These inspirational past quotes will remind you to let go of the past and enjoy and live in the moment.
While the past is an important chapter in our lives, we should not allow ourselves to live in it and stop us from enjoying what’s happening in front of us, from appreciating the present moment.
Life is far too precious to spend it looking back at our mistakes and regrets.
I believe that the past doesn’t define us. It is merely a step or a chapter in our lives that’ll help us define and choose who we want to become in the future.
Here are 60+ INSPIRATIONAL PAST QUOTES
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
— Søren Kierkegaard
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
—Buddha
Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.
— Mother Theresa
The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.
— Marcel Pagnol
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.
— Bill Keane
I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going. I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place.
The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind.
— Kiran Desai
We cannot change our past. We can not change the fact that people act in a certain way. We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.
— Charles R. Swindoll
It’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one.
— George Harrison
You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.
— Johnny Cash
We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.
— Rick Warren
The hardships that I encountered in the past will help me succeed in the future.
— Philip Emeagwali
The past can’t hurt you anymore, not unless you let it.
— Alan Moore
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
— Melody Beattie
Sooner or later we’ve all got to let go of our past.
— Dan Brown
See, when you drive home today, you’ve got a big windshield on the front of your car. And you’ve got a little bitty rearview mirror. And the reason the windshield is so large and the rearview mirror is so small is because what’s happened in your past is not near as important as what’s in your future.
— Joel Osteen
The past was always there, lived inside of you, and it helped to make you who you were. But it had to be placed in perspective. The past could not dominate the future.
— Barbara Taylor Bradford
I’m looking forward to the future, and feeling grateful for the past.
— Mike Rowe
My past has not defined me, destroyed me, deterred me, or defeated me; it has only strengthened me.
— Steve Maraboli
Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them. They stay focused on their past successes rather than their past failures, and on the next action steps they need to take to get them closer to the fulfillment of their goals rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them.
— Jack Canfield
THOUGHT-PROVOKING PAST QUOTES AND SAYINGS
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
— Albert Einstein
The one charm of the past is that it is the past.
— Oscar Wilde
The past is a stepping stone, not a millstone.
— Robert Plant
The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.
—Thomas S. Monson
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
— Lesley Hartley
Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.
— Euripides
Remember the past, plan for the future, but live for today, because yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come.
— Luke the Evangelist
We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow. — Fulton Oursler
The past has no power over the present moment.
— Eckhart Tolle
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
— John F. Kennedy
Don’t let the past steal your present.
— Cherralea Morgen
I like to use the hard times in the past to motivate me today.
— Dwayne Johnson
I was so in the present moment the past was no longer part of me.
— Laurel Hoodwrit
The living moment is everything.
— D.H. Lawrence
The past explains how I got here, but the future is up to me – and I love to live life at full throttle.
— Janice Dickinson
The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.
— Wendell Berry
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Bring the past only if only you are going to build from it.
— Domenico Cieri Estrada
The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans. The present is our only reality.
— Robert M. Pirsig
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
— Thomas Jefferson
I have memories-but only a fool stores his past in the future.
— David Gerrold
Never erase your past. It shapes who you are today and will help you to be the person you’ll be tomorrow.
— Ziad K. Abdelnour
MORE PAST QUOTES AND QUOTES ABOUT PAST
Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.
— Will Rogers
We are all here for some special reason. Stop being a prisoner of your past. Become the architect of your future.
— Robin Sharma
Consider the past and you shall know the future.
— Chinese Proverbs
You can only lose what you cling to.
— Buddha
We go to the past to lay the blame – since the past can’t argue.
— Glen Duncan
Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.
— Toni Morrison
If you worry about yesterday’s failures, then today’s successes will be few. The future depends on what we do in the present
— Mahatma Gandhi
Today expect something good to happen to you no matter what occurred yesterday. Realize the past no longer holds you captive. It can only continue to hurt you if you hold on to it. Let the past go. A simply abundant world awaits.
— Sarah Breathnach
Holding on is believing that there’s a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.
— Daphne Rose Kingma
A medicine cat has no time for doubt. Put your energy into today and stop worrying about the past.
— Erin Hunter
Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
— Jane Austen
Everyone has a past, but that’s just it–it’s in the past. You can learn from it, but you can’t change it.
— Nicholas Sparks
I am not someone who is ashamed of my past. I’m actually really proud. I know I made a lot of mistakes, but they, in turn, were my life lessons.
— Drew Barrymore
Your past doesn’t define who you are. It just gives you the starting point for who you’re going to be.
— Agent Carolina
Some of the best lessons we ever learn are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future.
— Dale Turner
I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.
— Alan Wilson Watts
We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
— George Bernard Shaw
When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Your past does not determine who you are. Your past prepares you for who you are to become.
— Joel Osteen
Your past is always your past. Even if you forget it, it remembers you.
— Sarah Dessen
The past speaks to us in a thousand voices, warning and comforting, animating and stirring to action.
— Felix Adler
The past is never where you think you left it.
— Katherine Anne Porter