Life is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present to live better in the future.

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Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, Hid in this silent, dull retreat, Untouched thy honied blossoms blow, Unseen thy little branches greet; ...No roving foot shall crush thee here, ...No busy hand provoke a tear. By Nature's self in white arrayed, She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, And planted here the gaurdian shade, And sent soft waters murmuring by; ...Thus quietly thy summer goes, ...Thy days declinging to repose. Smit with those charms, that must decay, I grieve to see your future doom; They died--nor were those flowers more gay, The flowers that did in Eden bloom; ...Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power ...Shall leave no vestige of this flower. From morning suns and evenign dews At first thy little being came: If nothing once, you nothing lose, For when you die you are the same; ...The space between, is but an hour, ...The frail duration of a flower.

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Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. In is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and a manly heart.

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We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

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It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.

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Every small, positive change we make in ourselves repays us in confidence in the future.

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For I dipped into the future, as far as human eye could see, saw a vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.

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The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.

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Global thinking and local action both require understanding of ecological systems, but ecological management can be effective only if it takes into consideration the visceral and spiritual values that link us to the earth. Therefore ecological thinking must be supplemented by humanistic value judgments concerning the effect of our choices and actions on the quality of the relationship between humankind and earth, in the future as well as in the present.

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When the great white silence comes and fills the boughs of the trees with a thickening, glistening brilliance, and all is cold and barren, where be the blossom? It is in the memory. It is in the wisdom. It is in the growth of last spring, and it is coming forth again. For when the season has turned and winter is gone, the buds come again, and behold, there is another blossom. If the ongoingeness of life is beheld in a single blossom, why do you think that you are less that its life? Do you think that you only bloom in sping, produce your fruit in summer, drop your leaves in autumn and then die in winter? But are you not greater than the greatest blossom? Is not your life more important? Indeed it is. And as the blossoms continue to bloom every spring, so will you live, life after life. What a story your blossoms could tell of all the seasons you've seen.

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In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.

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Every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.

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I have a Vision of the Future, chum. The workers flats in fields of soya beans tower up like silver pencils, score on score.

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Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.

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The future is ever a misted landscape, no man foreknows it, but at cyclical turns There is a change felt in the rhythm of events:

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We started the week with the dedication of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic Medical Building in our honor on the campus of the Eisenhower Medical Center, and we are thrilled to be ending the week with the announcement of a continuation of our 42-year relationship with Chrysler during which we have raised nearly $42 million for charity in our community. We look forward to an exciting future with our title sponsor, Chrysler, which is and continues to be the longest running sponsor-tournament relationship on the PGA TOUR.

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Nothing feebler than a man does the earth raise up, of all the things which breathe and move on the earth, for he believes that he will never suffer evil in the future, as long as the gods give him success and he flourishes in his strength; but when the blessed gods bring sorrows too to pass, even these he bears, against his will, with steadfast spirit, for the thoughts of earthly men are like the day which the father of gods and men brings upon them.

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It's the place where my prediction from the sixties finally came true In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous.

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The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.

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Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves ... Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point it, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps, then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

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The Internet: Transforming Society and Shaping the Future Through Chat

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Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.

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I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

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Boys are found everywhere-on top of, underneath, inside of, climbing on, swinging from, running around or jumping to. Mothers love them, little girls hate them, older sisters and brothers tolerate them, adults ignore them and Heaven protects them. A boy is Truth with dirt on its face, Beauty with a cut on its finger, Wisdom with bubble gum in its hair and the Hope of the future with a frog in its pocket.

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...That we must never forgive would seem to follow from the same stern logic. For if we forgive, it will be a sign to those in the future that they can act without fear of punishment, and that the world has a moral escape valve labeled 'forgiveness' that permits evil not only to survive but to thrive...Forgiveness becomes a 'weak' virtue, one that Christians seem particularly prone to champion, and one that always carries the possibility of condoning, rather than constricting, the spread of evil.

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A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do you know that his future will not be equal to our present?

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For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world. I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.

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When she was a small girl, Amanda hid a ticking clock in an old, rotten tree trunk. It drove woodpeckers crazy. Ignoring tasty bugs all around them, they just about beat their brains out trying to get at the clock. Years later, Amanda used the woodpecker experiment as a model for understanding capitalism, Communism, Christianity, and all other systems that traffic in future rewards rather than in present realities.

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In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes

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In conclusion, there is a marvelous anecdote from the occasion of Russell's ninetieth birthday that best serves to summarize his attitude toward God and religion. A London lady sat next to him at this party, and over the soup she suggested to him that he was not only the world's most famous atheist but, by this time, very probably the world's oldest atheist. 'What will you do, Bertie, if it turns out you're wrong' she asked. 'I mean, what if--uh--when the time comes, you should meet Him What will you say' Russell was delighted with the question. His birght, birdlike eyes grew even brighter as he contempalated this possible future dialogue, and then he pointed a finger upward and cried, 'Why, I should say, 'God, you gave us insufficient evidence.' '

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