A Quote by Roger Scruton
A reactionary is fixed on the past and wanting to return to it; a conservative wishes to adapt what is best in the past to the changing circumstances of the present.
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We learn in the past, but we are not the result of that. We suffered in the past, loved in the past, cried and laughed in the past, but that's of no use to the present. The present has its challenges, its good and bad side. We can neither blame nor be grateful to the past for what is happening now. Each new experience of love has nothing whatsoever to do with past experiences. It's always new.
But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past - or more accurately, pastness - is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past
Best not to mix the past with the present. The present paints the past with gold. The past paints the present with lead.
There are times when one's life appears to be a stage. People come, people go. They come in order to go, and go with no intent of return. When they return, they return as one's past. A past that would make you feel that the present is false.
Live in the present and shape the future, do not be casting lingering looks to the distant past for the past has passed away, never again to return.
The past existed in multitudinous ways. You only experienced one probable past. By changing this past in your mind, now, in your present, you can change not only its nature but its effect, and not only upon yourself but upon others.
The Past -- the dark unfathomed retrospect! The teeming gulf --the sleepers and the shadows! The past! the infinite greatness of the past! For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?
The successful human being is adaptable. We have to adapt to changes in weather. We have to adapt to changes in climate. We have to adapt to changing economic circumstances. People that don't have the flexibility to adapt or who are afraid of change or who oppose it are going to be left behind.
We must abandon completely the notion of blaming the past for any kind of situation we're in and reverse our thinking and see that the past always flows back from the present. That now is the creative point of life. So you see it's like the idea of forgiving somebody, you change the meaning of the past by doing that...Also, watch the flow of music. The melody as its expressed is changed by notes that come later. Just as the meaning of a sentence...you wait till later to find out what the sentence means...The present is always changing the past.
If we learn the art of yielding what must be yielded to the changing present, we can save the best of the past.
We think that the world is limited and explained by its past. We tend to think that what happened in the past determines what is going to happen next, and we do not see that it is exactly the other way around! What is always the source of the world is the present; the past doesn't explain a thing. The past trails behind the present like the wake of a ship and eventually disappears.
Great art does not break with the past. It breaks with the present by emulating the best of the past.
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.
Carrying the past in to the present, we program the future to continue the past. Letting go the past in the present, we free the future to be something else.
The past, as you suggest, is absolutely present at all times and the present is born from the past. I wouldn't want to suggest that the past determines the present.
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.
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