35 Present Moment Quotes

In the fast-paced world we live in, it's easy to get caught up in the rush and forget the beauty of the present moment. Embracing the "now" isn't just a philosophical concept—it's a practice that can bring peace, clarity, and a deeper connection to our daily lives. We've curated a collection of the top 35 Present Moment Quotes to inspire you to pause, breathe, and appreciate the wonders of today. Whether you're seeking mindfulness or simply a dose of inspiration, these quotes will remind you that the present is a gift waiting to be unwrapped.

1. “The future depends on what you do today.” - Mahatma Gandhi

2. “The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.” - Nikola Tesla

3. “The 'what should be' never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no 'what should be,' there is only what is.” - Lenny Bruce

4. “Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” - Albert Einstein

5. “destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time, which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which [God] has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity or with the Present--either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.” - C.S. Lewis

6. “Few of us ever live in the present. We are forever anticipating what is to come or remembering what has gone.” - Louis L'Amour

7. “Shall we never never get rid of this Past? ... It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body.” - Nathaniel Hawthorne

8. “The future cannot be determined. I can only be experienced as it is occurring. Life doesn't know what it will be until it notices what it has become.” - Margaret J. Wheatley

9. “Your dream is a reality that is waiting for you to materialize. Today is a new day! Don’t let your history interfere with your destiny! Learn from your past so that it can empower your present and propel you to greatness” - Steve Maraboli

10. “She needs a new journal. The one she has is problematic. To get to the present, she needs to page through the past, and when she does, she remembers things, and her new journal entries become, for the most part, reactions to the days she regrets, wants to correct, rewrite.” - Dave Eggers

11. “He [Abram] believes that the PRESENT is the only real thing and everything else is an illusiona distraction” - Jennifer DeLucy

12. “Future indifferences is no consolation for present pain.” - Mary Balogh

13. “Future warns us through current symptoms in nature.” - Toba Beta

14. “I don't want a future, I want a present. To me this appears of greater value. You have a future only when you have no present, and when you have a present, you forget to even think about the future.” - Robert Walser

15. “The past, present, and future, were all equally in gloom.” - Jane Austen

16. “Basically, if the mind stays in the present, it’s impossible to worry. Upon careful consideration, it becomes clear that human beings are capable of worrying only about an event that has already transpired or one that may take place in the future (although the occurrence might have just happened or may be about to happen in the next instant). The present moment contains no time or space for worry.” - H.E. Davey

17. “But now, I know, how absence can be present, like a damaged nerve, like a dark bird.” - Audrey Niffenegger

18. “Because maybe Watonka was only ever supposed to be a temporary stopover, and maybe I will chase that train over the hill, and maybe we're all destined to leave this place, for sure, for real, together or alone. But for right now, we're here.” - Sarah Ockler

19. “In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature.” - Henry David Thoreau

20. “Appreciate the lessons of the past and enjoy the newness of the future, yet remember the present is today.” - Annette Thomas

21. “The past always seems better when you look back on it than it did at the time. And the present never looks as good as it will in the future.” - Peter Benchley

22. “Indeed, the future is signalled in the past, but time has to pass to see it. Art is the witness.BLOG post-Perpetual Beginning-November 14 2011” - Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox

23. “Ideas define us, our past, our present, and most importantly, our future.” - P.W. Cross

24. “Everybody's trying to make every minute of the present last forever. Preserve every second.” - Chuck Palahniuk

25. “[T]he concern of man is not his future but his present, not the world but his soul. We must be just, we must strive, we must engage ourselves with the business of the world for our own sake, because through that, and through contemplation in equal measure, our soul is purified and brought closer to the divine. ... Thought and deed conjoined are crucial. ... The attempt must be made; the outcome is irrelevant. Right action is a pale material reflection of the divine, but reflection it is, nonetheless. Define your goal and exert reason to accomplish it by virtuous action; successs or failure is secondary.” - Iain Pears

26. “In the past, I always used to be looking for answers. Today, I know there are only questions. So I just live.” - Sarah Brightman

27. “No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” - Gautama Buddha

28. “The danger of restorative nostalgia lies in its belief that the mutilated 'wholeness' of the body politic can be repaired. But the reflective nostalgic understands deep down that loss is irrecoverable: Time wounds all wholes. To exist in Time is to suffer through an endless exile, a successive severing from those precious few moments of feeling at home in the world. In pop terms, Morrissey is the supreme poet of reflective nostalgia.” - Simon Reynolds

29. “A book is a wonderful present. Though it may grow worn, it will never grow old.” - Jane Yolen

30. “True stories can't be told forward, only backward. We invent them from the vantage point of an ever-changing present and tell ourselves how they unfolded.” - Siri Hustvedt

31. “Never look back; you may only find what you left or let you go.” - Stefanos Livos

32. “When one was full of energy and enthusiasm the world was an apple, the future was way beyond the horizon and only the present was pertinent.” - Jeff Tikari

33. “In the West we cling to the past like limpets. In Haiti the present is the axis of all life. As in Africa, past and future are but distant measures of the present, and memories are as meaningless as promises.” - Wade Davis

34. “What right does my present have to speak of my past? Has my present some advantage over my past? What "grace" might have enlightened me? except that of passing time, or of a good cause, encountered on my way?” - Roland Barthes

35. “Of an artistic temperament, I deny that I am; yet I must possess something of the artist's faculty of making the most of present pleasure.” - Charlotte Brontë