past (n.)

past (v.)

past (adv.)

past (adj.)

Iago. What, are you hurt, lieutenant?

Cas. Ay, past all surgery.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.

Past and to come seems best; things present worst.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 3.

We will not anticipate the past; so mind, young people,—our retrospection will be all to the future.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816): The Rivals. Act iv. Sc. 2.

I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston and Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever.

Daniel Webster (1782-1852): Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. P. 317.

'T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things might certainly conclude as to both the future and the past.

Michael De Montaigne (1533-1592): Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.

But how carve way i' the life that lies before,

If bent on groaning ever for the past?

Robert Browning (1812-1890): Balaustion's Adventure.

Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): The Cathedral.

Not heaven itself upon the past has power;

But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Imitation of Horace. Book iii. Ode 29, Line 71.

What's gone and what's past help

Should be past grief.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Winter's Tale. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Reparation for our rights at home, and security against the like future violations.

William Pitt, Earl Of Chatham (1708-1778): Letter to the Earl of Shelburne, Sept. 29, 1770.

Remember that man's life lies all within this present, as 't were but a hair's-breadth of time; as for the rest, the past is gone, the future yet unseen. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 a d): Meditations. iii. 10.

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894): The Chambered Nautilus.

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act, act in the living present!

Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): A Psalm of Life.

They say miracles are past.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): All's Well that Ends Well. Act ii. Sc. 3.

For a man can lose neither the past nor the future; for how can one take from him that which is not his? So remember these two points: first, that each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle, and that it signifies not whether a man shall look upon the same things for a hundred years or two hundred, or for an infinity of time; second, that the longest lived and the shortest lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 a d): Meditations. ii. 14.

You can never plan the future by the past.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797): Letter to a Member of the National Assembly. Vol. iv. p. 55.

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,

But an eternal now does always last.

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667): Davideis. Book i. Line 25.

For you and I are past our dancing days.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 5.

Confess yourself to heaven;

Repent what's past; avoid what is to come.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.

This is the place. Stand still, my steed,—

Let me review the scene,

And summon from the shadowy past

The forms that once have been.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): A Gleam of Sunshine.

The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): All's Well that Ends Well. Act v. Sc. 3.

His head,

Not yet by time completely silver'd o'er,

Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,

But strong for service still, and unimpair'd.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 702.

If there be, or ever were, one such,

It's past the size of dreaming.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Antony and Cleopatra. Act v. Sc. 2.

I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iv. Sc. 1.

He spake of love, such love as spirits feel

In worlds whose course is equable and pure;

No fears to beat away, no strife to heal,—

The past unsighed for, and the future sure.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Laodamia.

In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time: the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881): Heroes and Hero-Worship. The Hero as a Man of Letters.

Tho' lost to sight, to mem'ry dear

Thou ever wilt remain;

One only hope my heart can cheer,—

The hope to meet again.

Oh fondly on the past I dwell,

And oft recall those hours

When, wand'ring down the shady dell,

We gathered the wild-flowers.

Yes, life then seem'd one pure delight,

Tho' now each spot looks drear;

Yet tho' thy smile be lost to sight,

To mem'ry thou art dear.

Oft in the tranquil hour of night,

When stars illume the sky,

I gaze upon each orb of light,

And wish that thou wert by.

I think upon that happy time,

That time so fondly lov'd,

When last we heard the sweet bells chime,

As thro' the fields we rov'd.