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81 " I congratulate myself on not having arrived into the world until the present time. This age suits my taste. "
― Anne Rice , Pandora (New Tales of the Vampires, #1)
82 " The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality of whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered to them. "
83 " ... the river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future. "
― Hermann Hesse , Siddhartha
84 " Chronocanine Envy:Sadness experienced when one realized that, unlike one's dog, one cannot live only in the present tense. As Kierkegaard said, " Life must be lived forward. "
85 " The past,' he thought, 'is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another.' And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered. "
― Anton Chekhov , The Witch and Other Stories
86 " At every single moment, the whole creation is beginning again, stretching the tent of the present moment to bursting. And the waves that push up through the oceans, and the waves that push up through the stars; and the waves that push upwards through history are the same waves that push up through us. And so we have to say yes to time, even though it means speeding forward into memory; forgetfulness; and oblivion. Say “no” to time; hold on to what you were or what she was; hold onto the past, even out of love... and I swear it will tear you to shreds. This universe will tear you to shreds. "
87 " One of the schools in Tlön has reached the point of denying time. It reasons that the present is undefined, that the future has no other reality than as present hope, that the past is no more than present memory. "
― Jorge Luis Borges
88 " No matter how happy I had been in the past I do not long for it. The present is always the moment for which I love. "
― Jamaica Kincaid , The Autobiography of My Mother
89 " We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing. "
― R.D. Laing
90 " The past is a distraction, a source of envy, enmity, bitterness. Only the present matters, for only in the present can we shape the future.Cut loose the past; it is dead weight.Let the Extirpation continue. Let it never end. "
― Stephen Baxter , Exultant (Destiny's Children, #2)
91 " There is absolutely no need to run after time to catch it. It does not run away from us, it runs towards us. Whether you are intent on the next minute coming your way, or whether you are completely unaware of it, it will come your way. The future, whatever you do about it, will become thepresent, and so there is no need to try to jump out of the present into the future. We can simply wait for it to be there, and in that respect we can … be completely stable [still] and yet move in time, because it is time that moves. You know the situation when you are in a car or on a train and you sit back, if you are not driving, and you look out of the window; you can read, you can think you can relax, and yet the train moves, and at a certain moment, what was the future, whether it is the next station or the last station to which you are going, will be present. "
― Anthony Bloom , Beginning to Pray
92 " The past and the present are after all so close, so almost one, as if time were an artificial teasing out of a material which longs to join, to interpenetrate, and to become heavy and very small like some of those heavenly bodies scientists tell us of. "
― Iris Murdoch , The Sea, the Sea
93 " The future when it comes, is just like the present. The present is all you have and the opportunity of the present is worth more than the success of the past or the promise of the future. "
94 " When we return to our elementary school playground or the site of our first kiss, we're dropping in on our own history years later. Visiting those same places in the present not only collapses time, but also memory. "
― Kevin Smokler , Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to '80s Teen Movies
95 " Time well spent is an investment of the present for a practical and abundant future. "
― V.J. Lao
96 " A day, whether six or seven years ago or whether six thousand years ago, is just as near to the present as yesterday. Why? Because all time is contained in now. "
― Meister Eckhart
97 " What we perceive as the present is the vivid fringe of memory tinged with anticipation. "
― Alfred North Whitehead
98 " If Time travel were possible, the future would have already taught the present to teach the past how to do it. "
― Atom Tate
99 " Certainly we can say that the pace of modern life, increased and supported by our technology in general and our personal electronics in particular, has resulted in a short attention span and an addiction to the influx of information. A mind so conditioned has little opportunity to think critically, and even less chance to experience life deeply by being in the present moment. A complex life with complicated activities, relationships and commitments implies a reflexive busy-ness that supplants true thinking and feeling with knee-jerk reactions. It is a life high in stress and light on substance, at least in the spiritually meaningful dimensions of being. "
― Arthur Rosenfeld
100 " Perception is never purely in the present - it has to draw on experience of the past. "
― Oliver Sacks , Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain