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Future quotes

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“And there is nothing like dreams for engendering the future.” Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables” - 1862

“We gave the Future to the winds, and slumbered tranquilly in the Present, weaving the dull world around us into dreams.” Edgar Allan Poe, “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” - 1842

“When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?” Chuck Palahniuk, “Invisible Monsters” - 1999

“So far as I can see, all political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.” George Orwell, “London Letter” - 1945

“The future isn't set in stone. Things change.” Stephenie Meyer, “Twilight” - 2005

“Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of...” Barack Obama, “Inaugural Address” - 20 January 2009

“The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind.” Woodrow Wilson, “A World League For Peace” - 22 January 1917

“The laws of science do not distinguish between the past and the future.” Stephen Hawking, “A Brief History of Time” - 1988

“The taste of the usual was like cinders in his mouth, and there were moments when he felt as if he were being buried alive under his future.” Edith Wharton, “The Age of Innocence” - 1920

“The past was like a bad dream; the future was all happy holiday as I moved southwards week by week, easily, lazily, lingering as long as I dared, but always heeding the call!” Kenneth Grahame, “The Wind in the Willows” - 1908

“the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.” C. S. Lewis, “The Screwtape Letters” - 1942

“Economy is the method by which we prepare to-day to afford the improvements of to-morrow.” Calvin Coolidge, “State of the Union Address” - 8 December 1925

“what necessity is there to dwell on the Past, when the Present is so much surer—the Future so much brighter?” Charlotte Brontë, “Jane Eyre” - 16 October 1847

“A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future.” Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus” - 1942

“I desire no future that will break the ties of the past.” George Eliot, “The Mill on the Floss” - 1860

“What was the future? The future was a solid wall, not promising, not threatening — all bunk. No guarantees of anything, not even the guarantee that life isn’t one big joke.” Bob Dylan, “Chronicles, Volume One” - 2004

“You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.” John Green, “Looking for Alaska” - 2005

“And God only rarely reveals the future. When he does so, it is for only one reason: it's a future that was written so as to be altered.” Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist” - 1988

“The past and the present are within the field of my inquiry, but what a man may do in the future is a hard question to answer.” Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Hound of the Baskervilles” - 1902

“How do we know that his future will not be equal to our present?” Confucius, “Analects”

“I stole their future from them; I can only begin to repay by seeing what I can learn from their past.” Orson Scott Card, “Ender's Game” - 1985

“His whole future seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him; and passing down its endless emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of a man to whom nothing was ever to happen.” Edith Wharton, “The Age of Innocence” - 1920

“FUTURE, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.” Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil's Dictionary” - 1906

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.” George Orwell, “1984” - 1949

“The past is consumed in the present and the present is living only because it brings forth the future.” James Joyce, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” - 1916

“The only immediate utility of all sciences, is to teach us, how to control and regulate future events by their causes.” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present.” Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist” - 1988

“Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.” James Joyce, “Ulysses” - 1922

“This would mean that any time travel would be confined to the future. There would be no chance of Captain Kirk and the Starship Enterprise turning up at the present time.” Stephen Hawking, “A Brief History of Time” - 1988

“She could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the present grief.” Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Scarlet Letter” - 1850

“Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting.” Haruki Murakami, “Dance Dance Dance” - 1994

“The future stands still, dear Mr. Kappus, but we move in infinite space.” Rainer Maria Rilke, “Letters to a Young Poet” - 1929

“The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.” J. K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” - 1999

“Preparing for the future must begin, as always, with our children. We need to set for them new and more rigorous goals.” Ronald Reagan, “State of the Union Address” - 27 January 1987

“Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter's place. When you handle the master carpenter's tools, chances are that you'll cut your hand.” Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching” - 4th century BC

“I like men who have a future and women who have a past” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.” Oscar Wilde, “A Woman of No Importance” - 1893

“The future is just wasted on some people.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Invisible Monsters” - 1999

“The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to-day; it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us.” Abraham Lincoln, “State of the Union Address” - 3 December 1861

“The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing.” Rick Riordan, “The Lightning Thief” - 2005

“And the upshot of this modern attitude is really this: that men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.” G. K. Chesterton, “What's Wrong with the World” - 1910

“The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.” Milan Kundera, “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting” - 1979

“The visions we offer our children shape the future.” Carl Sagan, “Pale Blue Dot” - 1994

“Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future.” Blaise Pascal, “Pensées” - 1670

“It is preposterous to suppose that the people of one generation can lay down the best and only rules of government for all who are to come after them, and under unforeseen contingencies.” Ulysses S. Grant, “Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant” - 1885

“He didn’t know what he was going to — but it had to be better than what he was leaving behind.” J. K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone” - 1997

“He doesn’t know which is worse, a past he can’t regain or a present that will destroy him if he looks at it too clearly. Then there’s the future. Sheer vertigo.” Margaret Atwood, “Oryx and Crake” - 2003

“this cult of the future is not only a weakness but a cowardice of the age.” G. K. Chesterton, “What's Wrong with the World” - 1910

“For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is a different green.” J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Fellowship of the Ring” - 1954

Related topics

past present time life control fate hope dream boredom children change consequences ideals science infinite men women death trust youth

Related authors

Chuck Palahniuk (5)
George Orwell (4)
Oscar Wilde (3)
J. K. Rowling (3)
G. K. Chesterton (3)
Paulo Coelho (3)
Stephen Hawking (3)
Edgar Allan Poe (2)
James Joyce (2)
John Green (2)
C. S. Lewis (2)
Edith Wharton (2)
William Shakespeare (1)
Charlotte Brontë (1)
Herman Melville (1)
George Eliot (1)
Abraham Lincoln (1)
Arthur Conan Doyle (1)
David Hume (1)
Victor Hugo (1)

Related sources

Invisible Monsters (4)
1984 (3)
What's Wrong with the World (3)
State of the Union Address (3)
The Alchemist (3)
A Brief History of Time (3)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (2)
The Age of Innocence (2)
The Screwtape Letters (2)
Macbeth (1)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1)
The Fall of the House of Usher (1)
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt (1)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1)
Jane Eyre (1)
Moby-Dick (1)
London Letter (1)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1)
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1)
Les Misérables (1)

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