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Past Quotes

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Past Quotes

“Your closest relationships are often the ones that have the most effect on you, but they are frequently the ones most difficult to change. These relationships are complex and have long histories. Lifetime habits of avoiding being really present with each other may exist in many of them. Family members, for instance, might want to support you, but will not necessarily know how to genuinely listen or be present with you in a way that is enlivening. . . . Even with the best intentions, it can be very difficult to get beyond the past and into the Now.”

“Now I come to you full of future. And from habit we begin to live our past.”

Past Habit Future Our Past

Author:Rainer Maria Rilke

“Habit is formed out of memory... We often shape our present situation according to those habitual memories. Instead of starting fresh, we go back to what we've done in the past... easier for us than fighting our way through foreign territory.”

Way Done Past Fighting Memories Situation Habit Easier Shapes Starting Territory Habitual Fresh Start Present Situation

Author:Chogyam Trungpa

“An imbecile habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying that such and such a creed can be held in one age but cannot be held in another. Some dogma, we are told, was credible in the twelfth century, but is not credible in the twentieth. You might as well say that a certain philosophy can be believed on Mondays, but cannot be believed on Tuesdays. You might as well say of a view of the cosmos that it was suitable to half-past three, but not suitable to half-past four. What a man can believe depends upon his philosophy, not upon the clock or the century.”

Source: The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton

“There is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present. For the future we must provide by maintaining what the present gives us and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that what was won in want should be lost in plenty.”

Want Giving Should May Past Winning Lost Wealth Effort Virtue Habit Reflection Resources Advantage Should Have Fruit Plenty Labour Maintaining Hereditary

Book:The Peloponnesian War

Source: The Peloponnesian War

“When one becomes for an instant one's former self, that is to say different from what one has been for some time past, one's sensibility, being no longer dulled by habit, receives from the slightest stimulus vivid impressions which make everything that has preceded them fade into insignificance, impressions to which, because of their intensity, we attach ourselves with the momentary enthusiasm of a drunkard.”

Has Beens Different Self Past Habit Impression Enthusiasm Former Instant Intensity Fades Sensibility Vivid Stimulus Momentary Drunkards Insignificance Times Past

Book:In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV: Sodom and Gomorrah (A Modern Library E-Book)

Source: In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV: Sodom and Gomorrah (A Modern Library E-Book)

“You should never fall in love with your own press clippings, because it is very much the nature of the beast that the same journalists who build you up between Monday and Friday tear you down for weekend fun...My family's habit of living in the past seems to me pathological, even dangerous. If all greatness lies in the past, what is the point of the future?”

“the habit of shutting doors behind us is invaluable to happiness; we must learn to shut life's doors to cut out the futile wind of past mistakes.”

Past Behinds Mistake Cutting Doors Acceptance Wind Habit Invaluable Past Mistakes

Book:Marjorie Holmes: The Inspirational Writings: A Collection Consisting of Love and Laughter;...

Source: Marjorie Holmes: The Inspirational Writings: A Collection Consisting of Love and Laughter;...

“I'm a refugee from the past, and like other refugees I go over the customs and habits of being I've left or been forced to leave behind me, and it all seems just as quaint, from here, and I am just as obsessive about it.”

Seems Past Left Behinds Habit Customs Refugee Obsessive Quaint

Author:Margaret Atwood

“We have the bad habit, some of us, of looking back to a time - almost any time will do - when society was stable and orderly, family ties stronger and deeper, love more lasting and faithful, and so on. Let me be your Cassandra prophesying after the fact, and a long study of the documents in the case: it was never true, that is, no truer than it is now.”

Source: Katherine Anne Porter: Collected Stories & Other Writings

“I've gone into prisons, I've gone into schools, I've gone into corporations, all over the world. It doesn't matter where you go, people are essentially the same. Our culture is different, but culture is nothing but group habit, culture is paradigm and when you get past the culture, people are essentially the same.”

People World Different Matter School Past Culture Gone Groups Habit Prison Corporations Paradigm

Author:Bob Proctor

“Holidays are also an opportunity for kids to unlearn every good habit they've learned during the rest of the year. They don't go to school. They get to stay up past their bedtime. They get candy and presents for doing nothing. Childhood utopia.”

Years Kids School Past Opportunity Childhood Habit Very Good Holiday Candy Doing Nothing Utopia Bedtime Unlearn Good Habits

Book:Dad Is Fat

Source: Dad Is Fat

“Well, I've got something to tell you, In my last life I was a Spanish Count and one of the things I loved to do when I was a count in Spain was take all the commoners, line them up against a wall and throw rocks at them, being a professional hockey goalie is punishment for my bad habits in past lives.”

Wells Lasts Past Lines Rocks Wall Habit Punishment Hockey Spain Bad Habits Past Life Goalies Commoners

Author:Gilles Gratton