"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."
–– Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher
via: Commonplace Book 2024, 2025, p. 34.
"The seeds of the future are always planted in the past."
–– Deborah Levy (b. 1959), South African-born, British novelist, playwright, and poet.
Source: Deborah Levy. The Cost of Living: A Living Autobiography. Toronto, ON: Hamish Hamilton Canada, 2018; p. 145.
via: Commonplace Book 2022, 2022, p. 95.
"I sometimes hear about work described in terms of 'originality' or 'breakthrough,' but my personal experience is quite different. For me, music has always been about lineage. The past is reinvented and becomes the future. But the lineage is everything."
–– Philip Glass (b. 1937), American composer and musician
Source: Austin Kleon October 5, 2018.
via: Sketchbook 30, 2018, p. 67.
"Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming."
–– Alice Walker (b. 1944), American writer and activist
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
–– Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), American author, activist, diplomat, political figure, and First Lady.
via: Sketchbook 28, 2015, p. 42.
"... collage is all about recycling, reinterpretation and reprocessing of our collective past, present, and future."
–– James Gallagher, American collage artist, editor, publisher, and creative director
Source: Cutting Edges: Contemporary Collage, Preface, unpaginated.
via Sketchbook 16, 2011, p. 125
"We are all making the future every minute that we live, by way of our collective and individual decisions. If we think like that, everybody is a futurist."
–– Hazel Henderson (b. 1933), British writer, futurist, and economic iconoclast; quote from Massive Change by Bruce Mau.
via Sketchbook 7, 2009, p. 104
