Dwelling on the Past Quotes

Dwelling in the past prevents doing something in the present.

Going back to the past is not productive.

People who think about the past have no future.

Our suffering is caused by holding on to how things might have been, should have been, could have been.

We consume our tomorrows fretting about our yesterdays.

There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled?

Some there are that torment themselves afresh with the memory of what is past; others, again, afflict themselves with the apprehension of evils to come; and very ridiculously both - for the one does not now concern us, and the other not yet ... One should count each day as a separate life.

I'm terribly nostalgic, but I'm with the Elizabethans who thought nostalgia was a disease. It's a dangerous place to be because you can get caught up in it.

The un-happiest of mortals is that man who insists upon reliving the past, over and over in imagination - continually criticizing himself for past mistakes - continually condemning himself for past sins.

But her brain was not interested in the future. Loaded with the past and hungry for more, it left her no room to imagine, let alone plan for, the next day.

If I were to sit around and think about all the things that were said about Live, I'd never get anything done.

For women live much more in the past...they attach themselves to places.

I tend to live in the past because most of my life is there.

The memory is perpetually looking back when we have nothing present to entertain us. It is like those repositories in animals that are filled with food, on which they may ruminate when their present pastures fail.

Do not brood. It makes the moment you are living in unavailable for learning and life.

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

The malcontent is neither well, full nor fasting; and though he abounds with complaints, yet nothing dislikes him but the present; for what he condemns while it was, once passed, he magnifies and strives to recall it out of the jaw of time. What he hath he seeth not, his eyes are so taken up with what he wants; and what he sees he careth not for, because be cares so much for that which is not.

That parasite: the past.

I didn't much like it, this grudge-holding against the past.

I putter. I nurse old grudges. I fold origami while nursing old grudges. I think about the past. I wonder if there’s any grudges I should start.

Whenever any argument comes up, you remind her, "You cheated on me." Your relationship has no chance. You agreed to set it aside. You accepted that it happened and you accepted her explanation and you agreed to move forward, but then as you move forward, you continue to lay that off on her, and you never let her forget. Your marriage doesn't have a chance, if you don't let it go.

We often live in the past a lot more than we probably realize.

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

It's a waste of time to think about what I should have done and what I didn't. I really believe in that. That's how I react to the if-onlys of life. To moan and groan about something I shouldn't have done, could have done, might have done...who knows? It is what it is. You got what you got. I live my life one day at a time.

Events have moved on, yet some people still keep talking about the past.