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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #past
In such a person, sadness breeds purpose; finding inspiration in the darkness and often times, I believe, they will impress a hell onto their own lives in order to re-create it, that others might suffer the experience from the comfort of their armchairs. - Quote from Her Past's Present. ↗
..the past kept pricking at me and I knew that all the elements of those nineteen days in July were astir within me, like phlegm in an attack of bronchitis, waiting to come up. I had kep them buried all these years, but they were there, I knew, the more complete, the more unforgotten, for being carefully embalmed. Never, never had they seen the light of day; the slightest stirring had been stifled with a scattering of earth. My secret- the explanation of me- lay there. I take myself much too seriously, of course. What does it matter to anyone what I was like, then or now? But every man is important to himself at one time or another; my problem had been to reduce the importance, and spread it out as thinly as I could over half a century. Thanks to my interment policy I had come to terms with life, I had made a working -working was the word - arrangement with it, on the one condition that there should be no exhumation. Was it true, what I sometimes told myself, that my best energies had been given to the undertaker's art? If it was, what did it matter? Should have I acquitted myself better, with the knowledge I had now? I doubted it; knowledge may be power, but it is not resilience, or resourcefulness, or adaptability to life, still less is it instinctive sympathy with human nature; and those where qualities I possessed in 1900 in far greater measure that I possess them in 1952. Prologue, page 16 ↗
I’ve got a question for you… Are you the person who you thought you’d be by now? I know I am not. The fact is that life may not be what you thought it would be by now (If It is, I congratulate you & applaud you) You may feel stuck in a job you don’t like, not making enough money, jobless, or maybe you are in a bad relationship/marriage, or unhappy because you are out of shape…but don’t let that get you down. The key is 2 focus on what you have (Health,Fam,friends etc) instead of what you don’t have. And also in the things that you have done (Finished a Race-College/Got that Diploma/Raise a Family etc) Instead of the things you haven’t done. yet IF where you are now, it’s not where you want to be…know that where you’re going is far more important than where you are now or where you’ve been. Forgive yourself, Accept the current situation & MOVE ON, knowing that from now on you will focus your time & energy on the possibilities & opportunities that lie ahead 4 you in the near future. ↗
Most of us will. We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive: love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly on the dead: we'll open their letters, we'll read their journals, we'll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us--who've left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we'd supposed. But what about those who plant such clues, for us to stumble on? Why do they bother? Egotism? Pity? Revenge? A simple claim to existence, like scribbling your initials on a washroom wall? The combination of presence and anonymity--confession without penance, truth without consequences--it has its attractions. Getting the blood off your hands, one way or another. Those who leave such evidence can scarcely complain if strangers come along afterwards and poke their noses into every single thing that would once have been none of their business. And not only strangers: lovers, friends, relations. We're voyeurs, all of us. Why should we assume that anything in the past is ours for the taking, simply because we've found it? We're all grave robbers, once we open the doors locked by others. But only locked. The rooms and their contents have been left intact. If those leaving them had wanted oblivion, there was always fire. ↗
