Present moment quotes

“Autumn,” Poems: First Series (1890), Project Gutenberg #12242. The title and punctuation follow the represented early printed edition rather than a modern manuscript-based Dickinson edition.

Anne of Green Gables; Anne describes deliberate enjoyment as a practiced attitude toward experience.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 2.

“Spring,” in Goblin Market and Other Poems; Project Gutenberg #16950. The surrounding poem also stresses that spring passes and that spring-life is born to die.

The Power of Truth, “People Who Live in Air-Castles.” The line is a present-action argument within conduct-of-life writing, not a literal denial of memory, planning or future obligations.

The Wind in the Willows, Chapter I, “The River Bank,” Project Gutenberg #27805. Water Rat tells Mole that nothing is half so worth doing as messing about in boats during their first excursion, then immediately crashes into the bank while daydreaming. The line is enthusiastic comic fictional dialogue, not a universal prescription about leisure or life priorities.

Proverbs 4:23 in the King James Version.

My First Summer in the Sierra, June 13 journal entry.

The Prophet, “On Children”; Gibran contrasts parents’ memory of yesterday with children belonging to a life that moves forward.

Meditations, Book IV, section XL, Meric Casaubon translation represented by Project Gutenberg #2680. The promontory image recommends steadiness under repeated disturbance. The frozen catalog wording shortens the represented witness after “yet it”: Gutenberg reads “yet it both itself stands, and about it are those swelling waves stilled and quieted.” This remains translation-mediated Roman Stoic moral philosophy, not a modern clinical resilience finding.

Act 5, Scene 2.

The Renaissance, Conclusion; Project Gutenberg #2398. The statement belongs to Pater’s aesthetic account of how art affects lived moments.

Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.

“November,” in Poems: Second Series (1891), Project Gutenberg #12242. The passage is tied to the early edited collection and its editorial title.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 13, section 3, Richard M. Gummere translation.

Counsels and Maxims, T. Bailey Saunders translation, in a discussion of fortune and apparent stability.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter VIII; Seneca contrasts unnoticed busyness with death, the event for which everyone eventually has to make room.

The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, saying 43, D. Lyman Jr. translation (1856).

Meditations, Book II, section 5, George Long translation; this clause occurs inside a longer instruction about dignity and reason.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter III; Seneca challenges plans to begin living only after retirement from public duties.

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, quatrain LI in Edward FitzGerald’s English rendering, Project Gutenberg #246. The famous English wording is FitzGerald’s creative translation and adaptation, so the record does not present it as a literal English sentence written by the historical Omar Khayyam.

Psalm 105:3 in the King James Version; concluding clause of the verse.

“Margaritae Sorori,” represented by Wikisource. The poem is dated 1876 in collected-text traditions and was later gathered in Henley’s A Book of Verses (1888). It develops this serene evening scene into the speaker’s wish for an equally peaceful death; the single opening line is retained as nature imagery while the source note preserves the mortality context.

Meditations, Book IV, section 48 in George Long’s public-domain translation, Project Gutenberg #6920/#15877 tradition. The olive image follows a reflection on the shortness of life and frames gratitude as part of accepting mortality rather than denying loss.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 2.

Dhammapada 39, Max Müller translation; its religious vocabulary belongs to the text’s discipline of watchful thought and should not be reduced to a clinical claim about anxiety.

Essay “On Books and Reading”; Schopenhauer connects literary selection directly with limited time and strength.

Of Peace of Mind, section X, Aubrey Stewart translation (1889), cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #64576 and Wikisource. Seneca argues that voluntarily setting limits to success can interrupt the repeated alternation of hope and fear and prevent ambition from expanding without bounds.

Enchiridion, section VIII, George Long translation; the following clause advises wishing events to be as they are.

My First Summer in the Sierra, near the close of the summer journal.

Matthew 6:28, King James Version; Jesus points listeners to the lilies while discussing anxiety about clothing and material provision.

Poor Richard’s Almanack; the maxim connects disciplined use of working time with the ability to gain leisure.

Tao Teh King, chapter 16, James Legge translation; the following lines connect stillness with the recurring return of things to their root.

“Another Spring,” Project Gutenberg #16950. The stanza begins conditionally—'If I might see another Spring'—so the present-focused conclusion grows from mortality and uncertainty.

On the Shortness of Life, chapter IX.

The World I Live In (1908), Chapter I, “The Seeing Hand,” printed page 5, Project Gutenberg #27683. Keller calls the hand her “feeler” reaching through isolation and darkness to seize pleasure and activity, describing her own tactile engagement with the world rather than prescribing one universal sensory hierarchy.

Meditations, Book VIII, section 49, George Long translation.

Enchiridion 17; the longer passage compares human life with playing the role assigned in a drama.

“A Light Exists in Spring,” Poems: Third Series; Project Gutenberg #12242. The passage belongs to an early edited edition whose punctuation and poem headings differ from modern critical texts.

The World I Live In (1908), Chapter IX, “Inward Visions,” printed page 119, Project Gutenberg #27683. Keller says that the wonders of the universe are revealed in proportion to our capacity to receive them and immediately connects keenness of vision with feeling, love of nature and imaginative receptiveness.

Walden, chapter “The Pond in Winter”; the line joins the immediate natural world with spiritual wonder.

The Renaissance, Conclusion; Project Gutenberg #2398. The line follows an explicit meditation on life’s brevity and precedes Pater’s claims for art and passionate activity.

Enchiridion, section X, George Long translation; Epictetus gives examples such as endurance under pain and patience under abuse.

The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, saying XXVII, Hastings Crossley translation.

Out from the Heart; Allen uses the sentinel image while describing responsibility for guarding and ordering one’s thought.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter IX; Seneca describes the engrossed reaching old age unprepared because they failed to notice its daily approach.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter IX; sentence in Seneca’s criticism of distant plans that steal the present.

Paradise Lost (1667), Book I, line 254; retained legacy short extract from the fuller Satan sentence beginning ‘The mind is its own place’ and continuing into line 255. It is the same underlying passage as the longer catalog record, not a separate fifth passage.

“De Profundis I,” Project Gutenberg #3168. The passage belongs to one speaker's reflection on bereavement and seasonal return.

Meditations, Book IV, in George Long’s translation.