Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and one with, and the future is uncertain.

Future | Life | Life | Man | Past | Present | Wisdom |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

Future | Present | Reason | Weapons | Will | Wisdom |

John Jacob Abel

Greater even than the greatest discovery is to keep open the way to future discovery.

Discovery | Future | Wisdom | Discovery |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

At any rate it is now quite clear that neither future nor past actually exists. Nor is it right to say that there are times, past, present and future. Perhaps it would be more correct to say: there are three times, a present of things past, a present of things present, a present of things future. For these three exist in the mind, and I find them nowhere else: the present of things past is memory, the present of things present is sight, the present of things future is expectation.

Expectation | Future | Memory | Mind | Past | Present | Right | Wisdom |

Boethius, fully Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius NULL

That God is eternal, is agreed by all who possess reason. What then is eternity?... Eternity is the complete and simultaneous possession of endless life in a single whole... God lives ever in an eternal present, his knowledge transcends all movement of time, and abides in the indivisibility of his present; he grasps the past and the future in all their infinite extent, and with his indivisible cognition he contemplates all events as if they were even now taking place.

Eternal | Eternity | Events | Future | God | Knowledge | Life | Life | Past | Present | Reason | Time | Wisdom | God |

Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu

The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.

Age | Enough | Family | Father | Isolation | Mother | Nature | People | Security | Wisdom | World |

Kenneth Boulding, fully Kenneth Ewart Boulding

The future is bound to surprise us, but we don't have to be dumbfounded.

Future | Wisdom |

Christian Nestell Bovee

When all else is lost, the future still remains.

Future | Wisdom |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

What is past is past. There is a future left to all men who have the virtue to repent, and the energy to atone.

Energy | Future | Men | Past | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

John Dewey

The future of religion is connected with the possibility of developing a faith in the possibilities of human experience and human relationships that will create a vital sense of the solidarity of human interests and inspire action to make that sense a reality.

Action | Experience | Faith | Future | Reality | Religion | Sense | Will | Wisdom |

G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton

We all live in the past, because there is nothing else to live in. To live in the present is like proposing to sit on a pin. It is too minute, it is too slight a support, it is too uncomfortable a posture, and it is of necessity followed immediately by totally different experiences, analogous to those of jumping up with a yell. To live in the future is a contradiction in terms. The future is dead, in the perfectly definite sense it is not alive.

Contradiction | Future | Necessity | Nothing | Past | Present | Sense | Wisdom |

John Dewey

I believe that... education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living... all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race... Every thinker puts one portion of an apparently stable world in peril.

Consciousness | Education | Future | Individual | Peril | Race | Wisdom | World |

Lydia Avery Coonley Ward

Why fear tomorrow, timid heart? Why tread the future's way? We only need to do our part Today, dear child, today. The past is written! Close the book On pages sad and gay; Within the future do not look, But live today-today. "Tis this one hour that God has given; His now we must obey; And it will make our earth his heaven To live today-today.

Earth | Fear | Future | God | Heart | Heaven | Need | Past | Will | Wisdom | God |

Madame d'Épinay, born born Florence Louise Tardieu d'Esclavelles Petronilla

One sees the past better than it was; one finds the present worse than it is; one hopes for a future happier than it will be.

Better | Future | Past | Present | Will | Wisdom |