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God contemplates Himself and all things in an Eternal Now that has neither beginning nor end.

— John Ruysbroeck The Spiritual Espousals (1340)

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More quotes by John Ruysbroeck

We behold that which we are, and we are that which we behold.

Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912)

Knowledge of ourselves teaches us whence we come, where we are, and whither we are going. We come from God, and we are in exile.

Ruysbroeck the Admirable (1925)

God in the depths of us receives God who comes to us: it is God contemplating God.

An Anthology of Mysticism and Mystical Philosophy (1927)

Then are we ravished out of self by purified Love, even to the Face of God, freed and emptied of every event and illusion. This is the contemplative life of highest price.

There their naked understanding is in penetrated with eternal clarity as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun.

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A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love (1973)

From now on, everything in life will appear blurry to me. What’s the point of wiping my glasses when my vision has already left me?"

Sanu Sharma

You can never plan the future by the past.

Edmund Burke A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.

Abraham Cowley Poems (1656)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Ruysbroeck (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.