A Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We sometimes condemn the present, by praising the past; and show our contempt of what is now, by our esteem for what is no more.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Quote Topics

Condemn Contempt Esteem More Now Our Past Praising Present Show Sometimes

Quote Author

Francois de La Rochefoucauld
French - Writer
September 15, 1613 - March 17, 1680

How strange it is that we of the present day are constantly praising that past age which our fathers abused, and as constantly abusing that present age, which our children will praise.

Charles Caleb Colton

We are a part of everything that is beneath us, above us, and around us. Our past is our present, our present is our future, and our future is seven generations past and present.

Winona LaDuke

Our past, our present, and whatever remains of our future, absolutely depend on what we do now.

Sylvia Earle

When you're present, be present the best you can. Like I said, we all fail. But I think from a dad standpoint, children want our time. Sometimes it might just be five minutes, and sometimes it can be a lot more, but I think they want our time and to be engaged with them and present.

Philip Rivers

Psychoanalysts are fond of pointing out that the past is alive in the present. But the future is alive in the present too. The future is not some place we’re going to, but an idea in our mind now. It is something we’re creating, that in turn creates us. The future is a fantasy that shapes our present.

Stephen Grosz

We should always look back on our own past with a sort of contempt, as long as the tenderness is there - but please let some of the contempt be there.

Dennis Potter

The present is never the mark of our designs. We use both past and present as our means and instruments, but the future only as our object and aim.

Blaise Pascal

We cannot live in the past; it is gone. Nor can we live in the future; it is forever beyond our grasp. We can live only in the present. If we are unaware of our present actions, we are condemned to repeating the mistakes of the past and can never succeed in attaining our dreams for the future.

S. N. Goenka

We all reconstruct our past because we wish to see how our present came to be our present - do we not?

Robert Jackson Bennett

It's not our past which most determines the possibilities open to us, it's what we choose here and now to make happen in our present and future.

Nick Baylis

Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light is throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.

Blaise Pascal

The lower our self-esteem, the more we're attracted to our opposite, and the higher our self-esteem, the more we are attracted to another like ourselves.

Marilyn vos Savant

The American dream has always depended on the dialogue between the present and the past. In our architecture, as in all our other arts-indeed, as in our political and social culture as a whole-ours has been a struggle to formulate and sustain a usable past.

Robert A. M. Stern

Sometimes we forget that if we do not encourage new work now, we will lose all touch with the work of the past we claim to love. If art is not living in a continuous present, it is living in a museum, only those working now can complete the circuit between the past, present and future energies we call art.