Present Influence Quotes

A man's memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance with his present interests, and the most faithful autobiography is likely to mirror less what a man was than what he has become.

Ture stories can't be told forward, only backward. We invent them from the vantage point of an ever-changing present and tell ourselves how they unfolded.

...yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.

The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.

Every reminiscence is colored by the way things are today, and therefore by a delusive point of view.

It's funny how the present can change the past.

The past existed in multitudinous ways. You only experienced one probable past. By changing this past in your mind, now, in your present, you can change not only its nature but its effect, and not only upon yourself but upon others.

How real is any of the past, being every moment revalued to make the present possible.

We read the past by the light of the present, and the forms vary as the shadows fall, or as the point of vision alters.

My role models were the people in my life. My mom, for sure. My dad. The teachers. For me, role-modeling was immediate, it was touchable. It was rare for me to idolize a movie star or a singer...because, truly, children connect with who is in their lives, present and accounted for.

Modern reality has got such a hold on us that... when we attempt to reconstruct the ancient days in our thoughts...the minor events of our lives tear us away from our meditations, and... thrust us back into our personal [problems]

We tend to think of memories as monuments we once forged and may find intact beneath the weedy growth of years. But, in a real sense, memories are tied to and describe the present. Formed in an idiosyncratic way when they happened, they're also true to the moment of recall, including how you feel, all you've experienced, and new values, passions, and vulnerability. One never steps into the same stream of consciousness twice.