Natalie Clifford Barney Quotes

There was something so heavy about the burden of history, of the past. I wasn't sure I had it in me to keep looking back.

Remembrance of the past kills all present energy and deadens all hope for the future

The past doesn't haunt us, we haunt the past.

Dwelling in the past prevents doing something in the present.

You can’t repeat the past.” “Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!

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

I know the past will drag you backward and down, have you snatching at whispers of wind and the gibberish of trees rubbing together, trying to decipher some code, trying to piece together what was broken. It's hopeless. The past is nothing but a weight. It will build inside you like a stone.

Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom to all.

You can wreck your future running from your past.

If you try to live that which is past, that which IS will bypass you.

Man... cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.

A long past vividly remembered is like a heavy garment that clings to your limbs when you would run.

People who think about the past have no future.

But how carve way i' the life that lies before, If bent on groaning ever for the past?

Too much looking backward ... is bad for progress.

You can't relive your life.

Going back to the past is not productive.

A lot of people are really hung on the past - they can't get past that - but you've gotta get past that if you want any future.

You can't look back.

I'm not too interested in talking about the past. It doesn't do us any good whatsoever.

For the first time in a long time, he didn't think of the past. And of all the things he'd lost. He thought only of the present, and what he had. And how it was so much more than he deserved. And he prayed then that he would never, ever lose it.

The future is meant for those who are willing to let go of the worst parts of the past. When you cannot take two steps without turning around to inspect your footsteps, you are getting nowhere fast.

If you remember your past too well you start blaming your present for it. Look what they did to me, that's what caused me to be like this, it's not my fault. Permit me to correct you: it probably is your fault. And kindly spare me the details.

Your past is always your past. Even if you forget it, it remembers you.

One cannot let the events of one's past murder one's future.