In this paper, I deal with Kant’s approach towards both the present and the future by connecting them to his formalism and his concept of autonomy. I argue that already embedded in Kant's formalism—and his anti-consequentialism—is a certain sensibility that privileges the present moment while bracketing the past and the future. The paper focuses on issues of time, progress, and the philosophy of history, gleaning Kant’s ideas on these matters by drawing mainly from his writings on happiness, morality, law, and revolution—and only secondarily from his later political writings that address these issues directly (e.g., Perpetual Peace, Theory and Practice, and Idea for a Universal History). Kant has a clear vision of the future (i.e., of what a better society looks like) as well as of progress, but he is not ready to sacrifice the present for the sake of a better future: this explains his consistent opposition to revolutions. In other words, Kant has a tendency to keep his eye on the present while (momentarily) bracketing future ends. Kant clearly emancipates us from the grip of tradition and habits of the past, but also from the tyranny of the future and of messianic politics, making our relation with the future no more than a matter of rational hope.