Past Quotes - Page 38

• Thoughts must come naturally, like wild-flowers; they cannot be forced in a hot-bed, even although aided by the leaf-mould of your past.

  Alexander Smith

  Flower, Bed, Hot

  Alexander Smith, Peter Pauper Press (1947). “Dreamthorp: eight essays”

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• In December people give no thought to the Past or the Future. They thing only of the Present.

  Carolyn Wells

  People, Giving, December

  Carolyn Wells (1908). “The Carolyn Wells Year Book of Old Favorites and New Fancies for 1909”

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• God lead us past the setting of the sun
  To wizard islands, of august surprise;
  God make our blunders wise.

  Vachel Lindsay

  Wise, Wisdom, Islands

  Vachel Lindsay, Dennis Camp (1984). “The poetry of Vachel Lindsay: complete & with Lindsay's drawings”, Spoon River Poetry Pr

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• Repentance clothes in grass and flowers the grave in which the past is laid.

  John Sterling

  Flower, Clothes, Repentance

  John Sterling (1842). “The Poetical Works of John Sterling”, p.219

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• That parasite: the past.

  Natalie Clifford Barney

  Parasites

  Natalie Clifford Barney, Anna Livia (1992). “A Perilous Advantage: The Best of Natalie Clifford Barney”, p.129, New Victoria Publishers

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• The past is such a subtle thing. [But] in the end, nothing else exists, everything is made of the past, even the future.

  Natalie Clifford Barney

  Ends, Subtle, Made

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• I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the past with the present.

  Helen Keller

  Years, Fancy, Facts

  Helen Keller (2016). “The Story of My Life”, p.7, Om Books International

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• Theirs is the present who can praise the past.

  William Shenstone

  Praise

  Oliver Goldsmith, Tobias Smollett, Samuel Johnson, William Shenstone (1861). “Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith, Tobias Smollett, Samuel Johnson and William Shenstone”

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• There is no Past, so long as Books shall live!

  Bill Vaughan

  Book, Long

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• By the needle you shall draw the thread, and by that which is past, see how that which is to come will be drawne on.

  George Herbert

  Thread, Needles, Draws

  George Herbert (1874). “The Complete Works of George Herbert: Prose”, p.331

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• It was an old, old, old, old lady,
  And a boy who was half-past three;
  And the way they played together
  Was beautiful to see.

  Henry Cuyler Bunner

  Beautiful, Boys, Together

  Henry Cuyler Bunner, “One, Two, Three!”

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• The past is one evil less and one memory more.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Memories, Evil

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• How readily we wish time spent revoked, that we might try the ground again where once--through inexperience, as we now perceive--we missed that happiness we might have found!

  William Cowper

  Wish, Trying, Inexperience

  William Cowper (1874). “The poetical works of William Cowper, ed: with notes and biographical introd. by William Benham”, p.266

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• Good-humor only teaches charms to last,
  Still makes new conquests and maintains the past.

  Alexander Pope

  Character, Lasts, Charm

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• The Saviour who flitted before the patriarchs through the fog of the old dispensation, and who spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets, articulate but unseen, is the same Saviour who, on the open heights of the Gospel, and in the abundant daylight of this New Testament, speaks to us. Still all along it is the same Jesus, and that Bible is from beginning to end all of it, the word of Christ.

  John Milton

  Bible, Jesus, Father

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• The soul awakes ... between two dim eternities - the eternal past, the eternal future.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Two, Soul, Eternity

  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Beecher STOWE (2016). “Collected Works (Complete and Illustrated Editions: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Queer Little Folks, The Chimney-Corner, ...)”, p.236, Harriet Beecher Stowe

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• If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it.

  Agatha Christie

  Thinking, Alive, Ends

  Agatha Christie (1972). “Hercule Poirot's Christmas”

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• from one minute to the next the present is merely an honorary past. It must be filled unceasingly anew to dissemble the curse it carries within itself; that is why Americans like speed, alcohol, thriller films and any sensational news: the demand for new things, and ever newer things, is feverish since nowhere will they rest.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Alcohol, United States, News

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• Every time I start on a new book, I am a beginner again. I doubt myself, I grow discouraged, all the work accomplished in the past is as though it never was, my first drafts are so shapeless that it seems impossible to go on with the attempt at all, right up until the moment - always imperceptible, there, too, there is a break - when it is has become impossible not to finish it.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Book, Doubt, Beginners

  Simone de Beauvoir (1977). “Force of Circumstance: Hard times”

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• Gratitude is a humble emotion. It expresses itself in a thousand ways, from a sincere thank you to friend or stranger, to the mute, up-reaching acknowledgment to God--not for the gifts of this day only, but for the day itself; not for what we believe will be ours in the future, but for the bounty of the past.

  Faith Baldwin

  Gratitude, Believe, Humble

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• Poetry is an act of distillation. It takes contingency samples, is selective. It telescopes time. It focuses what most often floods past us in a polite blur.

  Diane Ackerman

  Poetry, Telescopes, Blur

  Diane Ackerman (1999). “Deep Play”, Random House Incorporated

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• How the past perishes is how the future becomes.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.238, Simon and Schuster

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• Life is the enjoyment of emotion, derived from the past and aimed at the future.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Life, Emotion, Enjoyment

  Alfred North Whitehead (2012). “Nature and Life”, p.92, Cambridge University Press

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• The present is never the mark of our designs. We use both past and present as our means and instruments, but the future only as our object and aim.

  Blaise Pascal

  Future, Mean, Design

  Blaise Pascal (1727). “Thoughts on Religion and Other Curious Subjects”, p.178

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• The Old Guard dies but it never surrenders.

  Margaret Mitchell

  Surrender, Never Surrender, Dies

  Margaret Mitchell (2016). “Gone with the Wind”, p.556, Hamilton Books

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