Alan Lightman Quotes about Past

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Most people have learned to live in the moment. The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past. And if the present has little effect on the future, present

Most people have learned to live in the moment. The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past. And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence. Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. ... It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning.

Alan Lightman

Learning, Past, Islands

The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in atime of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.

Alan Lightman

Pain, Past, Joy

Alan Lightman (2011). “Einstein's Dreams”, p.42, Vintage

It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning, each touch has no past or no future, each kiss is a kiss of immediacy.

Alan Lightman

Kissing, Past, World

Alan Lightman (2011). “Einstein's Dreams”, p.30, Vintage

Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free. Over time, some have determined that the only way to live is to die. In death, a man or a woman is free of the weight of the past [and the future].

Alan Lightman

Past, Men, Cost

Order is the law of nature, the universal trend, the cosmic direction. If time is an arrow, that arrow points toward order. The future is pattern, organization, union, intensification; the past, randomness, confusion, disintegration, dissipation.

Alan Lightman

Past, Order, Law

Alan Lightman (2011). “Einstein's Dreams”, p.44, Vintage

But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?

Alan Lightman

Past, Laughing, Patterns

Alan Lightman (2011). “Einstein's Dreams”, p.102, Vintage

Events, once happened, lose reality, alter with a glance, a storm, a night. In time, the past never happened. But who could know? Who could know that the past is not as solid as this instant.

Alan Lightman

Past, Night, Reality

Alan Lightman (2012). “Einstein's Dreams”, p.74, Hachette UK