Top 100 Past Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.”

— Thomas S. Monson

2. “Never regret your past. Rather, embrace it as the teacher that it is.”

— Robin S. Sharma

Also featured in: Positive Life Quotes, Reflection Quotes, Growth Quotes, Beautiful Quotes

3. “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”

— Warren Buffett

Also featured in: Famous Quotes, Inspirational Business Quotes, Decision-Making Quotes

4. “What’s done cannot be undone.”

— William Shakespeare

Also featured in: Famous Quotes, Fiction Quotes, Quality Quotes

5. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Also featured in: Interesting Quotes, Fiction Quotes, Meaningful Quotes, Sad Quotes, Beautiful Quotes

6. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”

— Steve Jobs

Also featured in: Short Motivational Quotes, Inspirational Business Quotes, Friday Inspirational Quotes

7. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Also featured in: Courage Quotes, Famous Quotes, Short Inspiring Quotes, Motivational Monday Quotes, Important Quotes

8. “Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting.”

— Haruki Murakami

Also featured in: Time Quotes, Depressing Quotes, Sad Quotes

9. “This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

— Neil Armstrong

Also featured in: Famous Quotes, Science Quotes, Quotes About Humanity, Powerful Quotes, Important Quotes

10. “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”

— George Orwell

Also featured in: Thought Provoking Quotes, Government Quotes

11. “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

— George Santayana

Also featured in: Short Quotes, Meaningful Quotes, Smart Quotes, History Quotes

12. “Music is a total constant. That’s why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in your or the world, that one song says the same, just like that moment.”

— Sarah Dessen

Also featured in: Music Quotes, Emotional Quotes, Artist Quotes, Quotes About Songs

13. “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading. How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book.”

— Jane Austen

Also featured in: Quotes About Books And Reading, Interesting Quotes, Quality Quotes, Smart Quotes, Culture Quotes

14. “No man is rich enough to buy back his past.”

— Oscar Wilde

Also featured in: Reflection Quotes, Broken Heart Quotes, Regret Quotes

15. “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

Also featured in: Famous Quotes, Poetry Quotes, Legacy Quotes, Greatness Quotes, Powerful Quotes

16. “The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”

— Thomas Paine

Also featured in: Wisdom Quotes, Positive Short Quotes, Kindness Quotes, Quotes About Humanity, Philosophy Quotes

17. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

— Jane Austen

Also featured in: Relationship Quotes, Fiction Quotes, Character Quotes, Witty Quotes

18. “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Also featured in: Changing the World Quotes, Wise Quotes, Freedom Quotes

19. “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

Also featured in: Emotional Quotes, Sorrow Quotes, Sadness Quotes, Regret Quotes

20. “Sport is a preserver of health.”

— Hippocrates

Also featured in: Feel Better Quotes, Sports Quotes, Healing Quotes, Exercise Quotes

21. “Don't let yesterday take up too much of today.”

— John Wooden

Also featured in: Time Quotes, Motivational Quotes for Success, Positive Life Quotes, Positive Motivational Quotes

22. “I am Cyrus, king of the world...”

— Cyrus the Great

Also featured in: Greatness Quotes, Epic Quotes, History Quotes, Quotes About the World

23. “You can’t move forward until you look back.”

— Cornel West

Also featured in: Reflection Quotes

24. “Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.”

— L.M. Montgomery

Also featured in: Sweet Quotes, Reflection Quotes, Making Memories Quotes

25. “The world has changed. I see it in the water. I feel it in the Earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, For none now live who remember it.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

Also featured in: Loss Quotes

26. “Things without all remedy should be without regard: what’s done is done.”

— William Shakespeare

Also featured in: Different Quotes

27. “Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.”

— Ray Bradbury

Also featured in: Knowledge Quotes, Book Quotes, Reading Quotes

28. “Experience is the teacher of all things.”

— Julius Caesar

Also featured in: Experience Quotes

29. “There are places I’ll remember All my life though some have changed Some forever not for better Some have gone and some remain All these places have their moments With lovers and friends I still can recall Some are dead and some are living In my life I’ve loved them all.”

— John Lennon

Also featured in: Music Quotes, Emotion Quotes, Friendship Quotes, Love You Quotes

30. “I may not be the man I want to be; I may not be the man I ought to be; I may not be the man I could be; I may not be the man I truly can be; but praise God, I’m not the man I once was.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

Also featured in: Christian Motivational Quotes, Transformation Quotes, Self-Worth Quotes, Moving Quotes

31. “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

Also featured in: Military Quotes, Greatness Quotes, Being Strong Quotes

32. “I may not be where I want to be, but thank God I am not where I used to be.”

— Joyce Meyer

Also featured in: Christian Motivational Quotes, Moving On Quotes, Grateful Quotes, Progress Quotes

33. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Also featured in: Epic Quotes, Government Quotes

34. “I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.”

— Ed Helms

35. “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”

— Winston Churchill

Also featured in: Experience Quotes

36. “In order to move forward, you have to look back.”

— Matt Maher

37. “Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.”

— Bob Dylan

Also featured in: Making Memories Quotes, Quotes About Memories

38. “What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

Also featured in: Recovery Quotes, Resilience Quotes, Survival Quotes

39. “People must know the past to understand the present and to face the future.”

— Nellie L. McClung

40. “You can hide memories, but you can’t erase the history that produced them.”

— Haruki Murakami

41. “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

— William Faulkner

Also featured in: Fiction Quotes, History Quotes

42. “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”

— Omar Khayyam

Also featured in: Time Quotes, Moving On Quotes, Sad Quotes, Destiny Quotes

43. “It is important that we know where we come from, because if you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong.”

— Terry Pratchett

44. “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s words await another voice.”

— T. S. Eliot

45. “The past cannot survive in your presence. It can only survive in your absence.”

— Eckhart Tolle

Also featured in: Mindfulness Quotes

46. “Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.”

— Steve Maraboli

Also featured in: Toxic People Quotes

47. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

— Genesis 1:1

Also featured in: Scripture Quotes, Sunday Quotes, New Beginnings Quotes, Faith Quotes, Universe Quotes

48. “In order to see where we are going, we not only must remember where we have been, but we must understand where we have been.”

— Ella Baker

49. “Childhood memories are sometimes covered and obscured beneath the things that come later, like childhood toys forgotten at the bottom of a crammed adult closet, but they are never lost for good.”

— Neil Gaiman

Also featured in: Growing Up Quotes, Quotes About Childhood, Making Memories Quotes

50. “History never really says goodbye. History says, see you later.”

— Eduardo Galeano