Echoes

There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment. Everyone lets the present moment slip by, then looks for it as though he thought it were somewhere else.

Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.

Thou oughtest in every deed and thought so to order thyself, as if thou wert to die this day.

It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.

In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

Now the time is most precious. Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.

Even as we speak, envious time is running away from us. Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in tomorrow.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.

I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.

What I urge is that you so learn to control the machinery as to live with 'day-tight compartments' as the most certain way to ensure safety on the voyage. Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out the dead yesterdays and the unborn to-morrows.

Do not, my soul, seek immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible.

Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past.

Arise, begin this very moment, and say, “Now is the time to do: now is the time to fight, now is the proper time for amendment.”

Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you're alive and able—be good.

Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.

Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.

Happy is the man who hath the hour of his death always before his eyes, and daily prepareth himself to die.

He who remembers the evils he has undergone, and those that have threatened him, and the slight causes that have changed him from one state to another, prepares himself in that way for future changes and for recognizing his condition. The life of Caesar has no more to show us than our own; an emperor's or an ordinary man's, it is still a life subject to all human accidents.

We face the future with our past and our present as guarantors of our promises; and we are content to stand or to fall by the record which we have made and are making.

External things are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.

...why did we wait for any thing? — why not seize the pleasure at once? — How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.

To-morrow's action! Can that hoary wisdom, Borne down with years, still doat upon tomorrow! That fatal mistress of the young, the lazy, The coward, and the fool, condemn'd to lose A useless life in waiting for to-morrow, To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow, Till interposing death destroys the prospect Strange! that this general fraud from day to day Should fill the world with wretches undetected. The soldier, labouring through a winter's march, Still sees to-morrow drest in robes of triumph; Still to the lover's long-expecting arms To-morrow brings the visionary bride. But thou, too old to hear another cheat, Learn, that the present hour alone is man's.

You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.

I am endeavouring to live every day as if it were a complete life.