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I think that the present is worth attention, one shouldn't sacrifice it to future conceptions of, of this future or that future.
Tom Stoppard
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes the importance of focusing on the present rather than sacrificing it for uncertain future goals.

Tom Stoppard's quote highlights a philosophical perspective on time, suggesting that the present moment is valuable and should be prioritized. In a world often preoccupied with planning for the future, Stoppard reminds us that living in the now is crucial, as it is the only time we have complete control over.

Themes

PresentAttentionFutureTimePhilosophy

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech to encourage mindfulness and living in the moment.

More from Tom Stoppard

Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something which is very, very deep in us and is very easily obscured, and is also very easily denied, which is the instinct towards the other person, other than toward the self.
Tom StoppardRead
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
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I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory.
Tom StoppardRead
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time.
Tom StoppardRead
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
Tom StoppardRead
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.
Tom StoppardRead

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