The industrial economy which divides society absolutely into two portions, the payers of wages and the receivers of them, the first counted by thousands and the last by millions, is neither fit for, nor capable of, indefinite duration: and the possibility of changing this system for one of combination without dependence, and unity of interest instead of organized hostility, depends altogether upon the future developments of the Partnership principle. [ Principles of Political Economy , Book V, Chapter IX, §5.]
I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.
I figured something out. The future is unpredictable.
Do not lose the present in vain perplexities about the future. If fortune lours to-day, she may smile to-morrow.
Despise anxiety and wishing, the past and the future.
Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the future of war.
Plan for the future because that's where you are going to spend the rest of your life.
"Now are we the sons of God." That is the pier upon one side of the gulf. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but when He shall appear we shall be like Him." That is the pier on the other. How are the two to be connected? There is only one way by which the present sonship will blossom and fruit into the future perfect likeness, and that is, if we throw across the gulf, by God's help day by day, the bridge of growing likeness to Himself, and purity therefrom.--_Alex. McLaren._
You cannot begin to preserve any species of animal unless you preserve the habitat in which it dwells. Disturb or destroy that habitat and you will exterminate the species as surely as if you had shot it. So conservation means that you have to preserve forest and grassland, river and lake, even the sea itself. This is not only vital for the preservation of animal life generally, but for the future existence of man himself a point that seems to escape many people.
Paradoxically, the man who has failed and one who is at the peak of success are in exactly the same position. Each must decide what he will do next, choose the course that will lead him to the future.
We ought to be much obliged to those who tell us of our faults, for they mortify us, they teach us we have been despised, they do not prevent our being so in the future, for we have many other faults which are despicable. They prepare for us the exercise of correction, and freedom from a fault.
The past is a ghost, the future a dream and all we ever have is now.
For, as a man, who announces to us the secret things of God is not worthy to be believed on his private testimony, and on that very ground the wicked doubt him; so when a man as a sign of the communion which he has with God raises the dead, foretells the future, moves the seas, heals the sick, there is none so wicked as not to yield, and the incredulity of Pharaoh and the Pharisees is the effect of a supernatural hardening.
Muad'Dib could indeed see the Future, but you must understand the limits of this power. Think of sight. You have eyes, yet cannot see without light. If you are on the floor of a valley, you cannot see beyond your valley. Just so, Muad'Dib could not always choose to look across the mysterious terrain. He tells us that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us "The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door." And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning "That path leads ever down into stagnation."
Agnostioism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said, "Try all things, hold fast by that which is good"; it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him; it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.
Think not that guilt requires the burning torches of the Furies to agitate and torment it. Frauds, crimes, remembrances of the past, terrors of the future,--these are the domestic Furies that are ever present to the mind of the impious.--_Cicero._
Only art can make the future love you, and that is what art is about: attraction at a distance, seduction from the past, inveiglement from beyond the grave.
Oh! the dulness and the hardness of the heart of man, which contemplates only the present, and does not rather provide for the future.
Whenever you find yourself worrying about the future, repent and return to Me. I will show you the next step forward, and the one after that, and the one after that. Relax and enjoy the journey in My Presence, trusting Me to open up the way before you as you go. The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. DEUTERONOMY 29 : 29
Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.
"So why don't you make like a tree, and get outta here."
There is hope for the future because God has a sense of humor and we are funny to God.
That which is called nothingness is found only in time and in words: in time it is found in the past and future, and not in the present; and thus in words among things which are said to be nonexistent or impossible. In time nothingness dwells in the past and the future, and not at all in the present, and in nature it resides among the things {185} which are impossible. Whence from that which has been said, it has no being, because where there is nothingness there would be a vacuum.
For the future, let all people live in harmony … Men should be taught and won over by reason, not by blows, insults, and corporal punishments.
Remember that man's life lies all within this present, as 't were but a hair's-breadth of time; as for the rest, the past is gone, the future yet unseen. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.
If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
Fanaticism is such an overwhelming impression of the ideas relating to the future world as disqualifies for the duties of this.
If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past or the future. We scarcely think of the present, and if we do so, it is only that we may borrow light from it to direct the future. The present is never our end; the past and the present are our means, the future alone is our end. Thus we never live, but hope to live, and while we always lay ourselves out to be happy, it is inevitable that we can never be so.
Beauty in this Iron Age must turn From fluid living rainbow shapes to torn And sootened fragments, ashes in an urn On whose gray surface runes are traced by a Norn Who hopes to wake the Future to arise In Phoenix-fashion, and to shine with rays To blast the sight of modern men whose dyes Of selfishness and lust have stained our days.
~Presentiment.~--We walk in the midst of secrets--we are encompassed with mysteries. We know not what takes place in the atmosphere that surrounds us--we know not what relations it has with our minds. But one thing is sure, that, under certain conditions, our soul, through the exercise of mysterious functions, has a greater power than reason, and that the power is given it to antedate the future,--ay, to see into the future.--_Goethe._
We buy wisdom with happiness, and who would purchase it at such a price? To be happy we must forget the past, and think not of the future; and who that has a soul or mind can do this? No one; and this proves that those who have either know no happiness on this earth. Memory precludes happiness, whatever Rogers may say or write to the contrary, for it borrows from the past to embitter the present, bringing back to us all the grief that has most wounded, or the happiness that has most charmed us.--_Byron._
_The Misery of Man._--We care nothing for the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if we could make it move faster; or we call back the past, to stop its rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander through the times in which we have no part, unthinking of that which alone is ours; so frivolous are we that we dream of the days which are not, and pass by without reflection those which alone exist. For the present generally gives us pain; we conceal it from our sight because it afflicts us, and if it be pleasant we regret to see it vanish away. We endeavour to sustain the present by the future, and think of arranging things not in our power, for a time at which we have no certainty of arriving.
Greatness appeals to the future.
Climbing the dusty hill, some fair effigies that once stood for symbols of human destiny have been broken; those I still have with me show defects in this broad light. Yet enough is left, even by experience, to point distinctly to the glories of that destiny; faint, but not to be mistaken streaks of the future day. I can say with the bard, "Though many have suffered shipwreck, still beat noble hearts." Always the soul says to us all, Cherish your best hopes as a faith, and abide by them in action. Such shall be the effectual fervent means to their fulfilment.
I am an individual \x85 a circle touching and intersecting my neighbours at certain points, but nowhere corresponding, nowhere blending. \x85 But my individuality, however all-sufficient for myself, is an infinitesimal point, an atom subject in all things to the Law of Storms called Life. I feel, I know that Fate is. But I cannot know what is or what is not fated to befall me. Therefore in the pursuit of perfection as an individual lies my highest, and indeed my only duty, the "I" being duly blended with the "We." \x85 I am bound to take careful thought concerning the consequences of every word and deed. When, however, the Future has become the Past, it would be the merest vanity for me to grieve or to repent over that which was decreed by universal Law.
The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after endlessly repeated rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points in which it may be optimistic about the future of mankind, but in itself it signifies not a little.
Parvula (nam exemplo est) magni formica laboris / Ore trahit quodcunque potest atque addit acervo, / Quem struit, haud ignara ac non incauta futuri=--The ant, for instance, is a creature of great industry, drags with its mouth all it can, and adds to the heap it piles up, not ignorant or improvident of the future.
My experience of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them, or indisposed me to serve them; nor in spite of failures, which I lament, of errors which I now see and acknowledge; or of the present aspect of affairs; do I despair of the future. The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow, and our desires so impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.
Fancy rules over two-thirds of the universe, the past and the future, while reality is confined to the present.
Under all sorrow there is the force of virtue; over all ruin, the restoring charity of God. To these alone we have to look; in these alone we may understand the past, and predict the future destiny of the ages.
A knowledge of history as detailed as possible is essential if we are to comprehend the present and be prepared for the future. Fate … is not the blind superstition or helplessness that waits stupidly for what may happen. Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause is inevitable in itself, and man can shape his world if he does not resign himself to ignorance.
They told us not to wish in the first place, not to aspire, not to try; to be quiet, to play nice, to shoot low and aspire not at all. They are always wrong. Follow your dreams. Make your wishes. Create the future. And above all, believe in yourself.
The best among our writers are doing their accustomed work of mirroring what is deep in the spirit of our time; if chaos appears in those mirrors, we must have faith that in the future, as always in the past, that chaos will slowly reveal itself as a new aspect of order.
The artist is the only one who knows that the world is a subjective creation, that there is a choice to be made, a selection of elements. It is a materialization, an incarnation of his inner world. Then he hopes to attract others into it. He hopes to impose his particular vision and share it with others. And when the second stage is not reached, the brave artist continues nevertheless. The few moments of communion with the world are worth the pain, for it is a world for others, an inheritance for others, a gift to others, in the end. When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons.
Le present est pour ceux qui jouissent, l'avenir pour ceux qui souffrent=--The present is for those who enjoy, the future for those who suffer.
This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas, The past, the future,--two eternities!
When a woman has had more than one husband in this life, she will, in the future state, be free to be the wife of him whose character she esteemed the most.
In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want... everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear... anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
The past and future are veiled; but the past wears the widow's veil, the future the virgin's.
What is past, present, future? Is it not all one? only the past and the future somewhere where at present we cannot be. Wait a little time, and the eternal will take the place of the present,--and we shall have the past again,--for the past is not lost. Nothing is lost--but this waiting is sometimes very hard, and this longing very hard. Friends go on all sides, it seems a different world, yet there is work to do, and there is much left to love.
O my soul, it is not only after the future thou must aspire; thou must aspire to see the glory of thy past. Thou must find the glory of that way by which thy God has led thee, and be able even of thy sorrow to say, "This was the gate of heaven!"--_George Matheson._
The cardinal fact in the University questions appears to me to be this: that the student to whose wants the mediæval University was adjusted, looked to the past and sought book-learning, while the modern looks to the future and seeks the knowledge of things.
~Futurity.~--The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, the last duty done.--_George MacDonald._
The mind of man is capable of anything — because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage — who can tell? — but truth — truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder — the man knows, and can look on without a wink.
The past is always tense, the future perfect.
Study the past if you would divine the future.
Right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past.
As the youth lives in the future, so the man lives with the past; no one knows rightly how to live in the present.
The breakdown in collective bargaining in recent years is due to the difficulty of labor and management trying to equate the relative equity of the worker and the stockholder and the consumer in advance of the facts…. If the workers get too much, then the argument is that that triggers inflationary pressures, and the counter argument is that if they don’t get their equity, then we have a recession because of inadequate purchasing power. We believe this approach (progress sharing) is a rational approach because you cooperate in creating the abundance that makes the progress possible, and then you share that progress after the fact, and not before the fact. Profit sharing would resolve the conflict between management apprehensions and worker expectations on the basis of solid economic facts as they materialize rather than on the basis of speculation as to what the future might hold…. If the workers had definite assurance of equitable shares in the profits of the corporations that employ them, they would see less need to seek an equitable balance between their gains and soaring profits through augmented increases in basic wage rates. This would be a desirable result from the standpoint of stabilization policy because profit sharing does not increase costs. Since profits are a residual, after all costs have been met, and since their size is not determinable until after customers have paid the prices charged for the firm’s products, profit sharing as such cannot be said to have any inflationary impact upon costs and prices…. Profit sharing in the form of stock distributions to workers would help to democratize the ownership of America’s vast corporate wealth. [Testimony before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, February 20, 1967.]
Within Kelso’s quite logical but revolutionary concepts lie the mechanism for freeing Canada of the need for foreign capital without directing one iota of discrimination against that which is already here or which could come in the future. [May 1967.]
If people take no care for the future, they will soon have sorrow for the present.
Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and vileness, and enjoy it to the full.
Those old stories of visions and dreams guiding men have their truth: we are saved by making the future present to ourselves.--_George Eliot._
I believe it is the duty of each of us to act as if the fate of the world depended on him. Admittedly, one man by himself cannot do the job. However, one man can make a difference... We must live for the future of the human race, and not for our own comfort or success.
Die Zukunft decket Schmerzen und Glucke=--The future hides in it gladness and sorrow.
From time to time the taunt is thrown at Religion, not unseldom from lips which Science ought to have taught more caution, that the Future Life of Christianity is simply a prolonged existence, an eternal monotony, a blind and indefinite continuance of being. The Bible never could commit itself to any such empty platitude; nor could Christianity ever offer to the world a hope so colourless. Not that Eternal Life has nothing to do with everlastingness. That is part of the conception. And it is this aspect of the question that first arrests us in the field of Science. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 216.
The supreme truths are neither the rigid conclusions of logical reasoning nor the affirmations of credal statement, but fruits of the soul's inner experience. Intellectual truth is only one of the doors to the outer precincts of the temple. And since intellectual truth turned towards the Infinite must be in its very nature many-sided and not narrowly one, the most varying intellectual beliefs can be equally true because they mirror different facets of the Infinite. However separated by intellectual distance, they still form so many side-entrances which admit the mind to some faint ray from a supreme Light. There are no true and false religions, but rather all religions are true in their own way and degree. Each is one of the thousand paths to the One Eternal.
I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present, God has given me no control over the moment following.
You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.
I would like to make the point that we cannot undo the past but we can learn from it, and we cannot predict the future but we can shape and build it.
Because this is what happens when you try to run from the past. It just doesn’t catch up, it overtakes … blotting out the future.
We see farthest into the future--and that is not far--when we most carefully consider the facts of the present.
Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It's like the tide going out, revealing whatever's been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fishbodies, bones. This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future.
Die Sorg' um Kunft'ges niemals frommt; Man fuhlt kein Uebel, bis es kommt. / Und wenn man's fuhlt, so hilft kein Rat; / Weisheit ist immer zu fruh und zu spat=--Concern for the future boots not; we feel no evil till it comes. And when we feel it, no counsel avails; wisdom is always too early and too late.
He spake of love, such love as spirits feel In worlds whose course is equable and pure; No fears to beat away, no strife to heal,-- The past unsighed for, and the future sure.
The great source of calamity lies in regret or anticipation; he therefore is most wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or the future.
I had determined to go as far as declaring in abstruse and puzzling utterances the future causes of the "common advent", even those truly cogent ones that I have foreseen. Yet lest whatever human changes may be to come should scandalise delicate ears, the whole thing is written in nebulous form, rather than as a clear prophecy of any kind.
I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
He was gone, and I did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth. There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless. And as I walked back to give Takumi’s note to the Colonel, I saw that I would never know. I would never know her well enough to know her thoughts in those last minutes, would never know if she left us on purpose. But the not-knowing would not keep me from caring, and I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.