Some quotes about the future from my commonplace book

“People like us, who believe in physics,” Albert Einstein wrote in a letter of condolence on the death of a friend, “know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” 

“I know when a man talks of posterity in matters of this nature he is looked upon with an eye of ridicule by the cunning and selfish part of mankind. Most people are of the humour of an old fellow of a college, who when he was pressed by the society to come into something that might redound to the good of their successors, grew very peevish, We are always doing, says he, something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.”  
Thomas Stafford as reported by Joseph Addison 

“We busy ourselves trying to change life so that our descendants might be happy, yet they will say, as is the custom: ‘Things were better before; life today is worse than it used to be.’” 
Anton Chekhov

• Мы хлопочем, чтобы изменить жизнь, чтобы потомки были счастливы, а потомки скажут по обыкновению: прежде лучше было, теперешняя жизнь хуже прежней 
   

“Past experience carries with its advantages the drawback that things never happen the same way again,” wrote Churchill in his memoirs. “Otherwise I suppose life would be too easy.”

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” 
George Orwell, 1984 

“We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”
Marshall McLuhan 

“People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It’s not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.” 
Milan Kundera 

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it”
Alan Kay 

 “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but that is the way to bet.” 
Hugh Keough 

“To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.”  
–Oscar Wilde