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The doctrine of the Second Coming has failed, so far as we are concerned, if it does not make us realize that at every moment of every year in our lives Donne's question "What if this present were the world's last night?" is equally relevant.

 

C. S. Lewis

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The first thing necessary for a constructive dealing with time is to learn to live in the reality of the present moment. For psychologically speaking, this present moment is all we have. The past and future have meaning because they are part of the present: a past event has existence now because you are thinking of it at this present moment, or because it influences you so that you, as a living being in the present, are that much different. The future has reality because one can bring it into his mind in the present. Past was the present at one time, and the future will be the present at some coming moment. To try to live in the "when" of the future or the "then" of the past always involves an artificiality, a separating one's self from reality; for in actuality one exists in the present. The past has meaning as it lights up the present, and the future as it makes the present richer and more profound.

 

Rollo May

 

In Paris a queer little man you may see,
A little man all in gray;
Rosy and round as an apple is he,
Content with the present whate'er it may be,
While from care and from cash he is equally free,
And merry both night and day!
"Ma foi! I laugh at the world." says he,
"I laugh at the world, and the world laughs at me!"
What a gay little man in gray.

 

Pierre-Jean de Beranger

 

I love the fact that I grew up in Sterling, I really do. Because when you're growing up in a nondescript, soulless, boring town, you've been given a present from God. And the present is: The Test of the Small Town. And you pass that test when you go, "I'm leaving before I kill everyone and then myself." That's when you pass. You have passed. You fail when you go, "I'll get a job at the Citgo and fill my truck up for free!" Ooops, you f**ked up. And the person who administers your test, year after year, until you can't take it any more until you can't take it and you leave, is the movie critic on the local news. That's the guy whose job it is to keep everything relevant and cool and important away from you. You have to get off your ass and go find it on your own initiative.

 

Patton Oswalt

 

They will ask: "Who gave you the Teaching?"
Answer: "The Mahatma of the East."
They will ask: "Where does He live?"
Answer: "The abode of the Teacher not only cannot be made known but cannot even be uttered. Your question shows how far you are from the understanding of the Teaching. Even humanly you must realize how wrong your question is."
They will ask: "When can I be useful?"
Answer: "From this hour unto eternity."
"When should I prepare myself for labor?"
"Lose not an hour!"
"And when will the call come?"
"Even sleep vigilantly."
"How shall I work until this hour?"
"Enhancing the quality of labor."

 

Nicholas Roerich

 

Thinking of the stars night after night I begin to realize "The stars are words" and all the innumerable worlds in the Milky Way are words, and so is this world too. And I realize that no matter where I am, whether in a little room full of thought, or in this endless universe of stars and mountains, it's all in my mind.

 

Jack Kerouac