"Make each day your masterpiece." John Wooden

"In the hopes of reaching the moon, men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet." Albert Schweitzer

"Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present." 
John Green

"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life." William Faulkner

"Never let yesterday use up today." Richard H. Nelson

"What you are is what you have been, and what you will be is what you do now." Buddha

"Don't be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of." Charles Richards

"The past always looks better than it was; it's only pleasant because it isn't here." Finley Peter Dunne

"Across the centuries, we have this timeless medicine: Live directly, wait, and care for your soul as if it were the whole world." Mark Nepo

"The object of teaching a child is to enable the child to get along without the teacher. We need to educate our children for their future, not our past..." Arthur C. Clarke

"Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it." Thomas Merton

"Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present." Albert Camus

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for." 
Epicurus

"Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple." Keith Jarrett

"Give each day the chance to become the best one in your life" Mark Twain

"There will never be another now -
I'll make the most of today.
There will never be another me -
I'll make the most of myself." Helen Keller

"There are many things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand. But--and this is the point--who gets excited by a mere penny? If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go on your rueful way? It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get." Annie Dillard, from "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek."

"He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses." Horace

"If you have the opportunity to play this game of life you need to appreciate every moment. A lot of people don`t appreciate the moment until it's passed." Kanye West

"Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now -- always." Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)

"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 future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line." Henry David Thoreau, from the chapter "Economy" in Walden

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow." Mary Jean Irion

“Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it.” William Durant

"Gather ye rosebuds
while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower
that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying."
Robert Herrick

"Each moment is a place you've never been." Mark Strand

"The dogmas of the past are inadequate to the stormy present." Abraham Lincoln

“Eternity is not future or past. Eternity is the dimension of now. It is a dimension of the human sprit—which is eternal. Find that eternal dimension in yourself, and you will ride through time and throughout the whole length of your days.” Joseph Campbell

"Happiness...not in another place but this place, not for another hour but this hour." Walt Whitman

“I always knew that one day I would take this road but yesterday I did not know today would be the day.” Nagarjuna

“There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternally new now that builds and creates itself out of the Best as the past withdraws.” Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe ~1749-1832, German Poet, Dramatist, Novelist

“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.” Crowfoot, Native American warrior and orator (1821-1890)

“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.” Marcel Pagnol

“The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you.” Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)

“Enjoy the spring of love and youth, To some good angel leave the rest, For time will teach thee soon the truth, ‘There are no birds in last year's nest.’” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. You may enjoy doing it so much that you want to do it again.” Ross Perot

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” Buddha

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.” Thich Nhat Hahn

“Forever is composed of nows.” Emily Dickinson

“Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.” Chuang-tzu (369 BC - 286 BC)

“This is the precious present, regardless of what yesterday was like, regardless of what tomorrow may bring. When your inner eyes open, you can find immense beauty hidden within the inconsequential details of daily life. When your inner ears open, you can hear the subtle, lovely music of the universe everywhere you go. When the heart of your heart opens, you can take deep pleasure in the company of the people around you--family, friends, acquaintances, or strangers--including those whose characters are less than perfect, just as your character is less than perfect. When you are open to the beauty, mystery, and grandeur of ordinary existence, you "get it" that it always has been beautiful, mysterious, and grand and always will be. This is the precious present.” Timothy Ray Miller

“If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, this moment is the best moment of your life.” Zen proverb