In The Present Quotes

If you saw her in these moments, you might think she was collecting her thoughts in order to go forward. But I see it another way: Her mind is being overwhelmed by two processes that must simultaneously proceed at full steam. One is to deal with and live in the present world. The other is to re-experience and mourn something that happened long ago. It is as though her lightness pulls her toward heaven, but the extra gravity around her keeps her earthbound. ~ Steve Martin

Winners live in the present tense. People who come up short are consumed with future or past. I want to be living in the now. ~ Alex Rodriguez

The opium of the people in the present world is perhaps not so much religion as it is accepted boredom. Such a world is at the mercy, it must be known, of those who provide at least the semblance of an escape from boredom. Human life aspires to the passions, and again encounters its exigencies. ~ Georges Bataille

The present moment is really all that we have. The only place you can really love another person is in the present. Love in the past is a memory. Love in the future is a fantasy. To be really alive, love - or any other experience - must take place in the present. ~ Jack Kornfield

The past is an illusion. You must learn to live in the present and accept yourself for what you are now. What you lack in flexibility and agility you must make up with knowledge and constant practice. ~ Bruce Lee

It's hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with other persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar. Such communication has always been ... one of the primary sources of progress. ~ John Stuart Mill

The best adventures in life is in the present. Seize the present and make it great adventure. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Redistribution depends on three things, amnesia,meaning you don't remember the murderous paths of these beliefs. Envy, you hate the successful in the present and used, people who
have nothing to earn yet. ~ Jedediah Bila

People only invoke history to ballast their arguments in the present." "Maybe ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

That, I decided, was what it meant to be a slave: your past didn't matter, in the present you were invisible and you had no claim on the future. ~ Lawrence Hill

Only when all conceptions of space and time, life and death, are exploded, when the grip of the past and fear of the future become merely conditions of one's past, only then can one live in the present fully. ~ Alberto Villoldo

In the classic Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel's teacher urged him always to take his next shot unburdened by previous failures to hit the target; as he improved, his teacher urged him not to be influenced by his successes either, to stay in the present moment. ~ Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

The paradox is that we can become wiser and more compassionate and live more fulfilling lives by refusing to be who we have tended to be in the past. But we must also relax, accepting things as they are in the present, as we strive to change ourselves. ~ Sam Harris

This book first arose out of a passage in [Jorge Luis] Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought - our thought that bears the stamp of our age and our geography - breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things, and continuing long afterwards to disturb and threaten with collapse our age-old distinction between the Same and the Other. This passage quotes a 'certain Chinese encyclopaedia' in which it is written that 'animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) suckling pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies'. In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that. ~ Michel Foucault

What distinguishes a technological world is that the terms of nature are obscured; one need not live quite in the present or the local. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Idleness is only a coarse name for my infinite capacity for living in the present. ~ Cyril Connolly

I would like you to accept only one prayer, and that is laughter, because when you are totally laughing you are in the present. You cannot laugh in the future and you cannot laugh in the past. All those people who have created this retarded humanity have taken away all juice, all laughter, all smiles, and dragged everybody into being inauthentic. And if you are inauthentic, insincere, you can never grow the seed that has been given to you by this great compassionate universe. ~ Rajneesh

Personality Self/ Ego Spiritual Self /Higher Soul/God Not recognizing the divinity in yourself or others Recognizing divinity in self and all living things Seeing yourself as separate from everything Knowing you are connected to everything Focuses on differences Recognizes similarities Intellect (Mind) Intuition (Heart) Hostility Compassion Re-Action Responding with awareness Past or Future Fully in the present moment Fear (false evidence appearing real) Courage Judgment Acceptance Right/Wrong Everything is an experience to learn from, both negative and positive. Better/Worse Everything has value. ~ Sabrina Reber

You have compassion but by itself it is not enough. It is almost as if you carry around inside you some dead thing. Some heavy black cinder in your heart that burdens you; a ponderous anchor that tethers you to the past. Until you can burn it away, you can never truly live in the present, in the now. Until you can live in the now, you cannot see things as they really are. Meantime you are a man who is wilfully blind. You have eyes and yet you will not use them. ~ John Dolan

At a certain age, he thought, it is better for one's health not to do what I am about to do. At a certain age, a man's outlook is best tempered by moderation, if not resignation, if not outright capitulation. At a certain age, one should live without either harking too much back to grievances of the past or inviting resistance in the present by embodying a challenge to the pieties that be. Yet to give up playing any but the role socially assigned, in this instance assigned to the respectably retired - at seventy-one, that is surely what is appropriate, and so, for Coleman Silk, as he long ago demonstrated with requisite ruthlessness to his very own mother, that is what is unacceptable. ~ Philip Roth

The Wild Heart wants promises of forever. The Peaceful Soul just wants harmony in the present. ~ J. Autherine

Rather than focusing on our future, we should do our best to improve our lives now, in the present moment. ~ Joseph P. Kauffman

But you have to live in the present. You have to take the old and make it new
that's my point. ~ Lauren Myracle

The future has become uninhabitable. Such hopelessness can arise, I think, only from an inability to face the present, to live in the present, to live as a responsible being among other beings in this sacred world here and now, which is all we have, and all we need, to found our hope upon. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

People have all sorts of pasts, sometimes dark or dreary, but perhaps the actions they choose in the present are the ones that carry the most weight. ~ Erin Bowman

An open and receptive attention to and awareness of what is occurring in the present moment ~ Matt Peplinski

I never thought of a future without you. That was the reason I always lived in the present, hoping I would find you someday. ~ Sapan Saxena

Long distance running is meditation. When I finish a long run, it's like my brain has been washed. All the stress and negative thoughts are left somewhere on those long kilometers. At the end, the illusions of the past and future are removed from my mind, and it is set back to zero, so I feel I am totally in the present moment, reset, and ready to restart my life afresh. ~ Robert Black

Don't say sorry for the past , don't be worried for the future , live in the present , the happiness is always with you . ~ Acharya Rajan Sharma

Learning to be a Life- Giving Mom without regrets requires embracing the season you are in. You have to let go of the past and live in the present as you lay hold of the future. At each transition you will likely shed some tears as you realize that you can't go back and re-live the past. You must move forward, facing the imperfections of your present, hoping for the future. ~ Sue Detweiler

Existence is only in the present. Mind is never in the present. In fact, the moment you are in the present, there is no mind in you, there is great silence. The whole sky of your inner being is without thoughts, without clouds. I call this the state of no-mind. Only in this state of no-mind do you meet existence. And that meeting is the ultimate ecstasy. Once you have tasted it, you will never bother about the future. ~ Rajneesh

Sometimes we let our thoughts of tomorrow take up too much of today. Daydreaming of the past and longing for the future may provide comfort but will not take the place of living in the present. This is the day of our opportunity, and we must grasp it ~ Thomas S. Monson

When your life is always a part of your surroundings - in other words, when you are called back to yourself, in the present moment - then there is no problem. When you start to wander about in some delusion which is something apart from you yourself, then your surroundings are not real anymore, and your mind is not real anymore. If you yourself are deluded, then your surroundings are also a misty, foggy delusion. Once you are in the midst of delusion, there is no end to delusion. You will be involved in deluded ideas one after another. Most people live in delusion, involved in their problem, trying to solve their problem. But just to live is actually to live in problems. And to solve the problem is to be a part of it, to be one with it. So ~ Shunryu Suzuki

Indeed, in the present climate of mistrust of institutions, many people who yearn for a more meaningful and fulfilling life would regard the church as an unlikely place to go for guidance. ~ Hugh Mackay

One of the things that is most striking about the young generation is that they never talk about their own futures, there are no futures for this generation, not any of them and so naturally they never think of them. It is very striking, they do not live in the present they just live, as well as they can, and they do not plan. It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for a future, none at all. ~ Gertrude Stein

In order to experience bliss and contentment, we must not only be willing to live in the present - not in the past or looking toward the future - but also to accept that pain is a real possibility, if not a probability.

This is not to say that joy must come with pain, but instead, that pain could arrive in the midst of joy and this fact scares us senseless. We would rather half live than risk encountering unspeakable pain at the core of indescribable delight.

We erroneously believe that being a perpetual emotional flatline is better than experiencing the highs and the lows of living. ~ Florence Witt

The only reactionaries are those who find themselves at home in the present. ~ Miguel De Unamuno

What gives you the right? "What right?" "The right to be the arbiter of what is good." "Great knowledge. Great position." "No. Wrong. That does not give you the right. No matter what good you might do, you can't pretend to be Jesus or whatever you want to think of yourself. You don't get to pick the winners. You don't get to change our fate and take our will from us." "Natasha, I don't think you--" "You say you're about doing good and helping villages and being altruistic, but I know what you're really about, Prophet. You and everyone else in the present and the future who wants to be God... You just want power. ~ Nathan Edmondson

You get lost because you think there is somewhere to go. If you give up believing in a goal or a destination, then you cannot get lost. In the present moment, there is no destination. ~ Leonard Jacobson

Act with though awareness and love in the present moment then you will never need to worry about the thought of regret. ~ Matthew Donnelly

Discipline is denying ourselves in the present so as to prepare better for the future. ~ Sunday Adelaja

People's - most people's job is talking about the future or like money not even in the present tense. It's not even paper. ~ Colin Quinn

If you're living in the present...you only have to deal with what's actually going on in that moment. ~ Sheri Van Dijk

It is when you are really living in the present-working, thinking, lost, absorbed in something you care about very much, that you are living spiritually. ~ Brenda Ueland

God is life. God is life in action. The best way to say, "I love you, God," is to live your life doing your best. The best way to say, "Thank you, God," is by letting go of the past and living in the present moment, right here and now. Whatever life takes away from you, let it go. When you surrender and let go of the past, you allow yourself to be fully alive in the moment. Letting go of the past means you can enjoy the dream that is happening right now. ~ Miguel Ruiz

Consciousness is observing your thoughts and actions so that you can live from true choice in the present moment rather than being run by programming from the past. ~ T. Harv Eker

The different styles I have been using in my art must not be seen as an evolution, or as steps towards an unknown ideal of painting. Everything I have ever made was made for the present and with the hope that it would always remain in the present. ~ Pablo Picasso

Being in Christ, it is safe to forget the past; it is possible to be sure of the future; it is possible to be diligent in the present. ~ Alexander MacLaren

I think we're going to carry the 'Ice Age's up to 'Ice Age 15,' which means basically they'll be in the present decade. ~ Denis Leary

live moment by moment, looking for reasons to be grateful, trying to create her own happiness and grace, and to use them as a means to a good life in the present and not a goal to be achieved some other day. Anna's ~ Mark T. Sullivan

Our actions in the present build the staircase to the future. The question is whether that staircase is going up or down. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

This is the way of meditation: encountering the present in all its tremendous beauty, just being in the present. Inside, the mind stops. Outside, the world changes totally. It is no more the ordinary world you have known before. In fact, you have not known it at all. Your mind was distorting everything, your mind was creating fantasies. Your eyes were full of fantasies and you were looking though those fantasies. They never allowed you to see that which is. If the mind is gone, even for a moment, suddenly the whole existence explodes upon you. ~ Rajneesh

True knowledge of good and evil as we possess is merely abstract or general, and the judgment which we pass on the order of things and the connection of causes, with a view to determining what is good or bad for us in the present, is rather imaginary than real. ~ Baruch Spinoza

It made me happy that poems are referred to in the present tense even when the poet is in the past tense. ~ David Benioff

Enjoy today, the time you have now, for time cannot be found only lost. ~ Marty Rubin

A person is a person through others. This truth extends across time and space. We are through those who have come before us, those who have come with us and those who will come after us. Spirit possession, at the heart of Chimurenga, is an exercise in timelessness. It is those in the present communing with those in the past about the future concerning those who will come. Chimurenga has always been the intergenerational spirit of African self-liberation. It is not linear, it is bones that go into the earth and rise again and again. ~ Panashe Chigumadzi

Hence the strong attraction which magic and science alike have exercised on the human mind; hence the powerful stimulus that both have given to the pursuit of knowledge. They lure the weary enquirer, the footsore seeker, on through the wilderness of disappointment in the present by their endless promises of the future: they take him up to the top of an exceeding high mountain and show him, beyond the dark clouds and rolling mists at his feet, a vision of the celestial city, far off, it may be, but radiant with unearthly splendour, bathed in the light of dreams. ~ James G. Frazer

You don't exist in the past or in the future. You only exist in the present moment. ~ Debasish Mridha

We urgently need a paradigm shift in our concept of the purposes and practices of education. We need to leave behind the concept of education as a passport to more money and higher status in the future and replace it with a concept of education as an ongoing process that enlists the tremendous energies and creativity of schoolchildren in rebuilding and respiriting our communities and our cities now, in the present. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

If you carry around a lot of suppressed or repressed anger (anger you have unconsciously buried) you may lash out at people, blaming or punishing them for something someone else did a long time ago. Because you were unwilling or unable to express how you felt in the past, you may overreact in the present, damaging a relationship. ~ Beverly Engel

A whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present. ~ C.S. Lewis

I suspected that when something was a beginning and an ending at the same time, that meant it could only exist in the present. ~ David Levithan

Being in the present with total awareness allows us to observe it so that we can watch its unfolding as if we were watching the sun rise or set. We don't tell the sun how to do what it knows to do so brilliantly, we simply watch, and we experience what we're seeing with acceptance ~ Ora Nadrich

The past cannot be lost in the present. Not even memories were lost, because memories are not fixed but ever-changing, because memories do not record the past but are only constructions invented in the present. They are a feat of the imagination. They are made now and last only seconds--flashes, images, evanescent, impermanent, gone. Forever. They are not even words on a page. ~ Gregory Martin

It's safer to live only in the present, to be a girl with no past to yearn for and no future to have ripped away. ~ Laura Sebastian

We all think that in the future, we are wonderful people. We will be patient, we will not procrastinate, we will exercise, we will eat well ... The problem is we never get to live in that future. We always live in the present. ~ Dan Ariely

Happy emotions are mostly anchored in the present. Now ~ Mo Gawdat

Relationships, like all human experiences, are transient; they change every day and are meant to be enjoyed in the present. When I hear people say you need to "work" at a relationship, what that often really means is just seeing through the day-to-day; listening to another person, listening to yourself, not getting stuck on hurts from the past, and not getting lost in what might come. To be in a relationship with someone you respect, care about and value is a gift, and when you take that in the day-to-day, you honor yourself and your partner each day. Eating is no different in that you can honor yourself at each meal. So much time in relationships is spent hashing the past, and arguing about things that haven't yet happened. A relationship cannot be "hoarded", just like a meal cannot be prolonged by taking home the leftovers. ~ Ramani Durvasula

Asking why had somehow led me to the thing that I loved - the feeling of moving over the earth, with the earth, the sensation of being in the present, free from chores and expectations and disappointment and worry. ~ Scott Jurek

And I will never again underestimate the power of anticipation. There is no better boost in the present than an invitation into the future. ~ Caroline Kepnes

To feel safe is to stop living in my head and sink down into my heart and feel liked and accepted ... not having to hide anymore and distract myself with books, television, movies, ice cream, shallow conversation ... staying in the present moment and not escaping into the past or projecting into the future, alert and attentive to the now ... feeling relaxed and not nervous or jittery ... no need to impress or dazzle others or draw attention to myself. ... Unself-conscious, a new way of being with myself, a new way of being in the world ... calm, unafraid, no anxiety about what's going to happen next ... loved and valued ... just being together as an end in itself. ~ Brennan Manning

The secret to happiness is to live in the present moment with gratitude and kindness. ~ Debasish Mridha

I was born in Vietnam, but I was not Vietnamese; I was raised in America, but I was not American. I grew up Asian in character but American in culture, a citizen but always refugee. I had no lessons from the past to guide me, no right way to do things in the present, and no path to follow me in the future. ~ Vinh Chung

There exists [a] word in German, Geschichte, which designates not accomplished history, but history in the present, doubtless determined in large part, yet only in part, by the already accomplished past; for a history which is present, which is living, is also open to a future that is uncertain, unforeseeable, not yet accomplished, and therefore aleatory. Living history obeys only a constant (not a law): the constant of class struggle. Marx did not use the term 'constant', which I have taken from Levi-Strauss, but an expression of genius: 'tendential law', capable of inflecting (but not contradicting) the primary tendential law, which means that a tendency does not possess the form or figure of linear law, but that it can bifurcate under the impact of an encounter with another tendency, and so on ad infinitum. At each intersection the tendency can take a path that is unforeseeable because it is aleatory. ~ Louis Althusser

I don't think you go out of style when you're living in the present most of the time. And I think that is what I do. ~ Shirley Maclaine

Every instant of our lives is essentially irreplaceable: you must know this in order to concentrate on life. ~ Andre Gide

There is no better boost in the present than an invitation to the future. ~ Caroline Kepnes

Such refinements, under the odious name of luxury, have been severely arraigned by the moralists of every age; and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue, as well as happiness, of mankind, if all possessed the necessaries, and none the superfluities, of life. But in the present imperfect condition of society, luxury, though it may proceed from vice or folly, seems to be the only means that can correct the unequal distribution of property. The diligent mechanic, and the skilful artist, who have obtained no share in the division of the earth, receive a voluntary tax from the possessors of land; and the latter are prompted, by a sense of interest, to improve those estates, with whose produce they may purchase additional pleasures. ~ Edward Gibbon

When we ground ourselves in the present moment, we spontaneously connect better with others. We become more responsive and less reactive, listening more deeply and speaking with greater clarity. ~ Lama Surya Das

The egoic mind imagines a problem, and then it imagines a solution. When we get caught up in these thoughts, we feel like we have a problem that has to be solved before we can be happy. But the problem is just imagined! When we drop out of involvement with these thoughts and into the simple experience of the present moment, we discover that everything is fine just the way it is. Life never had to be any different than it is, nor do we. We can be the "imperfect" human we are. In fact, we weren't designed to be anything other than the human being that we are. ~ Gina Lake

In the present the eternal stays, the rest all drops out. ~ Nirmala Srivastava

I tend to be much more in the present and my emotions are simpler. I can be happy, I can be sad, I can be depressed, but there's a complexity that I don't have. I don't brood the same way. Fear is my main emotion. ~ Temple Grandin

To be in the present seemed meaningless in practice when the present was merely the place in which to plan for the future or review the past. ~ T. Mountebank

I'd like to keep my personal life private. In reality, I know that's not possible. In the present, I'm trying to pretend it's possible. ~ Lindsey Vonn

I've found that obedience to God creates quiet fulfillment in the present. There is a spiritual satisfaction that comes even in the midst of our trials. It is a demeanor that may not be as "showy" as gleeful happiness, but it is much less subject to moods and makes for much more permanent a disposition. ~ Gary L. Thomas

Other people's history can be read comfortably, the way a novel can be read comfortably. By my own history? I'm on the run from my own history, and catching my breath in the present. Escapist. But the merciless present pushes us back again toward our history. The mind keeps talking. ~ Intizar Hussain

Mind without agitation is meditation. Mind in the present moment is meditation. Mind that has no hesitation, no anticipation is meditation. Mind that has come back home, to the source, is meditation. Mind that becomes no mind is meditation. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

The world has arisen in some way or another. How it originated is the great question, and Darwin's theory, like all other attempts, to explain the origin of life, is thus far merely conjectural. I believe he has not even made the best conjecture possible in the present state of our knowledge. ~ Louis Agassiz

You're awfully quiet."

Her head snapped the other way, heat creeping up into her cheeks as she focused on the ocean below. "Just waiting for all of this to sink in."

"Oh." He chuckled. "I was hoping you were staring at me because you liked what you saw."

Clio grinned, shaking her head. "I thought you were concentrating on the road."

He pulled into a cobblestone driveway. The truck vibrated as they rumbled over the uneven surface. When he stopped in front of a cottage, he turned off the engine and met her eyes. "I have a hard time concentrating on anything but you when you're around."

Her heart pounded. "No one's ever had that problem around me before."

"I call bullshit." He rolled his eyes. "I've been wishing you'd notice me since the day we met."
Her jaw dropped. "I always notice you. Why do you think I'm at the theater site so often?"

He reached over to run a finger along her jawline. "You're beautiful, Clio. But you're so busy with your books and reading about the past, you must not notice the effect you have on everyone in the present. ~ Lisa Kessler

Hierarchy is is much reviled in the present day. ~ Mary Douglas

When textbooks make racism invisible in American history, they obstruct our already poor ability to see it in the present. ~ James W. Loewen

for the same things are not 'knowable relatively to us' and 'knowable' without qualification. So in the present inquiry we must follow this method and advance from what is more obscure by nature, (20) but clearer to us, towards what is more clear and more knowable by nature. ~ Aristotle.

You don't want to block your thoughts, emotions, and so on; nor do you want to chase after them. If you chase after them, if you let them lead you, they begin to define you, and you lose your ability to respond openly and spontaneously in the present moment. On the other hand, if you attempt to block your thoughts, your mind can become quite tight and small. ~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

In the present day, when popular literature is running into the low levels of life, and luxuriating on the vices and follies of mankind; and when the universal pursuit of gain is trampling down the early growth of poetic feeling, and wearing out the verdure of the soul, I question whether it would not be of service for the reader occasionally to turn to these records of prouder times and loftier modes of thinking; and to steep himself to the very lips in old Spanish romance. ~ Washington Irving

Success in the present is only achieved when you put your focus where you want your future. ~ Myles Munroe

But we need to search for and find, what we need to own and perfect into a magnificent, shining thing, is a new kind of politics. Not the politics of governments, but the politics of resistance. The politics of opposition. The politics of forcing accountability. The politics of slowing things down. In the present circumstances, I'd say the only thing worth globalizing is dissent. ~ Megan McKenna

To pray, that is, to listen to the voice of the One who calls us the "beloved", is to learn that that voice excludes no one. Where I dwell, God dwells with me and where God dwells with me I find all my sisters and brothers. And so intimacy with God and solidarity with all people are two aspects of dwelling in the present moment that can never be separated. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Whatever we wish to achieve in the future, it must begin by knowing where we are in the present- not where we wish we were, or whee we wish others to think we are, but where we are in fact. ~ Thomas Sowell

Suffering needs time. It cannot survive in the now. ~ Eckhart Tolle

The Present is the womb of the future.
A greater future happiness can be had only by investing in the present correctly.
Look after the present and the future will look after itself. ~ Chinmayananda Saraswati