Elizabeth McCracken Quotes

The best gift we can have is living in the present moment and really enjoying it for what it is; and, not being in our heads and getting sidetracked.

I guess I'm living in the present more than the past.

I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.

My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, 'Oh God, I've got to do this today.'

When people ask what my ambitions are for the rest of my career, I always say that I live in the present.

There's definitely times when I'm tempted to look at the future, like any of us are. I'd be lying if that wasn't the case. But you have to reel back in and stay in the present.

I don't really look toward the future. I only look at the present.

I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment.

I don't have any regrets because I'm very optimistic, and live each day as though it's the last.

But I don't think of the future, or the past, I feast on the moment. This is the secret of happiness, but only reached now in middle age.

Live in the present moment and find your interest and happiness in the things of today.

To live in the present moment is a miracle.

Quit worrying about how everything is going to turn out. Live one day at a time; better yet, make the most of this moment.

Retailers should not be filling their minds with all the things that are wrong, with how the economy is going, or with trying to get someplace in the business world. They should enjoy being in this moment and in this day and serving the people who come in.

The present gives you the opportunity to dive deep into the water of life, or to fly high into the sky of life. But on both the sides there are dangers - 'past' and ´future´ are the most dangerous words in human language.

Only one person in a thousand knows the trick of really living in the present. Most of us spend fifty-nine minutes an hour living in the past, with regret for lost joys or shame for things badly done (both utterly useless and weakening) or in a future which we either long for or dread. . . . There is only one minute in which you are alive, this minute, here and now. The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle. Which is exactly what it is-a miracle and unrepeatable.

Just pausing for two to three breaths is a perfect way to stay present. This is a good use of our life. Indeed, it is an excellent, joyful use of our life. Instead of getting better and better at avoiding, we can learn to accept the present moment as if we had invited it, and work with it instead of against it, making it our ally rather than our enemy.

The worst time is always the present.

If I have any attribute that serves me well, it's I don't have a long-range plan in life. I have no idea. I just don't look ahead, I really don't. You know when people get out of college and they're talking about their five-year plan. Five-year plan? I got a plan to get to Friday.

Although she had resisted this knowledge all her life, had lived determinedly in the future focused there by ambition, she understood at last that this was the real condition of humanity: The dance of life occurred not yesterday or tomorrow, but only here at the still point that was the present. This truth is simmple, sel-evident, but difficult to accept, for we sentimentalize the past and wallow in it, while we endure the moment and in every waking hour dream of the future.

You don't really want to be always thinking about the future, always thinking about where you're heading for. You've got to think about how you're getting there.

Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment 'as to the Lord.' It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.

Life is not made up of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years, but of moments. You must experience each one before you can appreciate it.

Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy.

Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful? Most likely not. People mostly did not know enough when they were living life that they were living it.