Present moment

“ In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. ”

“ Do the work of each, and reap your reward in peace. So when the dreaded moment in the future becomes the present, you shall meet it walking in the light, and that light will overcome its darkness. The best preparation is the present well seen to, the last duty done. ”

“ Let any one try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice or attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming. ”

“ The present moment is ever the critical time; the future is merely for intelligent forethought. ”

“ The present only we possess man’s momentary dominion, plastic under his hand as the clay under the potter’s—always a moment of the present in our absolute power—always that fleeting, plastic moment speeding into the past—immutable, eternal. ”

“ Every moment of the future being dependent upon and involved in the present moment, sooner or later in the course of time there would come a moment similar in every detail to a moment that had already existed, thus guaranteeing a similar series of moments till it should recur, and so on. ”

“ If I were an institution possessing a guaranty of continued existence I might value the present lightly, knowing a future would come when these matters will be fully understood. Being a creature of the present, however, which may be turned into the past—especially at my time of life—at almost any moment, these matters should become known at the earliest opportunity ”

“ The entire Present, the stage at which humanity found itself to-day, was but a moment, and values worshipped now, and by the majority rightly worshipped, would pass away, and be replaced by something that would seem entirely new, yet would be in reality not discovery but recovery. ”

“ It is enduring, a course of action, a process including memory, observation and foresight, a pressure forward, a glance backward and a look outward. It is of moral moment because it marks a transition in the direction of breadth and clarity of action or in that of triviality and confusion. Progress is present reconstruction adding fullness and distinctness of meaning, and retrogression is a present slipping away of significance, determinations, grasp. ”

“ But although we may rightly decide to live with full vigour in the present, and do our duty from moment to moment, yet in order to be full-flavoured and really intelligent beings—not merely with mechanical drift following the line of least resistance—we ought to be aware that there is a future,—a future determined to some extent by action in the present ”

“ Nobody who has paid any attention to the peculiar features of our present era will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end to which indeed all history points—THE REALISATION OF THE UNITY OF MANKIND.... ”

“ We think of the future, not the past, as the more glorious time in comparison with which the present is nothing. Progress, development,—those are modern words. The modern idea is to leave the past and press onward to something new. ”

“ What is really momentous and all-important with us is the present, by which the future is shaped and colored. ”

“ There is no present time. Even whilst we name the moment it dies. The drop hangs for an instant on the verge, gleaming in the sunlight, and then falls into the gloomy abyss that silently sucks up years and centuries. ”

“ It will to me unfold. [Pg 32]
“O man why seekest thou to know
The future, or the past?
The present is enough for you,
If not with clouds o’er cast.”
The mountains seemed to pity me,
The clouds shed showers of tears,
The sun looked down in reverence,
And said: “Allay your fears,”
“For there’s a power that rules mankind,
E’er has and ever will.
The future, and the past, are His,
Are governed by His will.” ”

“ Are we simply separating and contrasting two sides of everybody’s opinion? To which one replies that we are not discussing what we know and believe about the relations of past, present, and future, or of the relation of cause and effect to each other in time. [11] We all know the present depends for its causes on the past, and the future depends for its causes upon the present. ”

“ No doubt there is an ideal present—a pure conception, the indivisible limit which separates past from future. But the real, concrete, live present—that of which I speak when I speak of my present perception—that present necessarily occupies a duration. ”

“ The Present!—the Present!—its amusements, its gayeties, its fashions, absorbs nearly all their thoughts. They have little relish to look towards the future, except to anticipate the continuance of the novelty and joyousness of the spring-time of life. ”

“ It speaks for itself and will be of increasing influence as the years go by. This is not the time for retrospect. It is time, rather, to speak our thoughts and purposes concerning the present and the immediate future. ”

“ "what necessity is there to dwell on the Past, when the Present is so much surer—the Future so much brighter?" ”

“ The present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the present. ”

“ For he not only beholds intensely the present as it is, and discovers those laws according to which present things ought to be ordered, but he beholds the future in the present, and his thoughts are the germs of the flower and the fruit of latest time. ”

“ And nevertheless, your future and your past, your aspect of individuality, and of freedom, and the various aspects wherein you are dependent upon the rest of the world, your whole life of deeds, and your attainment of your individual goal through your deeds, — all these manifold facts that are yours and that constitute you, are present at once to the Absolute, — as facts in the world, as temporal contents eternally viewed, — as a process eternally finished, — but eternally finished precisely by virtue of the temporal sequence of your deeds. ”

“ But if you incessantly dwell on a future state of existence, I fear you will neither improve nor enjoy the present. The present has its duties, which we ought to discharge, and its pleasures, which we ought to enjoy; and, while we may derive some consolation from the prospect of a future life, I think we ought not to undervalue the present. ”

“ It determines him to ideas, to facts for the ideas they cover, not so much to the past as the future, to the past only that he may [Pg 371] guide the present and construct the future. He is to take his run in the past to acquire the momentum of history, his stand in the present and leap into the future. ”

“ Moreover, we must look upon what is to occur as having already occurred, and see nothing but the present in the future, for the future is but the present a little farther on." ”

“ This has been allowed to take place, O ye men of the present day, to bring you to your senses, and to remind you of what you ought to be. If the future that is within you were revealed in its full light, who would turn his eyes towards the departing shadows of darkness and night? It is for you to find, and for you to make, the future. ”

“ If you take the great philosophical view which the worshippers of the past rarely take, but which, unknown to them, is their sole excuse,—namely, that the changes which may benefit the future unsettle the present ”

“ While many are lauding the spirit of the age and holding up to my gaze the picture of forth-coming improvements—opening broad and charming vistas into the almost present future of mental and moral perfection, I cannot help casting a lingering look upon the past. ”

“ Almost, one can fancy them sighing over the glories of the past, the degeneracy of the present, and the uncertain future of the presumptuous young upstart so serenely sitting on the ruins of its betters. ”

“ The most vehement longing of our times, however, is manifestly after a faithful mirror of the present; that is to say, after a life-picture of the social relations and the struggles to which the evils of the present day have given rise. ”

“ But just so the future, not, indeed, when viewed as to its unknown details, but when conceived as the region into which the present is passing away, when regarded as containing the goal of all our hopes, and the decision of all our cherished interests and destinies, — is not this future so bound up in one world of Being with the present, that, if we could indeed abstract from future Being, present Being would again lose not only all of its practical interest, but also a large part of its theoretical meaning? ”

“ What you do in the present creates the future, so use the present to create a wonderful future. Constantly through thought you are creating your inner conditions and helping to create the conditions around you. ”

“ It overlooks the loud, omnipresent hints which tell us that the present state is incomplete and dependent, the part of a great whole, the visible segment of a circle whose complement overarches the invisible world to come, where future correspondences and fulnesses will satisfy and complete present claims and deficiencies. ”

“ We stand in a position where the past, the present, and the probable future are alike presented to our view; the first to instruct and warn us, and the two latter to furnish us with every motive to exertion which can be gathered from the impulses of hope and fear, from a perception of our own best interests and of those of our posterity. ”

“ Not to the present is our hour confined,
The great and shadowy future is assigned
To be the glorious empire of the mind.
The past was once the future, and it wrought
In the high presence of on-looking thought;
All that we have, was by its efforts brought.
To-day creates to-morrow, and the tree
Of good or ill grows in past hours, what we
Make for the future—certain is to be. ”

“ The past preaches to the present, and from its marvellous discourses we venture to infer something of the yet unveiled future. The forces which have worked still labour: the phenomena which they have produced will be repeated. ”

“ The conditions of our present life, then, are absolutely the result of our own action in the past; and the other side of that statement is that our actions in this life are building up conditions for the next one. ”

“ But what sometimes strikes me with some surprise is, not that the present condition of the world, with one sole master, should seem the common-place and natural condition, but that it should have come to seem so common-place and natural—in nine months. ”

“ The thought of only being a creature of the present and the past, troubled me, and I longed to have a future—a future with hope in it. ”

“ Through it we know the past, govern the present, and influence the future. ”

“ The past—the present—the future crept up now and stood between them, pushing them farther and farther away from each 212 other, farther and farther, till even parting had become a fact long ago lived through and grown dim. ”

“ The emotions of the present may incline us to look back regretfully upon that past which reminds us of so much that is great and noble, in spite of its many and inevitable drawbacks, and which, by showing us the origin of modern society, by revealing to us the manner of its birth and its onward progress, may give us the key to its present critical condition when a profound and universal transformation seems about to take place. ”

“ The present order of things is transient; and if earth is to be, as some shadowy hints seem to suggest, the scene of the future glories of redeemed humanity, it may be the theatre of a fulfilment of such visions as this. ”

“ When we use our past merely as a guide-book, and concentrate our noble emotions on the present and future, we shall improve more rapidly. ”

“ As to the particular—there is something external and internal in every one; body and soul in every one; this is his present and future world. As to the common signification—there is an external and an internal world, that is, the material world is the present, and the future is the internal world. ”