Present moment quotes — Page 2

Ulysses, near the close of the poem.

“To His Coy Mistress,” posthumously published in Miscellaneous Poems (1681), represented by Representative Poetry Online. The poem is a dramatic seduction argument by a speaker, not neutral advice about consent, relationships or urgency.

“Before the Birth of One of Her Children,” represented by Poetry Foundation. The poem is a seventeenth-century farewell written in the historical context of maternal mortality; it is personal religious-era reflection rather than medical guidance about childbirth.

How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, “The Daily Miracle.” Bennett contrasts time with money and property while arguing that only the current flow of time can actually be wasted.

Poor Richard’s Almanack; the maxim connects the value of life directly with the use of time.

The Way to Wealth; a Poor Richard maxim on delay and useful employment of time.

Character Building, “The Highest Education,” Project Gutenberg #60484. Washington places appreciation of beauty in nature alongside truth, justice, generosity and service as outcomes of education; this sentence belongs to the later address identified here rather than the earlier education address.

Sketches by Boz, “Characters,” Chapter II, “A Christmas Dinner,” verified against Project Gutenberg #882 and the scan-backed 1836 Volume I transcription on Wikisource. “Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some” appears immediately after Dickens asks readers to look at their children and explicitly imagines an empty seat where a child has died. The sentence therefore places gratitude beside bereavement and remembered loss rather than denying grief; it is narrator prose, not modern clinical grief-treatment guidance.

“Spring,” Project Gutenberg #16950. This is a lyric reflection on transience, not a literal biological generalization about all life.

Cato on Old Age, Shuckburgh translation, in Cicero’s discussion of the distinctive advantages of each season of life.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 in the King James Version, opening the sequence of contrasting times and seasons.

“A Light Exists in Spring,” in Poems: Third Series (1896), represented through Project Gutenberg #12242. The Gutenberg text reproduces an early edited Dickinson edition, so punctuation and the editorial title are edition-specific rather than claimed as manuscript-final.

Poem 690; Dickinson builds the abstract idea of eternity from individual present moments.

Classical work; English wording varies by translation.

A concise clause from Enchiridion 8, where Epictetus contrasts demanding preferred outcomes with accepting what occurs.

Enchiridion 9; Epictetus uses illness to illustrate the distinction between external limits and the will.

Enchiridion, chapter 15; the following sentences explain waiting until things come round to you.

Enchiridion 5 in George Long’s translation; the passage distinguishes events from the opinions that disturb us.

Enchiridion, section 8; Epictetus applies Stoic acceptance to events outside personal control.

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

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

Soliloquies in England, “War Shrines”; the sentence follows a contrast between strained worldliness and a more festive acceptance of life.

“Spring and Fall: to a young child,” written in 1880 and published posthumously in 1918, represented by Poetry Foundation. Margaret is the poem’s addressed child; the meditation is literary and theological rather than a clinical account of grief development.

Optimism: An Essay (1903), Project Gutenberg #31622. Keller immediately goes on to reject optimism that ignores evil or suffering.

Amiel's Journal, entry dated April 28, 1852, in Mary Augusta Ward’s public-domain translation; Amiel counsels patience with the movement of feeling.

Walden, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.”

Walden, chapter “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.”

Walden, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.”

Walden, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.”

Walden, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.”

Walden, “Solitude”; Thoreau argues that physical aloneness need not amount to loneliness or lack of companionship.

Walden, “Economy”; wording lightly normalized from the surrounding sentence.

The Ambassadors, Book Fifth, Chapter II, Project Gutenberg #432. Strether tells little Bilham “Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to” during the Gloriani-garden conversation, speaking from regret about opportunities he believes he missed. James’s own Preface identifies this speech as central to the novel, but the line remains fictional character dialogue rather than James autobiography or universal life advice.

A Psalm of Life; the line follows the instruction to let the dead past bury its dead.

A Psalm of Life, in the stanza beginning “Trust no Future.”

Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, represented by Project Gutenberg #2184. The sentence belongs to Bird’s first-person travel-letter narration and records her own enjoyment during the journey; nineteenth-century travel and cultural observations elsewhere in the work remain historical testimony.

As a Man Thinketh, in the discussion of thought, health, and habit.

The Way of Peace; Allen contrasts inward spiritual independence with being carried along by the impulses and conflicts of the surrounding world.

Mark 11:25 in the King James Version; excerpt from the verse.

Pepacton, natural-history essay; Project Gutenberg #7441. Burroughs immediately illustrates the claim with an unexpected observation of eagles and later repeats the naturalist’s maxim “Watch and wait.”

Wake-Robin; Burroughs describes the anticipatory state created by close engagement with birds, seasons, and other natural signs.

Winter Sunshine, essay “The Exhilarations of the Road.” The sentence follows Burroughs’s comparison of winter walks in different directions and precedes his claim that all roads lead toward the walker’s sought-for Jerusalem.

“Ode on Melancholy,” in Keats: Poems Published in 1820; Project Gutenberg #23684. This is Romantic poetic imagery and not mental-health treatment advice.

On the Grasshopper and Cricket, opening line.

“To Autumn,” final stanza, in Keats: Poems Published in 1820; Project Gutenberg #23684. The line follows the question “Where are the songs of Spring?” and answers by valuing autumn’s own sounds.

My First Summer in the Sierra, June 13; the sentence follows his reflection on not hurrying like the trees and stars.

Our National Parks; Muir follows the invitation with an account of nature’s peace flowing into the observer, linking mountains with restoration and attention.

The Mountains of California, in a passage describing morning light on the mountains.

Travels in Alaska, mountain excursion near the Stickeen; Muir describes the effect of evening light after a strenuous day.

Travels in Alaska, same Stickeen excursion; the sentence follows Muir’s description of the world seeming newly born.

Thoughts on Various Subjects, c. 1713, Wikisource transcription. The aphorism is a satirical paradox about longevity and aging, not advice to fear or devalue old age.

Ecclesiastes 3:4 in the King James Version.

Matthew 6:34 in the King James Version; the opening sentence is quoted here.

Psalm 118:24 in the King James Version; the verse joins the present day with rejoicing and gratitude.

Psalm 46:10 in the King James Version; the verse places stillness and trust inside a psalm about turmoil and refuge.

Psalm 90:12 in the King James Version.

Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter V, “Wool and Water,” printed page 94 / scan leaf 114 in the fully validated 1872 Macmillan first-edition witness on Wikisource. The White Queen explains the impossible rule “jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day,” a linguistic joke about living backwards and “every other day.” It remains fictional nonsense logic rather than practical advice about delayed rewards.

Meditations, Book IV; George Long translation, in the reflection on meeting misfortune without being crushed by it.

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

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

Meditations, Book IV, section 17, in George Long’s translation.

Meditations, Book VII, section 27, George Long translation.

Meditations, Book IV, in George Long’s translation; this is the central clause of the retreat passage.

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

Meditations, Book VII, section 59, George Long translation in Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Letter VII; represented Cassell & Company 1889 text in Project Gutenberg #3529. “Thinking of death makes us tenderly cling to our affections” closes the same meditation on mortality and immediately becomes a personal assurance to the recipient of the letter. The line remains first-person epistolary reflection, not a universal clinical claim about bereavement or attachment.

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), “MORAL DISCIPLINE,” printed page 22, Project Gutenberg #67466. Wollstonecraft urges that a taste for the beauties of nature be cultivated early and immediately recommends making the vegetable and animal worlds intelligible and amusing to children.

Essays of Montaigne, Book III, Chapter XIII, “Of Experience,” Charles Cotton translation; Project Gutenberg Volume 19 #3599 / Complete Essays #3600. Montaigne argues that anticipatory fear can add suffering before the feared event arrives.

Cheerfulness as a Life Power, Foreword; Project Gutenberg #18394. Claims about health elsewhere in the book are period rhetoric and are not treated as modern medical evidence.

Psalm 118:24 in the King James Version.

Nature (first published 1836), Chapter VIII, “Prospects,” in James Munroe and Company’s 1849 new-edition witness represented by Project Gutenberg #29433. “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common” appears near the essay’s close during Emerson’s discussion of prayer, study, facts and ideas. This collection retains 1836 as first-publication year while the evidence layer identifies the reviewed 1849 witness; the sentence remains Transcendentalist philosophical rhetoric rather than an experimentally established measure of wisdom.

Field and Hedgerow, in the essay “Hours of Spring”; Project Gutenberg #7030. The book was collected posthumously by Jefferies’s widow, so individual essays may predate the 1889 volume.

Nature Near London, “Woodlands”; Project Gutenberg #18629. The recommendation is literary nature writing rooted in Jefferies’s local seasonal observation, not contemporary travel guidance.

Nature Near London, Preface, Project Gutenberg #18629. The represented witness reads 'First, as the spring began, came crowds of chiffchaffs and willow-wrens'; the frozen catalog excerpt begins with 'as the spring began' and therefore drops the introductory 'First,'. Jefferies is recording one local observational experience near London, explicitly warning later in the Preface that season, locality and weather vary; it is not a universal present-day phenology schedule.

The Story of My Heart (1883), Chapter III, Project Gutenberg #2317. The inherited Chapter I note is corrected: ‘It is eternity now’ occurs in Jefferies’s tumulus meditation after he writes that, recognising his inner consciousness / psyche, he cannot understand time. It is speculative spiritual autobiography and metaphysical-poetic reflection, not a scientific theory of time, physics or consciousness.

The Story of My Heart (1883), Chapter III, Project Gutenberg #2317. The inherited Chapter I note is corrected: ‘Now is eternity; now is the immortal life’ immediately follows the same tumulus passage in which Jefferies treats the present moment as continuous eternity. This is his personal metaphysical/spiritual intuition, not empirical evidence for immortality, neuroscience or clinical guidance.

“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” published in Hesperides in 1648. The poem’s later marriage exhortation reflects its seventeenth-century social setting; the opening image is retained as literary carpe-diem rhetoric, not universal relationship advice.

Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, “Cheylard and Luc,” Project Gutenberg #535. Stevenson follows the sentence by calling movement “the great affair” and describing the physical needs and difficulties of the road; it is literary travel reflection, not contemporary destination guidance.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 13, section 11, Richard M. Gummere translation.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 101.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 13, section 4, Richard M. Gummere translation.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 4.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 13, section 10, Richard M. Gummere translation.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 13, section 5, Richard M. Gummere translation.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 1, “On Saving Time,” Richard M. Gummere translation. The line follows Seneca’s advice to hold every hour and precedes his claim that nothing is truly ours except time.

Letter 104 argues that travel cannot by itself cure inward restlessness.

Letter 63 urges remembrance of a lost friend while continuing to participate in friendship and life.

Letter 63, on grief for lost friends, argues against both emotional numbness and endless mourning.

Of Peace of Mind, section XIV, Aubrey Stewart translation (1889), cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #64576 and Wikisource. Seneca turns attention away from external things toward the mind itself while discussing flexibility under changes of fortune; this is historical Stoic counsel, not modern clinical guidance.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter VIII; Seneca describes life continuing quietly regardless of power or applause.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter X; opening clause of Seneca’s description of the present as continuously moving.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter IX; Basore translation, in Seneca’s attack on indefinite delay and preparation for a future life.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter IX; Seneca describes people who stay busy preparing for a future life.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter II; opening claim before Seneca lists ways people become engrossed.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter IX; Seneca immediately qualifies his call to seize the day by emphasizing that time remains swift even when used well.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter III; Seneca asks an older person to reckon honestly with how time was spent.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter X; Seneca contrasts the small present with the recoverable memory of past days.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter III; Seneca criticizes reserving wisdom and leisure for very old age.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter III; Seneca’s imagined reckoning of an older person’s years.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter IX; follows Seneca’s contrast between what is in Fortune’s hands and what is presently one’s own.