Expect nothing; liver frugally on surprise.
Alice Walker Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: future acceptance joy

I never think of what I am proud about. I never look back, except to find out about mistakes. Because mistakes are hard to remember and to draw conclusions from. But I only see danger in thinking back about things you are proud of. When people ask me if I am proud of something, I just shrug and hope to get away as soon as possible. I should explain that my way is to look ahead, all my pleasant thoughts are about the future. It has been that way since I was twenty years old. I start every day fresh.
Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Categories: future pride past

The potential for changing the future can lie only in the present.
Gillian Butler, Ph.D. and Tony Hope, M.D. Managing Your Mind: The Mental Fitness Guide
Categories: change future present self-improvement

If you believe in fate, believe in it, at least, for your own good.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: fatalism fate future belief

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: hope happiness faith future

Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is too muddled? You are
Dag Hammarskjold The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: vision dreams future hope

Where there is no vision, people perish.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: vision mission future society

We can see well into the past; we can guess shrewdly in to the future; but that which is rolled up and muffled in impenetrable folds is today.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: past present future time

We are all, it seems, saving ourselves for the senior prom. But many of us forget that somewhere along the way we must learn to dance.
Alan Harrington The Forbes Book of Business Quotations: 14,266 Thoughts on the Business of Life
Categories: living joy preparation future goals

Past and to come seem best; things present worst.
William Shakespeare (King Henry IV) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: past present future circumstances

The point of power is always in the present.
Louise L. Hay Body, Mind and Spirit
Categories: power past present future

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
Winston Churchill The Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Quotations
Categories: thought vision philosophy future think

Yesterday ended last night. Every day is a new beginning. Learn the skill of forgetting. And move on.
Norman Vincent Peale Have a Great Day
Categories: past present future focus

...for better or worse, our future will be determined in large part by our dreams and by the struggle to make them real.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Categories: future dreams goals challenges

Character is destiny.
Heraclitus Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: character success integrity decisions future

I never worry about the future. It comes soon enough.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Categories: future stress anxiety worry balance

Life is very short, and very uncertain; let us spend it as well as we can.
Samuel Johnson Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: life time future present living

We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: expectation future hope faith progress

Have a vision not clouded by fear.
Cherokee proverb A Cherokee Feast of Days: Daily Meditations
Categories: vision fear self-confidence future goals

Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period or other, when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other: it is our own.
Charles Caleb Cotton Light from Many Lamps
Categories: future happiness joy too busy balance priorities

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Artist's Way
Categories: past future fear strength courage

...if the next generation is to face the future with zest and self-confidence, we must educate them to be original as well as competent.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Categories: future education children self-confidence creativity

Keep hope alive.
Jesse Jackson Power Quotes
Categories: hope faith believe dream vision future

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.
The Return of the King People of the Lie : The Hope for Healing Human Evil
Categories: evil social responsibility future generations

Most of us simply lack the imagination to envision the full scope of potential change in our lives. We are too invested in the present to consider the possibility of a threatening -- or even a promising -- future.
(uncredited) "Where are you on the Web?" Fast company, October 1999
Categories: vision imagination change growth future

Let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.
Kahlil Gibran A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles
Categories: past present future perspective hope

We turn not older with years, but newer every day.
Emily Dickinson The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women
Categories: future growth aging maturity attitude

If you lose hope, you're just not looking far enough ahead.
Joe Tye Never Fear, Never Quit : A Story of Courage and Perseverance
Categories: hope circumstances vision faith future

If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.
Winston Churchill The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: past present future history vision wisdom

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.
Andre Gide The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness focus now present joy happy past future

Live out of your imagination, not your history.
Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Categories: growth change creativity imagination past future

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Charles Dederich Cassell Companion to Quotations
Categories: future present past growth opportunity renewal

The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.
L.P. Hartley The Go-Between
Categories: history past future change growth focus

The future belongs to those who believe in their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: future vision goal success achievement dreams

We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only where it is already disappearing.
R.D. Laing Body, Mind and Spirit
Categories: present history future vision society change

Our hope in God pulls us into the future. Hope allows us to affirm the reality of the abundant life that is ours in Christ. Hope allows us to stand with those in pain and to hold them until they are able to feel the love of God for themselves again. Hope allows us to work to bring God's reign upon the earth even when we see no results. Our hope begins and ends in God, the source of all hope.
Mary Lou Redding 100 Meditations on Hope
Categories: hope god future vision christ pain ministry

A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Categories: happiness joy fulfillment perspective future present enjoyment now

If matters go badly now, they will not always be so.
Horace The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: hope perspective difficulties challenges problems future

Seize the day, and put the least possible trust in tomorrow.
Horace The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy living present future fulfillment happiness action

Our history is not our destiny.
Alan Cohen Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Categories: past future growth mistakes success failure

Pessimism is a very easy way out when you're considering what life really is, because pessimism is a short view of life...If you take a long view, I do not see how you can be pessimistic about the future of man or the future of the world.
Robertson Davies, novelist Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Categories: pessimism optimism life living attitude future

A man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: wisdom money future present balance life

If you don't take charge of shaping your own destiny, others will apply their agenda to you.
Eric Allenbaugh Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Categories: destiny future vision self-determination growth progress self-esteem

What's gone and what's past help
Should be past grief.
William Shakespeare (The Winter's Tale) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: past grief depression attitude focus present future

Cease to inquire what the future has in store, and take as a gift whatever the day brings forth.
Horace The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: future present joy fulfillment life living acceptance worry

One of these days is none of these days.
H.G. Bohn Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: procrastination time future present character habits planning

Circumstances break men's bones; it has never been shown that they break men's optimism.
G. K. Chesterton The Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Quotations
Categories: circumstances difficulties problems attitude adversity hope future

When you arrive at your future, will you blame your past?
Robert Half The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: future past present responsibility blame excuses failure

He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.
Horace The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life living present future procrastination joy happiness fulfillment

The real enemies of life are the 'oughts' and 'ifs.' They pull us backwards into the unalterable
Henri Nouwen "Living in the Present Tense" by Paula Rinehart, Discipleship Journal , Jan/Feb 1999.
Categories: regret worry present past future life living

Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.
Samuel Johnson The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: senses self-control focus past present future dignity

The future is purchased by the present.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: future work effort present goal vision mission action

To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.
Theodore Roosevelt Power Quotes
Categories: nature natural resources future environmental stewardship wilderness preservation

Now that we know we can't change the past we can realize that at this very moment we have the wonderful opportunity to begin anew! If you want something there is simply no better time than right now to pursue it!
Josh Hinds Inspiration a Day! mailing list
Categories: opportunity past future vision goal growth change success

From Freud we learned that the past exists now in the person. Now we must learn, from growth theory and self-actualization theory that the future also now exists in the person in the form of ideals, hopes, duties, tasks, plans, goals, unrealized potentials, mission, fate, destiny, etc. One for whom no future exists is reduced to the concrete, to hopelessness, to emptiness.
Abraham Maslow Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: personal growth self-improvement potential vision dreams goals mission future

If a man carefully examines his thoughts, he will be surprised to find how much he lives in the future. His well-being is always ahead.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: thoughts future perspective life living goal dream vision balance

The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: present desire imagination vision goal joy happiness memories memory future

It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis.
Margaret Bonnano 1911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
Categories: attitude focus balance expectations pressure present future happiness enjoyment

He possesses dominion over himself, and is happy, who can every day say, "I have lived." Tomorrow the heavenly Father may either involve the world in dark clouds, or cheer it with clear sunshine; he will not, however, render ineffectual things which have already taken place.
Horace The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: present future past time self-confidence self-awareness action opportunity change

If we are ever to enjoy life, now is the time--not tomorrow, nor next year, nor in some future life after we have died. The best preparation for a better life next year is a full, complete, harmonious, joyous life this year. Our beliefs in a rich future life are of little importance unless we coin them into a rich present life. Today should always be our most wonderful day.
Thomas Dreier Light from Many Lamps
Categories: balance priorities work life meaning purpose happiness future present now

Sometimes we become locked into a short-term pattern of reacting to immediate needs and missing the long-term benefits of positioning ourselves to deal with more important life issues and priorities.
Eric Allenbaugh Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Categories: choice responsibility reaction long-term future priorities planning balance vision

One of the signs of maturity is a healthy respect for reality -- a respect that manifests itself in the level of one's aspirations and in the accuracy of one's assessment of the difficulties which separate the facts of today from the bright hopes of tomorrow.
Robert H. Davies The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: hope future present difficulties problems challenges adversity vision dreams goals

...gradual change is usually more fruitful in the long run than is forced, ultra-aggressive upheaval. Undertaken wisely, steady transitions cultivate authenticity, groundedness, and virtues--like patience, compassion (for self and others), and perseverance. All these qualities improve your probability of success when, ultimately, you do figure out how to actualize your personal vision.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: change progress future vision authenticity virtues patience compassion perseverance success actualization

Maturity is achieved with a person accepts life as full of tension; when he does not torment himself with childish guilt feelings, but avoids tragic adult sins; when he postpones immediate pleasures for the sake of long-term values... Our generation must be inspired to search for that maturity which will manifest itself in the qualities of tenacity, dependability, co-operativeness and the inner drive to work and sacrifice for a nobler future of mankind.
Joshua L. Liebman The Forbes Book of Business Quotations: 14,266 Thoughts on the Business of Life
Categories: maturity guilty delayed gratification perseverance reliable cooperative work future vision perspective

The measure of our future success and happiness will not be the quality of the cards we are dealt by unseen hands, but the poise and wisdom with which we play them.``
Choose to play each hand to the best of your ability without wasting the time or energy it takes to complain about either the cards or the dealer or the often unfair rules of the game.``
Play both the winning and the losing hands as best you can, then fold the cards and ante up for the next deal!
Joe Klock Like Klockwork: The Whimsy, Wit, and (sometime) Wisdom of a Key Largo Curmudgeon
Categories: success future happiness life poise wisdom complaints time energy rules attitude perseverance

It is never too late to be what you might have been.
George Eliot The Thinker's Way: 8 Steps to a Richer Life
Categories: purpose goal fulfillment aging regret future choices regrets change self-improvement personal growth

Wisdom will never let us stand with any man on unfriendly footing. We refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as if we waited for some better sympathy or intimacy to come. But whence and when: Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live.

Categories: life wisdom relationships friendships tolerance sympathy authenticity time life present future

This is the precious present, regardless of what yesterday was like, regardless of what tomorrow may bring. When your inner eyes open, you can find immense beauty hidden within the inconsequential details of daily life. When your inner ears open, you can hear the subtle, lovely music of the universe everywhere you go. When the heart of your heart opens, you can take deep pleasure in the company of the people around you--family, friends, acquaintances, or strangers--including those whose characters are less than perfect, just as your character is less than perfect. When you are open to the beauty, mystery, and grandeur of ordinary existence, you "get it" that it always has been beautiful, mysterious, and grand and always will be.
This is the precious present.
Timothy Ray Miller How to Want What You Have
Categories: present now today yesterday past tomorrow future awareness appreciation beauty routine love joy relationships family friends perfection acceptance mystery grandeur

... be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
Ranier Maria Rilke Simple Abundance
Categories: mystery discovery self-discovery self-awareness growth self-improvement learning experiencing questions control issues future acceptance faith

There are many find things which you mean to do some day, under what you think will be more favorable circumstances. But the only time that is surely yours is the present, hence this is the time to speak the word of appreciation and sympathy, to do the generous deed, to forgive the fault of a thoughtless friend, to sacrifice self a little more for others. Today is the day in which to express your noblest qualities of mind and heart, to do at least one worthy thing which you have long postponed, and to use your God-given abilities for the enrichment of some less fortunate fellow traveler. Today you can make your life...significant and worthwhile. The present is yours to do with it as you will.
Grenville Kleiser Light from Many Lamps
Categories: intentions action today life circumstances present past future time appreciation sympathy generosity appreciation forgiveness self-sacrifice giving sharing talents gifts ability