The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing.
Herbert Spencer

The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.
James Thurber

With European powers no new subjects of difficulty have arisen, and those which were under discussion, although not terminated, do not present a more unfavorable aspect for the future preservation of that good understanding which it has ever been our desire to cultivate.
Martin Van Buren

The case of the Seminoles constitutes at present the only exception to the successful efforts of the Government to remove the Indians to the homes assigned them west of the Mississippi.
Martin Van Buren

The future is keeping you out of the present time.
Van Morrison

If we were left to ourselves, unfettered by legislative enactments, we should gradually withdraw our capital from the cultivation of such lands, and import the produce which is at present raised upon them.
David Ricardo

I just don't want to live like I used to. And at some point, I'm going to put a gag order on myself in terms of talking about the past. I've got to slam the door and deal with the present and the future.
Charlie Sheen

The future is made of the same stuff as the present.
Simone Weil

There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.
Simone Weil

At present, too much theological thinking is very human-centered.
John Polkinghorne

The future is the worst thing about the present.
Gustave Flaubert

The author, in his work, must be like God in the Universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.
Gustave Flaubert

So after the Lewinsky scandal, everything changed, and we moved from using the Bible to address the moral issues of our time, which were social, to moral issues of our time that were very personal. I have continued that relationship up until the present.
Tony Campolo

If you do a practice and train your attention to hover in the present, then you will build the internal capacity to do that as needed - at will and voluntarily.
Daniel Goleman

The friend of the present order of things condemns all political speculations in the gross.
Thomas Malthus

The future is purchased by the present.
Samuel Johnson

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.
Baruch Spinoza

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
Samuel Johnson

Old things are always in good repute, present things in disfavor.
Tacitus

You cannot escape the results of your thoughts. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain or rise with your thoughts, your vision, your ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.
James Lane Allen