Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them; it is destiny which makes them prudent.
—Voltaire, 1764Quotes
The future, like everything else, is no longer quite what it used to be.
—Paul Valéry, 1931I’ve seen the future, brother; it is murder.
—Leonard Cohen, 1992Time will reveal everything. It is a babbler and speaks even when not asked.
—Euripides, c. 425 BCThe future is no more uncertain than the present.
—Walt Whitman, 1856The world began without man, and it will end without him.
—Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1955The future comes like an unwelcome guest.
—Edmund Gosse, 1873Not a change for the better in our human housekeeping has ever taken place that wise and good men have not opposed it—have not prophesied that the world would wake up to find its throat cut in consequence.
—James Russell Lowell, 1884Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.
—Albert Camus, 1951I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1816Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
—William Jennings Bryan, 1899He alone who owns the youth gains the future.
—Adolf Hitler, 1935Tomorrow never comes, man. It’s all the same fucking day.
—Janis Joplin, 1972