Present Quotes

Many claim I am a photographer of tragedy. In the greater sense I am not, for though I often photograph where the tragic emotion is present, the result is almost invariably affirmative.

W. Eugene Smith
- Present
Yet sometimes glimpses on my sight,Through present wrong the eternal right;And, step by step, since time began,I see the steady gain of man;

John Greenleaf Whittier
- Time
- Present

We can never really touch the present because as soon as it is here, it is gone.

Ernesto Neto
- Present
- Never
- Touch
One can mistrust one's own senses, but not one's own belief. If there were a verb meaning 'to believe falsely,' it would not have any significant first person, present indicative.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Believe
- Present
China has existed within very roughly its present borders for over two millennia and for virtually the whole of that period saw itself as a 'civilisation state.' It was only when it was too weak to resist the western powers in the early 20th century that it finally acquiesced in an arrangement that was alien to it.

Martin Jacques
- Present
- Period
- Alien
Even places that have been shrouded in darkness for billions of years can be illuminated. Even a stone from the bottom of a river can be used to produce fire. Our present sufferings, no matter how dark, have certainly not continued for billions of years--nor will they linger forever. The sun will definitely rise. In fact, its ascent has already begun.

Daisaku Ikeda
- Dark
- Forever
- Years
The new vulcanism is really a daring attempt to connect the present, incomprehensible world to a past, unknown one.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- World
- Present
- Vulcanism
It may be said of many palaeontologists, as Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper said recently of 18th century historians: "Their most serious error was to measure the past by the present".

D. V. Ager
- May
- Science
- Past