A Quote by Alexis de Tocqueville
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
Related Quotes
History, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, and in illuminating the present, illuminates the future.
History is a light that illuminates the past,
and a key that unlocks the door to the future.
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.
When the Holy Spirit comes into your life, He will show you things to come; you will no longer be in the dark. You will no longer walk in confusion but live each day in the light. You will face the future with faith and confidence. He is the Spirit of reality, Hallelujah!
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.
The shadow by my finger cast Divides the future from the past: Before it, sleeps the unborn hour, In darkness, and beyond thy power. Behind its unreturning line, The vanished hour, no longer thine: One hour alone is in thy hands,- The NOW on which the shadow stands.
The Past is dead, and has no resurrection; but the Future is endowed with such a life, that it lives to us even in anticipation. The Past is, in many things, the foe of mankind; the Future is, in all things, our friend. In the Past is no hope; The Future is both hope and fruition. The Past is the text-book of tyrants; the Future is the Bible of the Free. Those who are solely governed by the Past stand like Lot's wife, crystallized in the act of looking backward, and forever incapable of looking before.
If the mind wants to comprehend reality, it will have to come out of the past and the future. But coming out of the past and the future, it is no longer the mind at all. Hence the insistence of all the great masters of the world that the door to reality is no-mind.
The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of love and of generosity and of goodness. It illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world's busy life and become more interested in people than in things.
But I think the American people expect more from us than cries of indignation and attack. The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high to permit the customary passions of political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future. As Winston Churchill said on taking office some twenty years ago: if we open a quarrel between the present and the past, we shall be in danger of losing the future.
A man without the Holy Ghost is a blind man. He may not know it but that's what blindness is all about. A blind man is not just someone who cannot see, he can see alright, but all he sees is darkness. It's the same thing in the realm of the spirit. A blind man in the realm of the spirit is one who doesn't know the things of the spirit, he can't see the things of the Spirit of God. But when the Holy Spirit comes into your life, you will no longer be blind because He will cause you to see what others can't see.
The light came into the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it, but that no longer mattered because the light was now obliteration the darkness.
The truth isn't always a blinding light. Sometimes it's a deep and dazzling darkness, that illuminates - and burns - just as surely.
As you meditate, over time your consciousness becomes awake within itself. The silent witness within saturates and illuminates the mind so that it does not look to the past or the future for fulfillment. It experiences peace and freedom within itself in every moment.
How those fires burned that are no longer, how the weather worsened, how the shadow of the seagull vanished without a trace. Was it the end of a season, the end of a life? Was it so long ago it seems it might never have been? What is it in us that lives in the past and longs for the future, or lives in the future and longs for the past? (from "No Words Can Describe It")
A 'real pastor' is not preaching of their own; they are speaking what God put in their heart by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is using them at that very moment to speak to the congregations situations -past, present, and future.
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