4 min read
A list of famous quotes about the past to help you give perspective about now and the future.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
GEORGE SANTAYANA
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
L.P. HARTLEY
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
MAYA ANGELOU
“You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been.”
SØREN KIERKEGAARD
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
STEPHEN E. AMBROSE
“The past is a source of knowledge, and the future a source of hope.”
CONFUCIUS
“Study the past if you would define the future.”
JOHN BANVILLE
“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
“What’s past is prologue.”
WENDELL BERRY
“The past is our definition. We may strive to escape it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.”
HARUKI MURAKAMI
“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
ROBERT PLANT
“The past is a stepping stone, not a millstone.”
OSCAR WILDE
“No man is rich enough to buy back his past.”
JAMES BALDWIN
“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”
BILL BELICHICK
“To live in the past is to die in the present.”
CARL SANDBURG
“The past is a bucket of ashes.”
STEVE JOBS
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward.”
BILL COSBY
“The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now.”
OSCAR WILDE
“Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
EMILY DICKINSON
“The past is not a package one can lay away.”
STORY MUSGRAVE
“The way you remember the past depends upon your hope for the future.”
STEPHEN HAWKING
“Why do we remember the past, but not the future?”
T.S. ELIOT
“Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future.”
RUMI
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
AMY BLOOM
“The past is a candle at a great distance: too close to let you quit, too far to comfort you.”
