could not explain even to myself. I did not want to feel depressed like this. I wanted to laugh, and not to care about a thought, and to be with people who did not matter, and to have some fun taking that girl ashore. I did not want to be in a lost mood, wretched and distressed. I wished Gudvangen was different, and the mountains wider apart, and the sun shining in a clear sky, and the blue water warm and shallow. — Daphne Du Maurier

I would like the film to make people think about the place of women in the world - the advances and setbacks that they have experienced these past years in terms of their freedom. — Catherine Corsini

The Ferris wheel came to a stop two seats down from the top. "I've been thinking about you a lot this past week," she said, and it came out a lot more moony than she intended. He lowered his gaze from the sky and met her eyes. His smile was mischievous. "Oh? — Sarah Addison Allen

While I principally agree with the NOW movement I also challenge their thinking to a degree. There are plenty of exceptions to the being-present-rule. I have for example worked with cancer patients who were going through very trying times in their therapy, and they couldn't stand to think about the present moment, they needed to envision a better future or remember an enjoyable time from their past to feel slightly better. The present moment was simply a torment. This can be true in a number of other situations where the present moment is simply too awful and painful to intently focus on. — Gudjon Bergmann

I feel I have proved myself just as much as everybody else does. I usually don't think about the past too much. I just try to perform the routines I have been practicing. — Jordyn Wieber

[Ted] Cruz is not at all popular in the Senate. Republicans say he may be too disliked to be a nominee. And there is a real concern about that. I think the one way to go after Trump maybe is go after him as a closet Democrat. That he has supported Democrats in the past. — Dalia Mogahed

Men and women are learning animals. If you do not see what they have learned, you're blind. They are creatures ever changing, ever improving, ever expanding their vision and the capacity of their hearts. You are not fair to them when you speak of this as the most bloody century; you are not seeing the light that shines ever more radiantly on account of the darkness; you are not. seeing the evolution of the human soul! ... ... True, what you say about war. Yes, and the cries of the dying, I too have heard them; we have all heard them, through all the decades; and even now, the world is shocked by daily reports of armed conflict. But it is the outcry against these horrors which is the light I speak of; it's the attitudes which were never possible in the past. It is the intolerance of thinking men and women in power who for the first time in the history of the human race truly want to put an end to injustice in all forms.
Marius to Akasha (The Vampire Chronicles) — Anne Rice

To whoever will listen.

I've been thinking about black holes a lot. How their gravity is so strong it bends time and space. How you'd be stretched down to atoms passing the event horizon.

I kind of feel like I'm being stretched to atoms. Like I'm falling apart and becoming so metaphorically thin that I'm transparent. But, as nothing that happens past the event horizon affects the universe outside of it, nothing that I'm feeling is affecting anyone in the outside world, either.

The event horizon is a point of no return. Nothing, not even light, can escape it.

I wonder what will happen when I pass the event horizon and fully submerge myself into the black hole.

There are theories that if you enter a blackhole under a specific angle, you'll survive and hit the bottom of it. The chances are incredibily small.

I doubt I'll survive. — Emily Trunko

It may be enough to study history in all its nuance and ambiguity for its own sake. But there is no country free of the need to find new ways of reading the past as an inspiring way of thinking about everything else, including the present. — Colm Toibin

I took my AlDS test. You start reflecting ... You start thinking about every nasty, skank-ass ... It's like the movie Scrooge, and the Ghost of Pussy Past comes. — Chris Rock

Empowered Women 101: Forgive yourself for having chosen to expose yourself to people who don't care about your feelings and help others to do the same. Enjoy life! It is as simple as changing your focus or perspective when you start thinking about people from the past who hurt your feelings. Eventually, you will forget about those types of people because your time and attention will be taken up by more positive things/people/events/activities etc. When you understand how much time is wasted trying to make people see you, understand you, respect you, value you, like you or agree with you ... life becomes a pointless negative fight for validation that will drain your happiness. You are worth more than the indifference, inattention or crumbs people throw you. You are a queen that demands respect and God will bring the right person into your life to make you forget why you ever wasted your time on nothing important. — Shannon L. Alder

Every second you dwell on the past you steal from your future. Every minute you spend focusing on your problems you take away from finding your solutions. And thinking about all those things that you wish never happened to you is actually blocking all the things you want to happen from entering into your life. Given the timeless truth that holds that you become what you think about all day long, it makes no sense to worry about past events or mistakes unless you want to experience them for a second time. Instead, use the lessons you have learned from your past to rise to a whole new level of awareness and enlightenment. — Robin S. Sharma

I think our need to be loved is so great that it's the thing that damages us the most. I think that's something we can find in any person, though some people are more in tune with it or accepting of it or have moved past it and dealt with it or have a healthier thought process about it than others. — Kristen Stewart

You have to be a warrior in order to become enlightened. If you think it's tough paying the bills, think about being everywhere all at once and doing everything in all the universes, simultaneously, past, present, and future. — Frederick Lenz

There is seldom any rational reason for having regreats about past deeds or events. Because the past does not exist in any other way than in your memory.

When you recognise this lack of reality, you can be calm. — Paul Wilson

We live in the moment. We're not thinking about the future right now. We're not thinking about the past, you know. We're living in this moment right here and it's a sweet moment to live in. — Dwyane Wade

The Ring didn't put us on alert," he said. "It's the Martians. Even with that thing out there, we're still thinking about shooting each other. That's pretty fucked up. Sorry. Messed up." "It seems like we should be able to see past our human differences when we're confronted with something like this, doesn't it?" Chris — James S.A. Corey

Honestly, I spend very little time thinking about past events, and I certainly don't have them ranked in any way. I look back and think that I have done a lot of good work over the years, but I am much more excited about what the future holds. — John Carmack

I think we like to romanticise about past eras, and for sure there have been great ones (like the 1820s maybe, or the 1530s) but I don't think London has ever been more culturally and sartorially rich as it is now. — Patrick Grant

I don't feel I'm very present in each moment. I feel like every moment I'm either thinking about something that's coming down the road or something that's been in the past. — Anderson Cooper

I think every artist that you like, or even artists that have defined their own times, they're definitely looking to the past as a starting place. It's just about how you infuse your own personality, your own message, and your own ideas into it. The record is supposed to be really sensual and sexy. — Tamaryn

And then you'll catch yourself thinking about something or someone who has no connection with the past. Someone who's only yours. And you'll realize ... that this is where your life is. — Colm Toibin

Now, eternity is beyond all categories of thought. This is an important point in all of the great Oriental religions. We want to think about God. God is a thought. God is a name. God is an idea. But its reference is to something that transcends all thinking. The ultimate mystery of being is beyond all categories of thought. As Kant said, the think in itself is no things. It transcends thingness, it goes past anything that could be thought. The best things can't be told because they transcend thought. The second best are misunderstood, because those are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which can't be thought about. The third best are what we talk about. And myth is that field of reference to what is absolutely transcendent ... That's why it's absurd to speak of God as of either this sex or that sex. The divine power is antecedent to sexual separation. — Joseph Campbell

Humans can't live in the present, like animals do. Humans are always thinking about the future or the
past. So it's a veil of tears, man. I don't know anything that's going to benefit me now, except love. I
just need an overwhelming amount of love. And a nap. Mostly a nap. — Townes Van Zandt

I'm not much for sitting around and thinking about the past or talking about the past. What does that accomplish? If I can give young people something to think about, like the future, that's a better use of my time. — Arnold Palmer

Think about how rare it is that you exist at all. Also think about time this way: If something exists, even for a second, then forever in the future that thing "existed", and forever in the past that thing "was going to exist". So to even be conscious for a millisecond is a kind of immortality, but you have more than a millisecond. You have minutes. Hours. Months. A year? Years! This is a gift. — Alex Hirsch

We are seeing, then, that our experience is altogether momentary. From one point of view, each moment is so elusive and so brief that we cannot even think about it before it has gone. From another point of view, this moment is always here, since we know no other moment than the present moment. It is always dying, always becoming past more rapidly than imagination can conceive. Yet at the same time it is always being born, always new, emerging just as rapidly from that complete unknown we call the future. Thinking about it almost makes you breathless. — Alan Watts

Definitely I know that every negative condition of the past is cleared away from my consciousness. I no longer think about it, see it, or believe in it. Nor do I believe that it has any effect whatsoever in my experience. Yesterday is not, tomorrow is not, but today, bright with hope and filled with promise, is mine. Today I live. — Ernest Holmes

Marriage is an effort to legalize love. It is out of fear. It is thinking about the future, about the tomorrows. Man always thinks of the past and the future, and because of this constant thinking about past and future, he destroys the present. And the present is the only reality there is. One has to live in the present. The past has to die and has to be allowed to die ... — Rajneesh

I know people who do a lot of drugs, and they keep thinking about things from the past and things ahead. But they're not living right here and now. — Danny Masterson

The costumes help. They make it less real, disguise what it really is both for the actors and for the people who'll see it on the screen. It's like the people who read Anna Karenina, and because it's in Russia they can say, 'Oh, that's not my pain they're talking about.' And Chris is tough. She goes from one thing to the next and doesn't worry about the past. When a cat sits mere purring on your lap, you know for a fact she isn't thinking about her former owner; she's thinking about her dinner. That's Chris. — Barbara Hambly

YOUNG: Self-appointed advisors have taken this line about Negro responsibility almost solely, and these are the very people who in the past have been largely indifferent to the plight of the Negro citizen, they've been people who fought against civil rights. I'm thinking of columnists like David Lawrence and Fulton Lewis. Now these are the people who speak of Negroes' assuming certain responsibilities before these rights are to be given. — Robert Penn Warren

As long as I'm between home and the clinic I do all right. But out in the real world, I feel like prey. I slink around and can feel people looking at me. I feel their eyes boring into me. I feel what they're thinking: Watch her, she could go off anytime. But within the walls of my farmhouse, I climb out of the protective shell, my arms slowly rise like a phoenix, and I dance, wail, fly around the room and then collapse, crying, in front of my mirrors. I start to see in the mirror what it is I really look like, instead of what I was trained from the womb to see. I do not write about it. I do not talk about it. I do not know what I am doing. But just like a baby bird, I am blinking once-sealed eyes and unfolding damp wings. I cannot articulate the past. A part of me knows it's there, lurking, just behind what I can acknowledge, but it is not within sight. And I am keeping it that way. — Julie Gregory

Heracles was strangely silent. What is he thinking? / Geryon wondered. / Geryon watched prehistoric rocks move past the car and thought about thoughts. / Even when they were lovers / he had never known what Herakles was thinking. Once in a while he would say, / Penny for your thoughts! / and it always turned out to be some odd thing like a bumper sticker or a dish / he'd eaten in a Chinese restaurant years ago. / What Geryon was thinking Herakles never asked. In the space between them / developed a dangerous cloud. — Anne Carson

Many partners of addicts have told me they feel bad about themselves for staying in the relationship because of the betrayal they've experienced. They imagine that the people who know their past judge them to be stupid for staying with the person who's caused them so much pain. I often counter this thinking, explaining that leaving may seem quick and easy because they can pretend they're okay and the problem has disappeared. However, if you leave your relationship, you'll be stuck with your pain and sorrow without the person you loved to help you sort it out. Why is this true? Because even though it feels as if your pain comes from your partner, it's actually coming from inside you. — Alexandra Katehakis

It is one of the strange facts of experience that when we try to think about the future, our thoughts jump backwards. It may well be that nature has some fundamental metaphysical law by which opening up what we call the future also opens up the past in equal degree. — R. Buckminster Fuller

Are all the scientists here men, then?" "Scientists?" Oiie asked, incredulous. Pae coughed. "Scientists. Oh, yes, certainly, they're all men. There are some female teachers in the girls' schools, of course. But they never get past Certificate level." "Why not?" "Can't do the math; no head for abstract thought; don't belong. You know how it is, what women call thinking is done with the uterus! Of course, there's always a few exceptions, God-awful brainy women with vaginal atrophy." "You Odonians let women study science?" Oiie inquired. "Well, they are in the sciences, yes." "Not many, I hope." "Well, about half. — Ursula K. Le Guin