"Future Ain't What It Used to Be"

[Baker, John]

        A large number of web sites attribute this, without further citation, to Paul Valery, the French writer who died in 1945.  The quotation is often given as "The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be."  Presumably the original, if it was indeed by Valery, was in French.

        There are several books entitled, or whose titles include the words, "The Future Is Not What It Used To Be."  It might be worth checking to see if any of them give better citations of the source quotation.

John Baker