Home › Quotes › Past & Memories Quotes

Past & Memories Quotes

Quotes about the past, memory and lessons learned. This hand-picked collection brings together 27 of the finest past & memories quotes ever written — from William Wordsworth, Anne Frank, Oscar Wilde and other great voices. Tap Copy on any quote to save or share it.

Life is divided into three terms — that which was, which is, and which will be.

— William Wordsworth

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it happening again.

— Anne Frank

The past is never dead. It's not even past.

Every Saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

— Oscar Wilde

I can't go back to yesterday — because I was a different person then.

— Lewis Carroll

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.

— Cicero

Let the past go. A simply abundant world awaits.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

— Albert Einstein

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

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.

— Jane Austen

You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.

— C. S. Lewis

What's done is done. What's gone is gone. One of life's lessons is always moving on.

Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.

— Haruki Murakami

The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future.

Grandmothers are voices of the past and role models of the present.

I am a part of all that I have met.

— Alfred Lord Tennyson

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

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.

— Marcus Aurelius

Let go of the past so the future can take your hand.

What is history? An echo of the past in the future; a reflex from the future on the past.

— Victor Hugo

The past is a stepping stone, not a milestone to rest on forever.

Study the past if you would divine the future.

— Confucius

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

— Søren Kierkegaard

Look not mournfully into the past, it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present, it is thine.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Related collections

💬 Comments

Have a favourite quote or wish to add, or a correction to suggest? Share it below — the best suggestions make this collection better for everyone.