The past is the present is the future

[Pi]

I'm looking for the autor of this sentence. I think it's Milton - Paradise Lost. But I'm not sure. Maybe somebody could help me?

[Beestie]

Best I could do...

I see the Fourfold Man; the Humanity in deadly sleep, / And its fallen Emanation, the Spectre and its cruel Shadow. / I see the Past, Present, and Future existing all at once / Before me.

by William Blake

[russotto]

Originally Posted by Pi

I'm looking for the autor of this sentence. I think it's Milton - Paradise Lost. But I'm not sure. Maybe somebody could help me?

Eric "George Orwell" Blair used a variant of it in _1984_. "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." But I believe it's older than that.

Milton expressed the opposite sentiment:

"As yet this world was not, and Chaos wilde
Reignd where these Heav'ns now rowl, where Earth now rests
Upon her Center pois'd, when on a day
(For Time, though in Eternitie, appli'd
To motion, measures all things durable
By present, past, and future) "

[404Error]

How about this:

My future is in my past and my past is my present. I must now make the present my future.

Vladimir Horowitz