"Where is it, this present? It has..." - Quote by William James
Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.
More by William James
“How can the moribund old man reason back to himself the romance, the mystery, the imminence of great things with which our old earth tingled for him in the days when he was young and well?”
“I have often thought the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it comes upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: This is the real me!.”
“... A rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those ... truths were really there, would be an irrational rule.”
More on Time
“A man has no right to occupy another man’s time unnecessarily”
“Her many achievements will be appreciated more as time goes on.”
“When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced The rich proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the watery main, Increasing store with loss and loss with store; When I have seen such interchange of state, Or state itself confounded to decay; Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is as a death which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose.”
More on Present Moment
“Don't wait to be successful at some future point, have a successful relationship with the present moment and be fully present in whatever you are doing. That is success.”
“Take care of this moment.”
“If you insist on being determined by the past that's your game, but the fact of the matter is it all starts right now.”