Now

"Come writers and critics, Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide, The chance won't come again And don't speak too soon, For the wheel's still in spin And there's no tellin' who That it's namin' For the loser now Will be later to win... For the times they are a-changin'."

"The line it is drawn The curse it is cast The slow one now Will later be fast As the present now Will later be past The order is rapidly fadin’ And the first one now will later be last For the times they are a-changin’."

"In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's."

"Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still. Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death Pray for us now and at the hour of our death."

"The single Rose Is now the Garden Where all loves end."

"Now he had form and substance. He had become a personality, something they had filtered out of the system many decades ago. But there it was, and there he was, a very definitely imposing personality. In certain circles — middle-class circles — it was thought disgusting. Vulgar ostentation. Anarchistic. Shameful."

"Miles above the Earth we know, Fancy's rocket roars. Below, Here and Now are needles which Sew a pattern black as pitch, Waiting for the rocket's light."

"Now we have lit a candle to the power Of atoms; now we know we're heirs of light Itself..."

"Caught Beauty, held to light, now apes A good, now evil, thing — the shifting sign And spectrum of archaic, psychic shapes."

"Building your dream has to start now, There's no other road to take You won't make a mistake, I'll be guiding you."

"Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; and now I know it."

"Seize the time, Meribor. Live now. Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again."

"I create each hour’s newness by forgetting yesterday completely. Having been happy is never enough for me. I don’t believe in dead things. What’s the difference between no longer being and never having been?"

"I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again."

"I would like to offer one short poem you can recite from time to time, while breathing and smiling: Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is a wonderful moment."

"We tend to be alive in the future, not now. We say, "Wait until I finish school and get my Ph.D. degree, and then I will be really alive." When we have it, and it wasn't easy to get, we say to ourselves, "I have to wait until I have a job in order to be really alive." And then after the job, a car. After the car, a house. We are not capable of being alive in the present moment. We tend to postpone being alive to the future, the distant future, we don't know when. Now is not the moment to be alive. We may never be alive at all in our entire life. Therefore, the technique, if we have to speak of a technique, is to be in the present moment, to be aware that we are here and now, and the only moment to be alive is the present moment."

"The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now."

"The present moment contains past and future. The secret of transformation, is in the way we handle this very moment."

"The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other things sank blooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and listen."

"There are ways to really live in the present moment. What's the alternative? It is always now. However much you feel you may need to plan for the future, to anticipate it, to mitigate risks, the reality of your life is now. This may sound trite … but it's the truth. … As a matter of conscious experience, the reality of your life is always now. I think this is a liberating truth about the human mind. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand about your mind than that, if you want to be happy in this world. The past is a memory. It's a thought arising in the present. The future is merely anticipated, it is another thought arising now. What we truly have is this moment. And this. And we spend most of our lives forgetting this truth. Repudiating it. Fleeing it. Overlooking it. And the horror is that we succeed. We manage to never really connect with the present moment and find fulfillment there because we are continually hoping to become happy in the future, and the future never arrives."

"And if not now, when?"

"Time will bring to light whatever is hidden; it will cover up and conceal what is now shining in splendor."

"Now is the time for drinking, now the time to dance footloose upon the earth."

"The Pythagoreans called the monad "intellect" because they thought that intellect was akin to the One; for among the virtues, they likened the monad to moral wisdom; for what is correct is one. And they called it "being," "cause of truth," "simple," "paradigm," "order," "concord," "what is equal among the greater and the lesser," "the mean between intensity and slackness," "moderation in plurality," "the instant now in time," and moreover they call it "ship," "chariot," "friend," "life," "happiness.""

"The Godhead, according to Eckhart, is the universal and eternal Unity comprehending and transcending all diversity. "The Divine nature is Rest," he says in one of the German discourses; and in the Latin fragments we find: "God rests in Himself, and makes all things rest in Him." … The ideal world was not created in time; "the Father spake Himself and all the creatures in His Son"; "they exist in the eternal Now" —"a becoming without a becoming, change without change." "The Word of God the Father it the substance of all that exists, the life of all that lives, the principle and cause of life.""

"There are now many invisible people on stage."

"How keen in war your swords! But now 'tis wisdom's turn; Now let your rivals learn How keen can be your words."

"I could die right now, I'm just … happy. I've never felt that before. I'm just exactly where I want to be."

"I know now: I do not hope for anything. I do not fear anything, I have freed myself from both the mind and the heart, I have mounted much higher, I am free."

"All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart."

"Always thought that life was just a drag Now this daisy's got a brand new bag Hey world take a good look at me. 'Though I'm flying high as a kite, What turns me on is the sight of life, The grooviest trip of all — Best kick I've ever had, So tell me what's so bad about feeling good?"

"O! hearken well, for soon the song sings through And, would we hear it, we must hear it now. The bird of life is singing in the sun, Short is his song, nor only just begun,— A call, a trill, a rapture, then—so soon!— A silence, and the song is done—is done. Yea! what is man that deems himself divine? Man is a flagon, and his soul the wine; Man is a reed, his soul the sound therein; Man is a lantern, and his soul the shine. Would you be happy! hearken, then, the way: Heed not tomorrow, heed not yesterday; The magic words of life are here and now— O fools, that after some tomorrow stray!"

"Truly, if at one time it was difficult to become a Christian, I believe now it becomes more difficult year by year, because it has now become so easy to become one; there is a bit of competition only in becoming a speculative thinker. … The thesis that God has existed in human form, was born, grew up; is certainly the paradox in the strictest sense, the absolute paradox."

"Just as in the great moment of resignation one does not mediate but chooses, now the task is to gain proficiency in repeating the impassioned choice and, existing, to express it in existence."

"Consider now the token of the covenant which God gave to Noah. It was the rainbow. What is the rainbow? Sunlight turned back to our eye, through drops of falling rain. What sign could be more simple? And yet what sign could be more perfect? … Do not fear the clouds and storm and rain; look at the bow in the cloud, in the very rain itself. That is a sign that the sun, though you cannot see it, is shining still. That up above, beyond the cloud, is still sunlight, and warmth, and cloudless blue sky. Believe in God's covenant. Believe that the sun will conquer the clouds, warmth will conquer cold, calm will conquer storm, fair will conquer foul, light will conquer darkness, joy will conquer sorrow, life conquer death, love conquer destruction and the devouring floods; because God is light, God is love, God is life, God is peace and joy eternal and without change, and labours to give life, and joy, and peace, to man and beast and all created things. This was the meaning of the rainbow. Not a sudden or strange token, a miracle, as men call it, like as some voice out of the sky, or fiery comet, might have been; but a regular, orderly, and natural sign, to witness that God is a God of order."

"The present! it is but a drop from the sea In the mighty depths of eternity."

"Our religious friends argue much about heaven and hell and are terribly afraid of the latter indeed it would sometimes almost seem as though they were afraid of the former as well, from the manner in which they exert themselves to avoid going there. In the future no questions or disputes about these conditions will be possible, because man will see for himself that there is no hell, though he will also see very clearly that those who live an evil life are by that fact storing up for themselves very undesirable results and a very unpleasant time in the astral life. The glories of the heaven world will also be open to his sight, and he will realize that man needs only a development of faculty in order to place him at once, here and now, in the midst of all the bliss that that wondrous life can give."

"Whose knocking do I hear? It is you, fugitive! Now I shall tell you, You have been fleeing from Me with the same persistence you manifested before, when building My Abodes. You fled, attempting to hide yourself within the sanctuaries of the world’s temples. Behind the steps of thrones did you conceal yourself. Changing your appearance, you did secrete yourself beneath the folds of tents. You tried to lose yourself in earthly sounds of flute and strings. To where did you flee? Now you stand before Me, And I say: you have returned to Me, You have found My door. You saw how your mind had lost its light, how dispersed was your joy. And you now understand that the knocking one will be admitted. And the admitted one will be forgiven. And you have now found the better door, and have come, seeing the futility of your flight. And I will admit you who knock and say to you: I have preserved for you your joy. Take up your chalice, and work... You know now that flight is in vain. You stand there now, approaching the door, And your chalice awaits you. (338)"

"Now that I've met you, Would you object to Never seeing each other again?"

"Now Mercy says, speaking from her silence, stand in the sun. Breath the deep. Feel what can be!"

"Oh, Mercy — now I understand: The secret behind your actions, the thread that binds all these seemingly random events. … There's no great or small! No question of size or importance! Each act of compassion — however minor it may appear to our blind eyes — affects all Creation; shakes it to its roots!"

"The first thing necessary for a constructive dealing with time is to learn to live in the reality of the present moment. For psychologically speaking, this present moment is all we have. The past and future have meaning because they are part of the present: a past event has existence now because you are thinking of it at this present moment, or because it influences you so that you, as a living being in the present, are that much different. The future has reality because one can bring it into his mind in the present. Past was the present at one time, and the future will be the present at some coming moment. To try to live in the "when" of the future or the "then" of the past always involves an artificiality, a separating one's self from reality; for in actuality one exists in the present. The past has meaning as it lights up the present, and the future as it makes the present richer and more profound."

"If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future. So they are spared the guilt and anxiety that so torment human beings and they are full of the sheer joy of living, taking delight not so much in persons or things as in life itself. As long as your happiness is caused or sustained by something or someone outside of you, you are still in the land of the dead. The day you are happy for no reason whatsoever, the day you find yourself taking delight in everything and in nothing, you will know that you have found the land of unending joy called the kingdom."

"Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!"

"Now we will no longer concede so easily that anyone has the truth; the rigorous methods of inquiry have spread sufficient distrust and caution, so that we experience every man who represents opinions violently in word and deed as any enemy of our present culture, or at least as a backward person. And in fact, the fervor about having the truth counts very little today in relation to that other fervor, more gentle and silent, to be sure, for seeking the truth, a search that does not tire of learning afresh and testing anew."

"Once you were apes, yet even now man is more of an ape than any of the apes."

""Dead are all gods: now we want the overman to live" — on that great noon, let this be our last will."

"Ye are my believers: but of what account are all believers! Ye had not yet sought yourselves: then did ye find me. So do all believers; therefore all belief is of so little account. Now do I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when ye have all denied me, will I return unto you."

"We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another."

"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."