"If you must look back, do so..." - Quote by Maya Angelou
If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you will look forward, do so prayerfully. But the wisest course would be to be present in the present gratefully.
More by Maya Angelou
“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”
“We need to remember that we are all created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.”
“We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans — because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone- because we have the impulse to explain who we are. Not just how tall we are, or thin… but who we are internally… perhaps even spiritually. There’s something, which impels us to show our inner-souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.”
More on Present
“The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are.”
“Waiting is a state of mind. Basically, it means that you want the future; you don't want the present. You don't want what you've got, and you want what you haven't got. With every kind of waiting, you unconsciously create inner conflict between your here and now, where you don't want to be, and the projected future, where you want to be. This greatly reduces the quality of your life by making you lose the present.”
“Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands.”
More on Past
“Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.”
“Memory works like the collection glass in the Camera obscura: it gathers everything together and therewith produces a far more beautiful picture than was present originally.”
“Let the new faces play what tricks they willIn the old rooms; night can outbalance day,Our shadows rove the garden gravel still,The living seem more shadowy than they.”