PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present part… - Ambrose Bierce
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PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one — the knowledge and the dream.
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – date of death uncertain; probably late 1912 or early 1914) was an American satirist, critic, short story writer, editor and journalist. He is perhaps most famous for his serialized mock lexicon, The Devil's Dictionary, in which, over the years, he scathed American culture and accepted wisdom by pointing out alternate, more practical definitions for common words.
Biography information from
Wikiquote·
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, John Herbert Evelyn Partington (Public domain / CC0)
Enthusiasm, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
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The palmist looks at the wrinkles made by closing the hand and says they signify character. The philosopher reads character by what the hand most loves to close upon.
