The Quotes canon
Sourced and curated.
Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
William Shakespeare3 quotes
What's done cannot be undone. — William Shakespeare · 1616Things without all remedy
Should be without regard. What’s done is done. — William Shakespeare · 1616What's past is prologue. — William Shakespeare · 1616Agathon2 quotes
For the one thing even God cannot do is change the past. — AgathonThis only is denied even to God,
The power to make what has been done undone. — Agathon · 350 BCAlexis de Tocqueville1 quote
At every step the natural light which illuminates their path grows dimmer and less secure; and that, in spite of all their efforts, they have as yet only discovered a small number of conflicting notions, on which the mind of man has been tossed about for thousands of years, without either laying a firmer grasp on truth, or finding novelty even in its errors. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1840Carrie1 quote
Maybe the past is like an anchor holding us back. Maybe, you have to let go of who you were to become who you will be. — Carrie · 2002Cicero1 quote
There were poets before Homer. — Cicero · 46 BCConfucius1 quote
What is over and done with, one does not discuss. What has already taken its course, one does not criticize; what already belongs to the past, one does not censure. — Confucius · 221 BCD'Angelo Barksdale1 quote
The past is always with us. Where we come from, what we go through, how we go through it; all this shit matters. — D'Angelo Barksdale · 2006Desmond Tutu1 quote
Having looked the beast of the past in the eye, having asked and received forgiveness and having made amends, let us shut the door on the past-not in order to forget it but in order not to allow it to imprison us. — Desmond Tutu · 1998Edmund Gosse1 quote
The Past is like a funeral gone by
The Future comes like an unwelcomed guest. — Edmund Gosse · 1911Edward Thomas1 quote
The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet. — Edward Thomas · 1917Eugene Lee-Hamilton1 quote
Things bygone are the only things that last:
The Present is mere grass, quick-mown away;
The Past is stone, and stands for ever fast. — Eugene Lee-Hamilton · 1894F. Scott Fitzgerald1 quote
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. — F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1925Forrest Gump1 quote
My mama always said you’ve got to put the past behind you before you can move on. — Forrest Gump · 1994Francis Bacon1 quote
Ancient times were the youth of the world. — Francis Bacon · 1605George Eliot1 quote
We cannot reform our forefathers. — George Eliot · 1859George Santayana1 quote
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana · 1905Gloria Steinem1 quote
Clinging to the past is the problem. Embracing change is the solution. — Gloria Steinem · 1994Haruki Murakami1 quote
Memories warm you up from the inside but they also tear you apart. — Haruki Murakami · 2002Henri Bergson1 quote
The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause. — Henri Bergson · 1907Henry Kissinger1 quote
The history of things that didn’t happen has never been written. — Henry Kissinger · 1972Hermann Hesse1 quote
I cannot tell my story without reaching a long way back. — Hermann Hesse · 1919Jane Austen1 quote
Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure. — Jane Austen · 1813Jimmy Gator1 quote
The book says we might be through with the past, but the past is not through with us! — Jimmy Gator · 1999Kazuo Ishiguro1 quote
What can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services. What is the point in worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one’s life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that is in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment. — Kazuo Ishiguro · 1989L.P. Hartley1 quote
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. — L.P. Hartley · 1953Lord Byron1 quote
The best of Prophets of the future is the Past. — Lord Byron · 1821Lyndon B. Johnson1 quote
Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose. — Lyndon B. Johnson · 1963Margaret Atwood1 quote
When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that. — Margaret Atwood · 1985Maya Angelou1 quote
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again. — Maya Angelou · 1993Milan Kundera1 quote
The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke us and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. — Milan Kundera · 1979