Emmet Fox Quotes

The false self lives mainly through memory and anticipation. Past and future are its main preoccupation.

The eternal life is given to those who live in the present.

And since the now is all there ever is in your life, your entire life unfolds as the present moment. People don't realize it, but all they ever have is "this". This moment.

It is no more possible to live in the future than it is to live in the past. If life is not now, it is never.

To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation.

The inability to live in the present lies in the fear of leaving the sheltered position of anticipation or memory, and so of admitting that this is the only life that one is ever likely (heavenly intervention aside) to live.

I teach you that there is no other aim than to live with such totality that each moment becomes a celebration. The very idea of "aim" brings future into the mind, because any aim, any end, any goal, needs future. All your goals deprive you of your present, which is the only reality you have. The future is only your imagination, and the past is just footprints left in the sands of your memory. Neither is the past real anymore, nor is the future real yet. This moment is the only reality.

The present moment is really all that we have. The only place you can really love another person is in the present. Love in the past is a memory. Love in the future is a fantasy. To be really alive, love - or any other experience - must take place in the present.

When you live completely in each moment, without expecting anything, you have no idea of time.

People don't realize that now is all there ever is; there is no past or future except as memory or anticipation in your mind.

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

The best way to prepare for any moment in the future is to be fully conscious in the present.

No matter what happens, it’s always now.

The power of now can only be realized now. It requires no time and effort. Effort means you're trying hard to get somewhere, and so you are not present, welcoming this moment as it is.

I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living now.

life is the moment we're living right now.

All you really have... is now.

Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day.

We all spend so much time worrying about the future that the present moment slips right out of our hands. And so all we have left is retrospection and anticipation, retrospection and anticipation. In which case what's left to recall but past anticipation? What's left to anticipate but future retrospection?

Drop the question of what tomorrow may bring, and count as profit every day that Fate allows you.

All that either of us has is right now and we should pay attention to that.

How we pay attention to the present moment...determin es the character of our experience and...the quality of our lives.

There's nothing in the future and there's nothing in the past. There is only this one moment, and you've got to make it last.

What will happen from now on? It doesn't matter. I can only focus on what's happening to me in this moment.