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PRESENt quotes
Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain.
If I am faithful to the duties of the present, God will provide for the future.
Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future are not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.
Try to be happy in this very present moment; and put not off being so to a time to come; as though that time should be of another make from this, which is already come, and is ours.
Devote each day to the object then in time, and every evening will find something done.
Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.
Duty and today are ours, results and futurity belong to God.
Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure, fly away; enjoy therefore the present time, and trust not too much to what tomorrow may produce.
In the midst of hopes and cares, of apprehensions and of disquietude, regard every day that dawns upon you as if it was to be your last; then super-added hours, to the enjoyment of which you had not looked forward, will prove an acceptable boon.
Busy not yourself in looking forward to the events of tomorrow, but those of the days which Providence may assign you neglect not to turn to advantage.
The future is purchased by the present.
Live this day as if it were the last.
Do today's duty, fight today's temptation; do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them.
Let us enjoy the fugitive hour. Man has no harbor, time has no shore, it rushes on and carries us with it.
Every day is a gift I receive from Heaven; let us enjoy today that which it bestows on me. It belongs not more to the young than to me, and tomorrow belongs to no one.
Let any man examine his thoughts, and he will find them ever occupied with the past or the future. We scarcely think at all of the present; or if we do, it is only to borrow the light which it gives for regulating the future. The present is never our object; the past and the present we use as means; the future only is our end. Thus, we never live, we only hope to live.
We think very little of time present; we anticipate the future, as being too slow, and with a view to hasten it onward, we recall the past to stay it as too swiftly gone. We are so thoughtless, that we thus wander through the hours which are not here, regardless only of the moment that is actually our own.
Look upon every day as the whole of life, not merely as a section; and enjoy and improve the present without wishing, through haste, to rush on to another.
Man, living, feeling man, is the easy sport of the over-mastering present.
Each present joy or sorrow seems the chief.
Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them; and the evils bear patiently and sweetly; for only this day is ours; we are dead to yesterday, and not born tomorrow.
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