If a man carefully examine his thoughts he will be surprised to find how much he lives in the future. His well-being is always ahead. Such a creature is probably immortal.
He spake of love, such love as spirits feel In worlds whose course is equable and pure; No fears to beat away, no strife to heal,- The past unsighed for, and the future sure.
What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is never anything to be gained - though the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.
Life is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future.
Cease to inquire what the future has in store, and to take as a gift whatever the day brings forth.
[Lat., Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere: et
Quem Fors dierum cunque dabit, lucro
Appone.]
PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance... The Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one - the knowledge and the dream.