Quotations about:
    yesterday


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rubaiyat 135.3-4Go, sit in the shade of the rose, for every rose
That springs from the earth, again to earth soon goes away!

Omar Khayyám (1048-1123) Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer [عمر خیام]
Rubáiyát [رباعیات], Bod. # 135, ll. 3-4 [tr. M. K. (1888)]
    (Source)

Alternate translations:

And look -- a thousand Blossoms with the Day
Woke -- and a thousand scatter'd into Clay
[tr. FitzGerald, 1st ed. (1859), # 8]

Morning a thousand Roses brings, you say;
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of yesterday?
[tr. FitzGerald, 2nd Ed (1868), # 9]

Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say:
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
[tr. FitzGerald, 3rd ed. (1872), # 9; same in later editions]

Sit in the shade of the rose, for many times this rose from earth has come, and unto earth has gone.
[tr. McCarthy (1879), # 463]

Sit we beneath this rose, which many a time
Has sunk to earth, and sprung from earth again.
[tr. Whinfield (1883), # 414]

Sit in the shade of the rose, for, by the wind, many roses
have been scattered to earth and have become dust.
[tr. Heron-Allen (1898), # 135]

Sit we 'neath this rose shade, for many a rose
Wind strewn in earth has turned to earth again!
[tr. Thompson (1906), # 522]

Sit in her fragrant bower, for oft the wind
Hath strewn and turn'd to dust such flowers as these.
[tr. Talbot (1908), # 135]

Rest in the shadow of the rose, for many of its leaves will the rose
Shed on the earth while we lie under the earth.
[tr. Rosen (1928), # 270]

Stay, Dearest One! beneath the rosy shade,
The roses bloom for Thee but soon would blight.
[tr. Tirtha (1941), # 3.7]

Sit in the rose's shadow, for oftentimes this rose shall spill upon the dust, when we are dust.
[tr. Bowen (1976), # 5a]

The Rosetree spills her petals in the dust,
And nothing of her fragrant harvest saves;
And yet this Rose, a plaything of the breeze,
Will bloom each year when we are in our graves.
[tr. Bowen (1976), # 5b]

 
Added on 21-Mar-24 | Last updated 21-Mar-24
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More quotes by Omar Khayyam

You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday dont count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else. You might think you could run away and change your name and I dont know what all. Start over. And then one mornin you wake up and look at the ceilin and guess who’s layin there?

Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023) American novelist, playwright, screenwriter
No Country for Old Men (2005)
    (Source)
 
Added on 10-Jan-24 | Last updated 10-Jan-24
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Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
(Spurious)

This widely spread inspirational quotation is actually a piecing-together of multiple phrases from different sources, some not even Emerson. It includes bits from his essay "Works and Days" (here and here), observations on Emerson by Lillian Whiting, and fragments from a letter by him to his daughter Ellen.

The result sounds much like Emerson, but would require more ellipses than text to qualify as a quotation of him. It would be a great candidate for an AI "quotation" except that references to it can be found back in the 2010s, so it is almost certainly of human origin.

More detailed discussion: poetry - From which book or essay are these words by Ralph Waldo Emerson? "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year..." - Literature Stack Exchange.
 
Added on 12-Jul-23 | Last updated 12-Jul-23
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procrastination is the
art of keeping
up with yesterday

Don Marquis (1878-1937) American journalist and humorist
archy and mehitabel, ch. 12 “certain maxims of archy” (1927)
    (Source)
 
Added on 28-Jul-21 | Last updated 28-Jul-21
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It isn’t good to hold on too hard to the past. You can’t spend your whole life looking back. Not even when you can’t see what lies ahead. All you can do is keep on keeping on, and try to believe that tomorrow will be what it should be — even if it isn’t what you expected.

Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Death Masks (2003)
 
Added on 12-Aug-14 | Last updated 12-Aug-14
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ULYSSES: Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honor bright. To have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion like a rusty mail
In monumental mock’ry.

Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Troilus and Cressida, Act 3, sc. 3, l. 153ff (3.3.153-158) (1602)
    (Source)
 
Added on 3-Feb-09 | Last updated 8-Feb-24
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The world goes up and the world goes down,
The sunshine follows the rain,
And yesterday’s sneer and yesterday’s frown
Can never come over again.

Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) English clergyman, historian, essayist, novelist (pseud. "Parson Lot")
“Dolcino to Margaret” (1851)
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 4-Sep-16
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