Reflecting on the Past Quotes

The good old days are now.

Regrets are illuminations come too late.

One of the reasons for going back into the past is that it's almost the only place that there's any drama.

I don't think of myself as a particularly nostalgic person.

I ordered a coffee and a little something to eat and savored the warmth and dryness. Somewhere in the background Nat King Cole sang a perky tune. I watched the rain beat down on the road outside and told myself that one day this would be twenty years ago.

All of us benefit from remembering our past. A people which remembers does not repeat past errors; instead, it looks with confidence to the challenges of the present and the future.

For the majority of us, the past is a regret, the future an experiment

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.

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Maybe it’s sad that these are now memories. And maybe it’s not sad.

...The silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.

When it's all over, it'll seem like a dream.

I haven't collected memorabilia. I am not a person who lives in the past.

Human life, old and young, takes place between hope and remembrance. The young man sees all the gates to his desires open, and the old man remembers--his hopes.

I was really inspired by keeping alive these things of my childhood.

What does it remember like?

Cassandra wondered at the mind's cruel ability to toss up flecks of the past. Why, as she neared her life's end, her grandmother's head should ring with the voices of people long since gone. Was it always this way? Did those with passage booked on death's silent ship always scan the dock for faces of the long-departed?

The retrospective glance is a relatively easy gesture for us to make.

One of the saddest things in life, is the things one remembers.

The trouble with class reunions is that old flames have become even older.

I want to look back. To look over my shoulder and see the Stop sign with huge reflective letters, pleading with Hannah. Stop!

It was such a whirlwind for us for about three to four years there that, every time we turned around, we were pulled in 90 different directions, and I look back on that now, and they're such wonderful memories, but you kinda wish that you would've taken the time to savor them a little bit more.

I never went to high school reunions. My thing is, out of sight, out of mind. That's my attitude toward life. So I don't have any romanticism about any part of my past.

How sweet to remember the trouble that is past.

It's a pleasure to share one's memories. Everything remembered is dear, endearing, touching, precious. At least the past is safe though we didn't know it at the time. We know it now. Because it's in the past; because we have survived.