A Quote by C. S. Lewis

The Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most temporal part of time--for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.

C. S. Lewis

Quote Topics

All Things Eternal Eternity Flows Frozen Future Least Like Lit Longer Most Part Past Present Rays Temporal Thing Things Time Up

Quote Author

C. S. Lewis
British - Writer
November 29, 1898 - November 22, 1963

How can the past and future be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet? As for the present, if it were always present and never moved on to become the past, it would not be time, but eternity.

Saint Augustine

The mind exists in time, in fact the mind is time; it exists in the past and the future. And remember, time consists of only two tenses, the past and the future. The present is not part of time, the present is part of eternity.

Rajneesh

The past is an interpretation. The future is on illusion. The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead, time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness. If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.

Shams Tabrizi

There is not past, no future; everything flows in an eternal present.

James Joyce

We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better.... or else we think about the future, about what we're going to do.... But at this precise moment, you also realize that you can change your future by bringing the past into the present. Past and future only exist in our mind. The present moment, though, is outside of time, it's Eternity.... It isn't what you did in the past the will affect the present. It's what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.

Paulo Coelho

Past, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy.... Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one-the knowledge and the dream.

Ambrose Bierce

Eternity is not future or past. Eternity is a dimension of now. It is a dimension of the human spirit -- which is eternal. Find that eternal dimension in yourself, and you will ride through time, and throughout the whole length of your days.

Joseph Campbell

Time, though in Eternity, applied To motion, measures all things durable By present, past, and future.

John Milton

In time there is no present, In eternity no future, In eternity no past.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Even time is a concept. In reality we are always in the eternal present. The past is just a memory, the future just an image or thought. All our stories about past and future are only ideas, arising in the moment. Our modern culture is so tyrannized by goals, plans, and improvement schemes that we constantly live for the future. But as Aldous Huxley reminded us in his writings, "An idolatrous religion is one in which time is substituted for eternity...the idea of endless progress is the devil's work, even today demanding human sacrifice on an enormous scale.

Jack Kornfield

The future is foretold from the past and the future is only possible because of the past. Without past and future, the present is partial. All time is eternally present and so all time is ours. There is no sense in forgetting and every sense in dreaming. Thus the present is made rich.

Jeanette Winterson

The present moment, though, is outside of time, it’s Eternity. In India they use the word “karma” for lack of any better term. But it’s a concept that’s rarely given a proper explanation. It isn’t what you did in the past that will affect the present. It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.

Paulo Coelho

Mysterious power, whence hope ethereal springs! Sweet heavenly relic of eternal things! Inspiring oft deep thoughts of things divine: The past, the present, and the future time. Thy reminiscences transport the soul To memory?s Paradise?its future goal.

Parley P. Pratt

In the spiritual world there are no time divisions such as the past, present and future; for they have contracted themselves into a single moment of the present where life quivers in its true sense. The past and the future are both rolled up in this present moment of illumination, and this present moment is not something standing still with all its contents, for it ceaselessly moves on.

D.T. Suzuki

These tenses-past, present and future-are not the tenses of time; they are tenses of the mind. That which is no longer before the mind becomes the past. That which is before the mind is the present. And that which is going to be before the mind is the future. Past is that which is no longer before you. Future is that which is not yet before you. And present is that which is before you and is slipping out of your sight. Soon it will be past.

Rajneesh

I don't have a past. I have a continuous present. The past is part of the present, just as the future is. We exist in time.