PAST QUOTES IV
quotations about the past
When I think over the past, I am like a person whose eyes cannot properly measure distances and is liable to think things extremely remote which on examination prove to be quite near.
ANDRE GIDE
If It Die
All the past is not worth one today.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"New Year"
The past is such a curious creature,
To look her in the face
A transport may reward us,
Or a disgrace --
EMILY DICKINSON
"The past is such a curious creature"
It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
"Show Mr. and Mrs. F. to Number--"
See, there's nothing wrong with the past; the past is a good thing, but that's not all there is.
PAT BENATAR
interview, AV Club, August 26, 1997
If you could not accept the past and its burden there was no future, for without one there cannot be the other ... for only out of the past can you make the future.
ROBERT PENN WARREN
All the King's Men
Keep out of the Past! for its highways
Are damp with malarial gloom;
Its gardens are sere and its forests are drear,
And everywhere moulders a tomb.
Who seeks to regain its lost pleasures,
Finds only a rose turned to dust;
And its storehouse of wonderful treasures
Are covered and coated with rust.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Keep Out of the Past"
The only past which endures lies wordlessly within you.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
But we look ahead to the far off skies,
For the years are flying fast,
And we know that the present that round us lies
Ere the light of a few more moments dies,
Will with many loved and severed ties
Fade into the mist-veiled past.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN
"The Beautiful Past"
Our most merciless enemy is our past.
MAXIM GORKY
Untimely Thoughts
We sometimes condemn the present, by praising the past; and show our contempt of what is now, by our esteem for what is no more.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
Youth, hope, and love:
To build a new life on a ruined life,
To make the future fairer than the past,
And make the past appear a troubled dream.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The Masque of Pandora
The past is never where you think you left it.
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
Ship of Fools
What is the past, what is it all for? A mental sandwich?
JOHN ASHBERY
"37 Haiku"
The past was bitter and dry and ashes in his mouth, its bone arms clasped him like some old desiccated lover he could not be shut of.
WILLIAM GAY
Provinces of Night
A chorus of voices, the past alive in everything, that sea upon which the present tossed and rode.
WILLIAM GIBSON
All Tomorrow's Parties
Beyond here lies nothin'
But the mountains of the past
BOB DYLAN
"Beyond Here Lies Nothin'"
The past is referred to as being dead; but it is terribly alive.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
The Great Gatsby
An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.
JAMES BALDWIN
The Fire Next Time