30 Nostalgia Quotes That Prove Everyone Has Different Memories of Past

Those times will never come back. Often we hear this statement from people or many times use it too. It merely means you are nostalgic. All you want to do at that moment is to jump into a time machine and to be there.

Nostalgia can be many things to many people. It is the song you set to repeat and belted out with the windows down on your first road trip with your friends. It might be the song that was the soundtrack to a first heartbreak, whose lyrics rang more accurately than even your own words.

Nostalgia is passing people you see regularly—a cashier in the grocery store, a doctor or someone in the gym. You aren't close enough to tell them your life narrative and that you're leaving, but you know their face and that you'll never see them again.

Usually, people become nostalgic by age. Frequently we hear from our elders how much they were respected before, and sometimes, our grandmother looks into her photo album along with us, she will say: "I was so beautiful, look at me now. Usually, when someone can't fit in new changes or upcoming trends, the result will be a flashback.

While we all look back at what used to be, not all of us remember the past the same way. Some recall it fondly, others not quite so well. These 30 quotes about nostalgia will give you a diverse perspective on how everyone views their journey so far.

1) Nostalgia is a seductive liar. - George Wildman

First on the list of quotes about nostalgia is George Wildman Ball's quote, an American diplomat and banker. In this quote, he calls Nostalgia, a seductive liar. It's quite apt considering we remembered or imagined the past when life was better and tend to forget or ignore the downside of the "good old days," tricking ourselves into living in the good memories of the past.

2) Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. - Dr Seuss

Sometimes we don't realize the significance of the moment until later. Unless, of course, it's a moment you know will be memorable. However, most bits are insignificant to us until later, when they gain more importance due to other events.

3) Once I left home, I finally understood how to define nostalgia.

Here, this quote speaks of the personal and bittersweet thing that happens when life changes and you have to move out of the place you've called home. Let the sentimentality be! Enjoy the sweetness of the moment as best as you can.

4) The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering. So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return. - Milan Kundera, Ignorance

Regardless of the sentiment attached, nostalgia leaves us with a strange feeling between comfort and the sharp sting of pain. Moments of nostalgia take us back to memories of inevitable heartbreak and ecstasy. Often serving the reminders that we're alive and consistent in these moments is a desire to feel.

5) The 'good old times' - all times when old are good. - Lord Byron

It is okay to reminisce about the good old days. But what is important is that today is good.

6) Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days. - Doug Larson, Olympic Medalist from 1924 Olympics

Sometimes the “Blast from past” memories reminds us of the “good ole’ days” and other times nostalgia does carry it’s painful side — it's a bittersweet emotion.

7) Nobody could understand the past except the people from it. - Vera Jane Cook, Lies a River Deep

This one is a very deep and meaningful quote. It's a universal truth that what happened in the past can not be changed. However, another truth is that if you look back at it, you won't be able to understand it until and unless you have been a part of it.

8) But here is the truth of nostalgia. We don't feel it for who we were, but who we weren't. We feel it for all the possibilities that were open to us but that we didn't take. - Welcome to Night Vale, Episode 21: A memory of Europe.

It is impossible not to feel a little sad, looking at that bit of the past, the opportunity which could have made you happy and content. Though it's more important to remember that we are in a moment that is still passing, and we never know what possibilities will be open to us in the next moment.

9) Nostalgia is simply the result of ageing and liking the life you've lived. Be happy you can feel it. It's a good sign.

Why have Nostalgia if it does not infect you with happiness? Keep the good memories with you and let the sad ones fade away!

10) I think I now understand why it is that the young are so very nostalgic. They have so little by way of personal history that they polish it up and make it shine like a treasured heirloom. - Will Self

Might be true. When we are young, even little challenges and little successes take us on a trip down the memory lane. We keep reminding ourselves of memories and keep them as a treasure forever.

11) Most people are nostalgic in a way that they're fond of the past, but they still are happy that they are where they are now. You know, when you say, 'Oh, high school was this or that,' you don't want to go back. No matter how much you loved high school, you don't want to actually be back in high school. I certainly wouldn't.

In this list of quotes about nostalgia, this quote speaks about immortalized memories on our minds. There's an Arab proverb that says that you should write the bad things that happen to you in the sand so that they can be easily washed away by the waves—the waves of happiness.

12) I prefer the mystic clouds of nostalgia to the real thing, to be honest.

Nobody wants to linger to memories which are dull and gloomy, which bring tears of sadness in eyes every time nostalgia strikes. We all like to be proud of the things we had in our past.

13) Nostalgia is one thing. It's great to go and play the old songs. People know them and appreciate them. You got to give them what they want to hear. - Denny Laine

While we're on the topic of quotes about nostalgia, it's high time to make a playlist of pop, rock, and country songs to celebrate remembering and the memories you hold dear. And then go make some new memories with people you care about and add new songs to that playlist.

14) We are homesick most for the places we have never known. - Carson McCullers

We get nostalgic for all kinds of things considered fleeting: The fictional places we want to visit, the feeling of first love, the holiday with friends in summer. Or maybe reading an Archie comic that contains all three.

15) I'm, in general, a nostalgic person, but I don't know if I'm nostalgic for the 80s!

We seem to always be nostalgic for people, places, and things that we are never even alive. The Duffer Brothers – really took things one step further by creating 'Stranger Things' and truly placing us in the '80s.

16) People seem to get nostalgic about a lot of things they weren't so crazy about the first time around.

Maybe that's what nostalgia is all about! You don't know when something happens that you will cherish it so much in the future.

17) Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect! - Owens Lee Pomeroy

Indeed, the present is so tense, and the past seems oh so perfect. Most of the utmost quotes about nostalgia express the desire of how we wish we could turn back time. If only. But Life, as they say, is a one-way journey. So be it. Living in the future and leaving the bits of the past.

18) I'll take a one-way ticket back to the '90s, please.

Nostalgia strikes like a train of events and you wish you had a time machine to travel back into time and experience all of it again.

19) True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories. - Florence King

Quite simply, nostalgia is beautiful suffering. Even though it will bring tears in your eyes and leave you shocked for a while, you will wish to be nostalgic every now and then.

20) I think people need to come to terms with things leaving and being gone. - Cole Sprouse

When we really think of all the quotes about nostalgia, the only thing genuinely permanent in these quotes is that life changes. Everything is temporary emotions, thoughts, people, and scenery. Do not get attached. Just flow along with the change!

21) It was nostalgic in that painful way nostalgia could be.

Nostalgia is a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again and again.

22) Nostalgia: A device that removes the ruts and potholes from memory lane.

When you rewind and think of your past, you try to eliminate the worst experiences first, then the bad experiences and then the useless ones. You remove the ruts and potholes.

23) I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them. - Andy, The Office

Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) wistfully offers that future yearbook quote during a confessional in one of the last scenes in The Office finale. Sometimes we are gonna look back and 10 years from now we think, 'Man, those were great old days.

24) Nostalgia makes the past dress up in prettier clothes than those the present is wearing. - Dahi Tamara Koch, Within the event horizon: poetry prose

Looking back at our past, we often people those old times were better than today. We cherish the things we did and the things we will not be able to do again in future.

25) It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures. - Ally Condie, Matched

Human beings are creatures of habit. Even when we have choices, we tend to go back, unlocking the floodgates to past emotions and try to make peace with our past, holding on to the fragments while we wait for the future.

26) Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different? - C.S. Lewis

It is all about the period of time, the time frame, isn't it? You will never notice the changes day by day. You will notice them when a considerable period of time passes away.

27) I don't think I'd have been in such a hurry to reach adulthood if I'd known the whole thing was going to be ad-libbed.

If you ask people what they think the biggest scam is, they'll probably utter some cryptic nonsense they can come up. Nonetheless, I would answer you easy and obvious, the biggest scam is growing up. It's an illusion, better yet a hallucination — when you get there, you find out that it wasn't what you thought it was.

28) I spent my whole childhood wishing I were older, and now I'm spending my adulthood wishing I were younger.

Childhood can be seen as a golden era when the time was free and actions uninhibited, before the responsibilities and expectations of adulthood mounted.

29) Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring. - Vladimir Nabokov

The thing about Nostalgia is that it is difficult because you can't really grasp it or grab it. It's a delusional feeling. Sometimes it's easier to remember something, someone or the memories that make you smile, to handle your days in a better way.

30) Some days, I wish I could go back in life, not to change things, just to feel a few things twice.

Most quotes about nostalgia reminisce the days of our youth as bittersweet as time passes. As all of us get older, the memories get fainter and fainter until we can barely tell if they're memories at all, or maybe just figments of our imagination.

Sometimes Nostalgia appears in dire circumstances. That doesn't mean you feel bad and regret the past as it will only make the situation worse.

Indeed, people who live in the past are not progressing. It's essential to be optimistic about a better future. The past may be black, and the present is grey, but maybe the future is Golden.

Back in the 18th century, Nostalgia was viewed as a medical disease. Luckily for us, that isn't the case anymore. We're allowed to feel it and cherish the immeasurable memories of different past by reading these 30 quotes about nostalgia.

It’s easier to say goodbye to the little things in life that make us sentimental. So, Embrace those feelings of Nostalgia!

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