# Quotes about the future - Quotes: 17 - Authors: 12 - Broader topic: [Quotes about time](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time.md) - Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future ## Quotes > The future is merely a shadow which blocks out the joys of the present and emphasizes the miseries of the past. [Erica Jong](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong.md) · [How to Save Your Own Life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong/how-to-save-your-own-life.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong/how-to-save-your-own-life/the-future-is-merely.md) Topics: [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > It's only when you're forbidden to talk about the future that you suddenly realize how much the future normally occupies the present. [Erica Jong](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong.md) · [Fear of Flying](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong/fear-of-flying.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong/fear-of-flying/its-only-when.md) Topics: [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors. Reflections on the Revolution in France · p. 274 Topics: [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md), [the past](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past.md) > The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called “Keep to-morrow dark,” and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) “Cheat the Prophet.” The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun. > > For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the childish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have seen to be inevitable. [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [The Napoleon of Notting Hill](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/the-napoleon-of-notting-hill.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/the-napoleon-of-notting-hill/the-human-race.md) Topics: [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > This - this - was my life's work. My past - humanity's future. Foundation. So beatiful. So alive. And nothing can...Dors! [Isaac Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov.md) · [Forward the Foundation](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/forward-the-foundation.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/forward-the-foundation/this-this-was.md) Topics: [work](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/work.md), [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > “Ah, the future good!” Leebig’s eyes glowed with passion and he seemed to grow less conscious of his listener and correspondingly more talkative. “A simple concept, you think. How many human beings are willing to accept a trifling inconvenience for the sake of a large future good? How long does it take to train a child that what tastes good now means a stomach-ache later, and what tastes bad now will correct the stomach-ache later? Yet you want a robot to be able to understand?” [Isaac Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov.md) · [The Naked Sun](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/the-naked-sun.md) · p. 346 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/the-naked-sun/ah-the-future.md) Topics: [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > "Why, Stephen, if I am right, it means that the Machine is conducting our future for us not only simply in direct answer to our direct questions, but in general answer to the world situation and to human psychology as a whole. And to know that may make us unhappy and may hurt our pride. The Machine cannot, must not, make us unhappy. > > "Stephen, how do we know what the ultimate good of Humanity will entail? We haven't at our disposal the infinite factors that the Machine has at its! Perhaps, to give you a not unfamiliar example, our entire technical civilization has created more unhappiness and misery than it has removed. Perhaps an agrarian or pastoral civilization, with less culture and less people would be better. If so, the Machines must move in that direction, preferably without telling us, since in our ignorant prejudices we only know that what we are used to, is good—and we would then fight change. Or perhaps a complete urbanization, or a completely caste-ridden society, or complete anarchy, is the answer. We don't know. Only the Machines know, and they are going there and taking us with them." > > "But you are telling me, Susan, that the 'Society for Humanity' is right; and that Mankind has lost its own say in its future." > > "It never had any, really. It was always at the mercy of economic and sociological forces it did not understand—at the whims of climate, and the fortunes of war. Now the Machines understand them; and no one can stop them, since the Machines will deal with them as they are dealing with the Society,—having, as they do, the greatest of weapons at their disposal, the absolute control of our economy." > > "How horrible!" > > "Perhaps how wonderful! Think, that for all time, all conflicts are finally evitable. Only the Machines, from now on, are inevitable!" [Isaac Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov.md) · [I, Robot](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-robot.md) · p. 192 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-robot/why-stephen-if.md) Topics: [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > A single neutron begins the chain-reaction that in an instant can destroy a million lives and the toil of generations. Equally insignificant and unimportant are the trigger-events which can sometimes change a man’s course of action and so alter the whole pattern of his future. [Arthur C. Clarke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke.md) · [The Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke.md) · p. 181 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke/a-single-neutron.md) Topics: [change](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change.md), [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > The future is built on the rubble of the past; wisdom lies in facing that fact, not in fighting against it. [Arthur C. Clarke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke.md) · [The Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke.md) · p. 265 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke/the-future-is-built.md) Topics: [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md), [wisdom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/wisdom.md), [the past](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past.md) > I really do live for the future, because when I'm eating a box of candy, I can't wait to taste the last piece. I don't even taste any of the other pieces, I just want to finish and throw the box away and not have to have it on my mind any more. I would rather either have it now or know I'll never have it so I don't have to think about it. That's why some days I wish I were very very old-looking so I wouldn't have to think about getting old-looking. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol Topics: [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > He knew that henceforth, all his days would resemble one another, and bring him equal suffering. And he saw the weeks, months and years gloomily and implacably awaiting him, coming one after the other to fall upon him and gradually smother him. Thérèse Raquin Topics: [suffering](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suffering.md), [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > Now I want you clearly to understand that this lever, being pressed over, sends the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses the motion. This saddle represents the seat of a time traveler. Presently I am going to press the lever, and off the machine will go. It will vanish, pass into future time, and disappear. Have a good look at the thing. Look at the table too, and satisfy yourselves there is no trickery. I don't want to waste this model, and then be told I'm a quack. [H.G. Wells](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells.md) · [The Time Machine](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-time-machine.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-time-machine/now-i-want.md) Topics: [time](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time.md), [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > He, I know—for the question had been discussed among us long before the Time Machine was made—thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw in the growing pile of civilisation only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the end. If that is so, it remains for us to live as though it were not so. But to me the future is still black and blank—is a vast ignorance, lit at a few casual places by the memory of his story. And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers—shrivelled now, and brown and flat and brittle—to witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of man. [H.G. Wells](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells.md) · [The Time Machine](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-time-machine.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-time-machine/he-i-know-for.md) Topics: [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > [W]ith transportation, the zero-carbon future is basically this: Use electricity to run all the vehicles we can, and get cheap alternative fuels for the rest. In the first group are passenger cars and trucks, light and medium trucks, and buses. In the second group are long-distance trucks, trains, airplanes, and container ships. [Bill Gates](https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-gates.md) · [How to Avoid a Climate Disaster](https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-gates/how-to-avoid-a-climate-disaster.md) · p. 147 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-gates/how-to-avoid-a-climate-disaster/w-ith-transportation-the.md) Topics: [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > We're just beginning to scratch the surface of the capabilities of this incredible tool. Just as the people who were alive when the telephone was invented had no way of knowing that the new device would someday make it possible for virtually every person on Earth, regardless of physical location, to be interrupted at dinner, so are we fundamentally ignorant of the ways in which the computer will ultimately change our lives. We cannot see the future; we do not know what lies around the next bend on the Information Superhighway; we cannot predict where, ultimately, the Computer Revolution will take us. All we know for certain is that, when we finally get there, we don't have enough RAM. [Dave Barry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-barry.md) · [Dave Barry in Cyberspace](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-barry/dave-barry-in-cyberspace.md) · p. 209 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-barry/dave-barry-in-cyberspace/were-just-beginning.md) Topics: [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > Time enough to think of the future when you haven't any future to think of. [George Bernard Shaw](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw.md) · [Pygmalion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/pygmalion.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/pygmalion/time-enough-to-think.md) Topics: [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md) > I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place— then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement— and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice. [Charles Dickens](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens.md) · [A Tale of Two Cities](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens/a-tale-of-two-cities.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens/a-tale-of-two-cities/i-see-that-child.md) Topics: [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md)