Theodor W. Adorno Quotes

The content of the ideal is a desire to return to the perfection of an imaginary past.

Political utopias are a form of nostalgia for an imagined past projected onto the future as a wish.

The future is always here in the past

What we wish upon the future is very often the image of some lost, imagined past.

I am not a picture guy. I like to live in the present and keep the image of the past vivid in my mind. I don't need the precision of the picture.

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

Traditionally, photography is supposed to capture an event that has passed; but that is not what I'm looking for. Photography brings the past into the present when you look at it.

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

That kind of creaming off the pretty postcard image of the past, I think, is a road to nowhere.

The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages.

We all pine for a time in life when things were simpler. Even when they weren't necessarily simpler, hindsight makes them look a lot simpler. The reality of it was that it wasn't.

Legends are all to do with the past and nothing to do with the present.

The good old days are now.

The past is only the present become invisible and mute; and because it is invisible and mute, its memorized glances and its murmurs are infinitely precious. We are tomorrow's past.

Time is something that interests me a whole lot - past and present, and how the past appears as people change.

One feels that the past stays the way you left it, whereas the present is in constant movement; it's unstable all around you.

Nostalgia is not a place to live.

Whenever we're having a great time, we're already anticipating the day when we will remember this great time. Many of us live in that unreal area between the past, the present, and the future.

Joy and sorrow are both my perpetual companions, but the joy is called Past and the sorrow Present.

The past is always a rebuke to the present.

Nothing is ever behind us.

The great times were never as great as they seem in the rearview mirror.

The past is always knocking at the door, trying to break through into today.

Memory is a wonderful thing if you don't have to deal with the past.

It's in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.