Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.… And one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby
Today is today, yesterday is yesterday, the future is the time that is left.
—Karl Lagerfeld
The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is or has been is but the twilight of the dawn.
—H. G. Wells
Our ideals, laws and customs should be based on the proposition that each generation, in turn, becomes the custodian rather than the absolute owner of our resources and each generation has the obligation to pass this inheritance on to the future.
—Charles Lindbergh
Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
—Walt Disney
Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions
in the past.
—Tryon Edwards
The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.
—Theodore Roosevelt
I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.
—George Burns
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.
—Ursula K. Le Guin
A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.
—Sydney J. Harris
We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.
—Richard Feynman
It’s important to keep your options open. It’s important to live and not get hung up on the past. The past is called the past for a reason. If you are constantly looking behind you, your eyes aren’t on the road ahead.
—Rachel Van Dyken in The Bet
Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.
—Niels Bohr
What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.
—Ralph Marston
He who would be a great soul in the future, must be a great soul now.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson