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There are some places which, seen for the first time, yet seem to strike a chord of recollection. "I have been here before," we think to ourselves, "and this is one of my true homes." It is no mystery for those philosophers who hold that all which we shall see, with all which we have seen and are seeing, exists already in an eternal now; that all those places are home to us which in the pattern of our life are twisting, in past, present and future, tendrils of remembrance round our heart-strings.

— Edmund Clerihew Bentley Trent's Own Case (1936)

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More quotes by Edmund Clerihew Bentley

That is almost the definition of any friendship that is worthwhile — that we don't care a damn how you behave yourself.

Trent's Own Case (1936)

Is it a cosmic law, d'you think, that conceited men's hats are always too small?

Trent Intervenes (1938)

Trent read and re-read the pitiful message [a suicide note], so full of the awful egotism of grief.

Trent Intervenes (1938)

When their lordships asked Bacon How many bribes he had taken He had at least the grace To get very red in the face.

What I like about Clive
Is that he is no longer alive.
There is a great deal to be said
For being dead.

Clerihews: Biography for Beginners (1905)

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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: Edmund Clerihew Bentley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.