Quotes About Past

For a moment she felt she was about to reconcile this present time, the words of the man now kissing her, with that time in the past; that she was about to understand the secret currents of her life, about to glimpse what always remains hidden – those depths of the heart where one's fate is decided.

No destino da gente do campo de concentração, a semelhança nascia da diferença. Fosse a visão de um passado ligado a um pomar à beira de um poeirento caminho italiano, ou ao marulho sombrio do mar do Norte, ou a um quebra-luz de papel cor de laranja em casa de um chefe local no subúrbio de Bobruisk – todos os presos sem exceção tinham um passado maravilhoso.

Old age breeds the miracle of recall. You have no short-term memory atall; you can't remember what you did minutes ago, but you can recall with exquisite clarity what you did on your fifth birthday and how it all felt.

It is as if, when unhappy with the opulent present, we look to the impoverished past to blame our unhappiness on the dead, who faced daunting natural obstacles, rather than the living, who so often don't.

Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.

As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above all, provided that it consents to be dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack it, and we try to kill it.

It is painful to break the sad links to the past

What is history? An echo of the past in the future; a reflex from the future on the past.

In the meantime, let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to know them, if only for the purpose of avoiding them. The counterfeits of the past assume false names, and gladly call themselves the future. This specter, this past, is given to falsifying its own passport. Let us inform ourselves of the trap. Let us be on our guard. The past has a visage, superstition, and a mask, hypocrisy. Let us denounce the visage and let us tear off the mask.

Counterfeits of the past, under new names, may easily be mistaken for the future. The past, that ghostly traveler, is liable to forge his papers. We must be wary of the trap. The past has a face which is superstition, and a mask, which is hypocrisy. We must expose the face and tear off the mask.

Les contre-façons du passé prennent de faux noms et s'appellent volontiers l'avenir. Ce revenant, le passé, est sujet à falsifier son passe-port. Mettons-nous au fait du piège. Défions-nous. Le passé a un visage, la superstition, et un masque, l'hypocrisie. Dénonçons le visage et arrachons le masque.

The counterfeits of the past take assumed names, and are fond of calling themselves the future. That eternally returning spector, the past, not infrequently falsifies its passport.

It is a mournful task to break the sombre attachments of the past.

The past surged up before him facing the present; he compared them and sobbed. The silence of tears once opened, the despairing man writhed. He felt that he had been stopped short.

Mais où sont les neiges d'antan? But where are the snows of years gone by?

So different are the colours of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.

We ourselves respect the past in certain instances and in all cases grant it clemency, provided it consents to being dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack and try to kill it.

When you grow up as I have, a lost girl without any real past, you latch on to the people who seem to love you. At least that's what I did. It started early, my holding on too tightly and needing too much. I always craved love. The unconditional, even unearned kind. I needed someone to say it to me. Not to sound poor me, but my mother never said it.

You can run away from your life and your past, but there's no way to distance yourself from your own heart.

The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present.

I don't have a good history with men." "You know the thing about history, Elsa? It's over. Already dead and gone." "They say people who don't heed history are doomed to repeat it.

And there it is: the core of everything. We're sisters. We know each other intimately. Our pasts, our secrets, our fears. It is a precious gift that we tried to throw away but can't really let go of.

In that one image, Matthew saw the whole of his life; past, present, and future. It was one of those moments—an instant of grace in a crazy, sometimes impossibly dangerous world—that changed a man's life.

You can run away from your life and your past, but there's no way to distance yourself from your own heart.