Changing Past Quotes

History is always changing.

A new future requires a new past.

There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having.

You think that just because it's already happened, the past is finished and unchangeable? Oh no, the past is cloaked in multicolored taffeta and every time we look at it we see a different hue.

Thoughtful people are concerned with the future because that is the only area of experience about which anything can be done. We cannot change the past, and the present is gone as soon as it is reported, but the future is that in which we can make a difference.

The past is a script we are constantly rewriting.

Don't ever think that you can't change the past.

History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.

Once upon a time wasn't as long ago as it used to be.

Nothing changes more constantly than the past

We cannot go back in time and change the past but we can repent.

The German philosopher Walter Benjamin had the curious notion that we could change the past. For most of us, the past is fixed while the future is open.

I think there's something inherently dishonest in trying to go back and mess with the past.

We must abandon completely the notion of blaming the past for any kind of situation we're in and reverse our thinking and see that the past always flows back from the present. That now is the creative point of life. So you see it's like the idea of forgiving somebody, you change the meaning of the past by doing that...Also, watch the flow of music. The melody as its expressed is changed by notes that come later. Just as the meaning of a sentence...you wait till later to find out what the sentence means...The present is always changing the past.

Nothing changes more constantly than the past; for the past that influences our lives does not consist of what actually happened, but of what men believe happened.

If I could go back in time to change stuff? Oh yeah, there's a few movies I would not have done.

Every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.

To have known how to change the past into a few saddened smiles-is this not to master the future?

People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.

I do think you can change the past and the present somehow. Even if something has already happened, it doesn't mean it's settled.

The past existed in multitudinous ways. You only experienced one probable past. By changing this past in your mind, now, in your present, you can change not only its nature but its effect, and not only upon yourself but upon others.

The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind.

I do think the past changes at a slower rate. It sits a little more still for its portrait.

There is a little bit of hubris to want to change the past. It implies that you know better - that things didn't happen the way that they were supposed to.

The future is there," Cayce hears herself say, "looking back at us. Trying to make sense of the fiction we will have become. And from where they are, the past behind us will look nothing at all like the past we imagine behind us now.