The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are. The facts: nothing matters but the facts: worship of the facts leads to everything, to happiness first of all and then to wealth.
ATTRIBUTION:
Edmond De Goncourt (1822–1896), French writer, journalist, and Jules De Goncourt (1830–1870), French writer, journalist. (repr. 1895) repr. In Pages from the Goncourt Journal, ed. Robert Baldick (1962). The Goncourt Journals, entry for July 30, 1861 (1888-1896).
